The Tyler Museum of Art will present the last in a series of free Sunday afternoon events in conjunction with The Walter O. Evans Collection of African American Art, currently on display at the Museum through April 27.

The presentation will begin at 2:00 on Sunday, April 6 and will feature Michael Lasser, well-known lecturer, broadcaster, writer, and teacher. Mr. Lasser has taught the history of the American musical at the University of Rochester and Nazareth College, and has been a free-lance writer for a wide range of national magazines. He has served as a panelist for the New York State Council on the Arts, and has taught at Rutgers University, St. John Fisher College, and Fairleigh-Dickinson University. He is a graduate of Dartmouth College, holds an M. A. from Brooklyn College, and did additional graduate work at Rutgers University. For over 20 years he has hosted the nationally-syndicated public radio show Fascinatin' Rhythm, a weekly program which explores the history and themes of American popular music through a series of "radio essays" illustrated by recordings. Heard on over 100 stations from coast to coast, Fascinatin' Rhythm won the prestigious Peabody Award in 1994 for letting "our treasury of popular tunes speak (and sing) for itself with sparkling commentary tracing the contributions of the composers and performers to American society."

Mr. Lasser's presentation will focus on the songwriters of the Harlem Renaissance. The merging of black and white cultures occurred more dramatically in the 1920s than at any other time in American history. After World War I, black leaders concluded that they could not advance their race through politics or economics, and turned to culture instead. The Harlem Renaissance rose from the premise that arts and letters could transform a society. It was, first and foremost, a literary movement, yet its major literary figures had less effect on the merging of black and white cultures than the songwriters and performers who drew thousands of whites uptown to Harlem. Mr. Lasser's talk, entitled "Let 'Em Have It Just That Way: The Songwriters of the Harlem Renaissance", will focus on four of them: Fats Waller, James P. Johnson, Andy Razaf, and a very young Duke Ellington.

There will also be a performance by The Greater St. Mary's Mass Choir under the direction of Dorothy Boyd. This TMA Sunday Series presentation is being sponsored by KTPB, Public Radio for East Texas.