The 1361st meeting of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences was held on Tuesday, October 12, 2005 at the New Haven Lawn Club. A reception for members and their guests began at 5p.m. At 5.30p.m. the evening program began. The President welcomed members and their guests and exhorted them to attend meetings held at member institutions and also to contribute to the permanent endowment fund which has recently been established. He noted that the Academy continues to operate "on a shoe string". He then announced the election of two new members: Patricia Olney, Associate Professor of Political Science, Southern Connecticut State University and Roger Colton, Anthropology Collections Manager, Peabody Museum, Yale University.

Dr. Kohorn introduced the speaker for the evening, Mr.Dorsey Whitestone, a long standing and respected member of the Academy and the Academy Council. The title of his talk was "Songs by Harold Arlen". Harold Arlen was born in Buffalo in 1905. He sang in his father's choir, learned piano through the music of Chopin and discovered jazz at the age of 12. He formed "The Snappy Trio", and performed on lake boats that went between Buffalo and Toronto. Seasickness put a stop to that venture and at the age of 16 he ran away from home to live in Detroit. He changed his name from Chaim Arlick, using both his father's and his mother's last names to arrive at Arlen and joined "The Buffalodians", as vocalist, pianist and arranger. From there he moved to New York where he wrote his first professional song in 1930,"Get Happy" which was sung by Frank Sinatra. His musical genius and zest for the unusual, such as starting in one key and ending up in another or the second note in a song being one octave above the first, was quickly recognized and attracted talented lyricists. From 1930 until 1935 he composed for the popular Cotton Club Revues of Harlem creating many classics, among them "Stormy Weather". In 1932 he met and married a Breck shampoo model aged 17. His songs were often of a melancholy nature. "It's Only a Paper Moon" gave a negative view of the theater. "Let's Fall in Love" another classic, was his first movie song after moving to California in 1935. His most renowned song is "Over the Rainbow" immortalized by Judy Garland in the Wizard of Oz. During the height of censorship in 1939 he wrote "Lydia the Tattooed Lady" made famous by the Marx Brothers and he wrote the quintessential torch song "The Man That Got Away". Arlen created songs from" jots", notes that he made as ideas popped into his head at any time of the day or night. Often he would hum or whistle tunes unknowingly, perhaps the most famous of which is "Accentuate the Positive". While Mr. Whitestone drew a picture of an innovative and creative musician, he interspersed the biography with renditions of many of Arlen's compositions. The audience was treated to a smorgasbord of songs spanning 25 years, transporting many of them back in time in a musical reverie. Perhaps the most exciting was the fact that all these songs were classics that had delighted audiences for years but the composer was unknown until Mr. Whitestone shone a bright light on him. This was a foray into the unusual for the Academy, which proved to be highly successful and had the members singing and humming for the remainder of the evening.