ORIENTATION: Begins before dinner. We'll have an overview of the program ahead and review the up-to-date schedule, responsibilities, safety guidelines, emergency procedures, any other administrative issues, and answer your questions. Please be aware that local circumstances may require adjusting program elements. In the event of changes, we will notify you as quickly as possible. We appreciate your understanding.

Menus are contracted for the program and are designed to offer balanced, healthy meals for the participants. In addition to the regular Road Scholar meal plan, this hotel offers a vegetarian meal option. Unfortunately, there are no other special meal options. Participants with special dietary needs should be prepared to avoid certain foods or supplement the regular meal plan as needed.

Enjoy the remainder of the evening getting to know your fellow participants and discovering what you share beyond a love of lifelong learning.

Gershwin, Kern, Berlin, Porter and Rodgers are among the gifted composers most influential in creating and shaping the unique sound of the American musical. You'll learn all about their remarkable lives and view rare film performances of their songs.

From zoot suits and saddle shoes to sock hops, malt shops and big tail fins we discover how the swing era climaxed, kept swinging, but with the help of television became a multi-layered pop culture with the Hit Parade, country music, rhythm and blues, and cool jazz. Enjoy the journey with songs such as I’m Beginning to See the Light, String of Pearls, Harbor Lights, The Tennesee Waltz, All Shook Up, Blueberry Hill, Take Five, Only You and Rock Around the Clock. Includes live, recorded music and video.

No other instrument better exemplifies the Romantic era in music than the piano. More than a century after the fact, the music composed for the piano throughout the 19th century remains the staple for performers and audience members alike. No other classical music is more dearly loved. Piano masterpieces by Schubert, Schumann, Chopin, Brahms, Liszt, Debussy, and others will engage, enrich and entertain participants.

Follow the rise of the pop solo singer from Al Jolson, and Bessie Smith to Bing Crosby, Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole and Judy Garland as the styles and the rise and fall in popularity of each artist are explored.

The Great Composers of Hollywood: From the father of film music, Max Steiner ("Gone with the Wind"), to the brooding work of Bernard Herrmann, to the sublime work of Henry Mancini, we cover the spectrum of Hollywood's great musical scores and their effect on films that we love.

In 1884, Peter Donahue completed the extension of the San Francisco and North Pacific Railroad to Point Tiburon transforming it into a major railroad & ferry terminus and maintenance yard. After the last train ran in 1967, the shoreline and the depot building were deeded to the Town of Tiburon for use as open space and a museum. On the ground floor is a railroad & ferry museum featuring a working scale model of the Point Tiburon yard circa 1900-1910. Upstairs is the restored stationmaster’s residence, 1913-1940. The Depot is the only surviving dual use terminal west of the Hudson River and was placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Docent-led visit of the China Cabin

The China Cabin is the Social Saloon from the S.S. China, a side-wheeled steamer built in 1866 by the William H. Webb shipyard in New York. Commissioned by the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, the China carried mail and passengers from its home port of San Francisco to Asia. The elegant room was salvaged when the ship became obsolete in 1879 and was burned for scrap metal in Tiburon Cove. The Landmarks Society has restored the interior with 22k gold leaf, walnut woodwork, cut-glass floral window panes, and brass chandeliers. The China Cabin was designated a National Maritime Monument in 1978. (Courtesy of the Belvedere-Tiburon Landmarks Society)

The program is concluded after lunch; hotel checkout is by noon.