By music writer Len Power

After 70 years of avid collecting, Canberran Bert Whelan has donated his vast collection of George Gershwin’s music and memorabilia to the ANU School of Music.

“It all started when I was 12 years old and listening to a favourite evening radio program on Melbourne’s 3AW”, said Whelan. “They played Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue and I was hooked for life”.

That electrifying first experience led to a lifetime of collecting recordings, sheet music and memorabilia related to George Gershwin. 

Gershwin was born in New York in 1898, the second of four children from a close-knit immigrant family. He began his musical career as a song-plugger on Tin Pan Alley, but was soon writing his own pieces. He died in Los Angeles in 1937 at the age of 38.

As Whelan’s collection of Gershwin sheet music grew, he wrote to George’s lyric-writing brother, Ira Gershwin, in Los Angeles. Ira kindly smoothed the path for him to obtain copies of sheet music from the Library of Congress in Washington DC that were missing from Whelan’s growing collection.

He also began corresponding with entertainer Michael Feinstein, who was Ira’s discographer at the time. Feinstein visited Whelan’s home in Sydney in the early 1970s to view and obtain copies of items from his collection. They maintain a regular correspondence, sharing Gershwin-related material.

Over the years, Whelan collected the sheet music of as many published Gershwin songs as he could, discovering some sheet music at Her Majesty’s Theatre in Melbourne. 

He also contacted the Sydney office of JC Williamson’s, the company that dominated Australian commercial theatre in the 20th century. They allowed him access to their music collection in Sydney, but he was not allowed to remove anything from the building, so he laboriously copied the sheet music out by hand for the Gershwin songs missing from his collection.

Whelan’s donation to the School of Music includes his collection of sheet music of every published song by George Gershwin, as well as the sheet music of 50 unpublished songs, copies of his correspondence with both Ira Gershwin and Michael Feinstein, recordings of Gershwin’s music and a large amount of Gershwin memorabilia, including books and DVD copies of films that contain Gershwin music.

Whelan’s love of music led to a career in the recorded music industry. Starting at Allan’s in Melbourne, he worked his way up to becoming the Victorian manager for Festival Records. Moving to Sydney in 1969, he worked for several record companies including EMI. He was working for Record Clubs of Australia when he retired at age 64 and moved to Canberra in 2000 to be close to family and grandchildren.

Local community radio station, Artsound FM, has been the beneficiary of his music knowledge and vast recorded music collection with the programs, The Gershwin Collection, Light Orchestral Hour, Music from the Movies, I Love a Piano, The Great Songwriters, and The Magic of Music. 

At 90 years of age, he continues to be actively involved with the station’s program producers, providing recorded music and ideas for new programs.

Head of the ANU School of Music Adrian Walter describes Whelan as “very passionate” about Gershwin, adding that he had met and had several engaging meetings with him last year where he began to give him the inside info on the collection, now housed on the 6th floor of the School of Music.

And does Whelan have a favourite Gershwin tune? He replied without hesitation, Feeling Sentimental, a rarely heard tune that was cut from the 1929 musical, Showgirl, before the show opened on Broadway.