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Sunday, October 18 2026
Alex Hassan
piano
PUTTIN’ UP MY DUKES
The Majestic Melodies of
Vladimir Dukelsky
…uhhh…
Vernon Duke
It’s early 1920s Tin Pan Alley. Recent emigre from Russia, Vladimir Dukelsky, wows George Gershwin with his musical and compositionalgifts. GG tells him to Americanize his name to Vernon Duke… which results in an oddly split personality. Dukelsky keeps that original name for hisclassical writing (his schooling–he always wanted to impress his buddy back home, Prokofiev, who, alas turned his nose up to DUKE’s popular writing), but takes the hint, and loses the “Vladimir” and “-lsky” when writing for stage and film (and just independent pop tunes). Duke is Alex’s fave songwriter, and he’s amassed a fairly comprehensive archives. Tonight’s program will feature at least 4 Hit Parad-ish songsof the 30s/40s, along with a healthy selection of tunes that’ll be new to even fellow nerds. 
Duke had an astonishing melodic and harmonic gift.Alex will likely be seen swooning-while-playing. There’s no cure.BUTperhaps there’ll be a larger Duke bandwagon following the performance. Hope springeth!
About the Artist
Alex Hassan has been in total immersion 1920s/30s Tin Pan Alley Popular Piano Styles therapy for over 40 years. A pupil of a pupil of a pupil of a pupil of Franz Liszt (well…it SOUNDS impressive?!), he has been a torchbearer for the melodies of between-the-wars Broadway and Hollywood (and European equivalents), devoting himself more specifically to collecting and resurrecting the great “late Romantic with a beat” popular songs that really never had a chance.
His archival collection of [mostly] popular piano solo and vocal sheet music numbers around 50,000 titles, entirely 1920s/30s. It is a tribute to those heady musical times that there is still so much left to find.
Alex has performed internationally at such venues as England’s Aldeburgh Festival, Husum (2007 & 2015–“Piano Rarities Festival”), Washington DC’s Kennedy Center, the Coolidge Auditorium (Library of Congress), various Manhattan/Baltimore/Washington night spots, and national ragtime festivals. He has recorded prolifically for England’s SHELLWOOD PRODUCTIONS, Los Angeleno label OPERETTA ARCHIVES, and Pennsylvania’s STOMP OFF, and has produced/annotated several reissues of the virtuoso popular pianists of the 78RPM period, for both Shellwood and the Pittsburgh company, RIVERMONT (for which he has also recorded, along with two brilliant singing friends).
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