Encounters with Eighteenth-Century Music continues this fall. The Mozart Society of America co-sponsors this virtual forum together with the American Bach Society, the American Handel Society, the Haydn Society of North America, and the Society for Eighteenth-Century Music. It is truly a collaborative effort.
The second session of the 2023-24 season, held on Thursday, October 26 at 3 p.m. (EDT), will be a panel exploring cases of music-making and listening in the eighteenth-century Caribbean. Callum Blackmore will discuss the growth of the theater industry in Saint-Domingue against the backdrop of a number of cataclysmic events in the colony (pestilence, drought, fire, tectonic activity, and global warfare), and the boom-and-bust economics associated with running a commercial enterprise amid such catastrophic events. Devon Borowski will discuss descriptions of Black and enslaved music-making in histories of Jamaica and the attempts of historians to universalize and naturalize the elite musical traditions of Europe. Henry Stoll will discuss how Afro-diasporic communities used music, specifically song, to communicate the news of the Haitian Revolution, ultimately fostering a space for public memory and traditions of radical political activity throughout the region. Maria Ryan will serve as moderator and respondent.
Registration is free but required. Click here to register
The third 2023-24 session, “Confessions of a Telemanniac: Challenges and Opportunities for the Musician-Historian,” will take place Tuesday, January 16, 2024. For more information about the Encounters series and to register for future events, please visit encounters.secm.org.