Conferences & Symposia
Since 2001 the Mozart Society of America has organized conferences that attract an international group of scholars and performers as participants and attendees. These conferences explore various themes in Mozart studies through papers, panel discussions, library- or museum-sponsored exhibitions, and performances.
Our Next Meetings
Encounters with Eighteenth-Century Music – 26 October, 2021 “Moravian Landscapes: Hearing New Histories of Early America”
Emerson Award-winning author Sarah Eyerly will present “Moravian Landscapes: Hearing New Histories of Early America,” an exploration of the soundscapes and musical practices of eighteenth-century Moravian mission communities in eastern Pennsylvania. The Zoom meeting will be held Tuesday, October 26, 2021, 5:00-6:30pm EDT. The meeting will open 10-15 minutes early for greetings and informal discussion.
For more details and to register for this event, visit encounters.secm.org/events/moravian-soundscapes.
For more on the entire series, visit Encounters with Eighteenth-Century Music: A Virtual Forum.
Mozart Society of America and Society for Eighteenth-Century Music Joint Conference in Salzburg – 26-29 May, 2022: “Mozart and Salzburg”
In a letter to Abbé Joseph Bullinger, written on August 7, 1778 from Paris, Mozart states bluntly, “Salzburg is no place for my talent!” He then goes on to enumerate all the ways that he felt Salzburg was inadequate: the court musicians don’t have a good reputation; there is no theater or opera; there are no singers; the orchestra is “rich in what is useless and unnecessary—and very poor in what is essential”; there is not even a decent kapellmeister. Nevertheless, Mozart spent most of his first twenty-five years composing and playing in the Salzburg court orchestra and at the Cathedral. Of course Mozart was supposed to resume his duties in Salzburg after visiting Vienna in the spring of 1781, but he only returned to his home town for a few months in 1783.
This international conference will explore all aspects of Mozart and Salzburg, including Wolfgang’s early education and travel, especially to the nearby court at Munich; the music of Leopold Mozart, Michael Haydn, Giacomo Rust, as well as the other singers and instrumentalists at the Salzburg court; traveling opera troupes, especially Emanuel Schikaneder’s residence in Salzburg in 1780; and finally the works that Mozart wrote for Salzburg: his chamber music and serenades, symphonies and concertos, masses and other church music, and operas.
The conference will be hosted by the International Mozarteum Foundation and will include guided tours to the two Mozart museums, a lecture-recital with Mozart’s original instruments, and a day trip to Munich. The program will be announced at the American Musicological Society meeting in early November. MSA and SECM plan to publish a conference report in collaboration with the Mozarteum Foundation. We also expect to offer access to the conference via the Internet for members who cannot travel to Salzburg.
Program Committee: Paul Corneilson (chair), Dorothea Link, Simon Keefe, Daniel Melamed, Beverly Wilcox
Past Conferences and Study Sessions
- Talking About Race and Gender in The Magic Flute – MSA Study Session and Annual Business Meeting. Via Zoom, 22 November 2020.
- Bach and Mozart: Connections, Patterns, Pathways. A joint conference of the Mozart Society of America and the American Bach Society. Stanford University, 13-16 February 2020.
- Mozart and Modernity. University of Western Ontario, 20-22 October 2017.
- Mozart and His Contemporaries. Tufts University, Medford, MA, 11-13 September 2015.
- Mozart in Our Past and in Our Present. Minneapolis and St. Paul, 20–23 October 2011.
- Mozart in Prague. A joint conference of the Mozart Society of America and the Society for Eighteenth-Century Music. Prague, 9-13 June 2009.
- Mozart and ‘Die Zauberflöte.’ Santa Fe Opera, 29 June-1 July 2006.
- Mozart’s Choral Music: Composition, Contexts, Performance. Indiana University, Bloomington, 10-12 February 2006.
- Mozart and the Keyboard Culture of His Time. Cornell University, 28-30 March 2003.
- Mozart in Las Vegas. University of Nevada, Las Vegas, 9-10 February 2001.
Sessions at the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies
- 2020: [conference cancelled due to coronavirus, session rescheduled for 2021, Toronto, OR]
- 2019: Music and Mobility (Joint Session with Society for Eighteenth-Century Music). Denver, CO.
- 2018: Mozart the Wunderkind in Context. Orlando, FL.
- 2016: Mozart and the Promise of the Enlightened Stage. Pittsburgh, PA.
- 2015: Eighteenth-Century Views of Mozart and his Music. Los Angeles, CA.
- 2014: Mozart and his Situation. Williamsburg, VA.
- 2013: Mozart and the Concept of Genius. Cleveland, OH.
- 2012: Mozart’s Chamber Music and its Contexts and Mozart and the Allegorical Stage. San Antonio, TX.
- 2010: Teaching Mozart. Albuquerque, NM.
- 2009: Biography and Portraiture in Mozartean Myth-Making. Richmond, VA.
- 2008: Aspects of Mozart. Portland, OR.
- 2007: Mozart After 250. Atlanta, GA.
- 2006: Making Opera: Mozart in the Theatre. Montréal, Canada.
- 2005: Restoring Mozart. Las Vegas, NV.
- 2004: Mozartean Couplings. Boston, MA.
- 2003: Mozart and the Habsburgs. Los Angeles, CA.
Mozart in North America: The Eighteenth Century. Los Angeles, CA. - 2002: Mozartean Contexts. Colorado Springs, CO.
- 2001: Music in Mozart’s Vienna. New Orleans, LA.
- 2000: Mozart and Women. Philadelphia, PA.
- 1999: Mozart and Eighteenth-Century Musical Dialect. Milwaukee, WI.
- 1998: Mozart and Representation. University of Notre Dame, IN.
Panel Sessions at Mostly Mozart Festival, Lincoln Center
- 2020 Festival cancelled due to coronavirus
- Mozart’s Magic Flute: In His Time and Ours, 20 July 2019.
- Mozart the Maverick, 29 July 2018.
- Mozart the Wunderkind, 30 July 2017.
- Mozart’s Operatic Poets, 7 August 2016.
- Listening to Mozart, 15 August 2015.
- Mozart and the Promise of Opera, 16 August 2014.
- Mozart Revealed, 17 August 2013.