Baroque Legacy Conference to explore art forms

An interdisciplinary conference at Grand Valley State University will feature presentations on music, literature and art from two regions: Latin America and Central/Eastern Europe. Hosted by the Department of Music and Dance, the conference will examine the ongoing influence of eighteenth-century styles in those regions, with examples from the various art forms.

The Baroque Legacy Conference: Past and Present in Hispanic America and Central and Eastern Europe, October 24-26 on the Allendale Campus, will include presentation sessions, two keynote addresses by eminent scholars, and a finale three-part concert on Saturday afternoon.

“The presentation sessions will likely appeal to a wide range of scholars, such as historians, anthropologists, musicologists, and art historians,” said Lisa Feurzeig, professor of music and conference organizer. “The concert on Saturday will be quite an extravaganza, and will include choral and instrumental music, dance, and drama — all eighteenth-century but presenting a wide range of sounds and styles.”

Conference events include:
Keynote lecture: “Two Centers of Musical Ferment in the Eighteenth Century: Bohemia and Minas Gerais,” by John A. Rice, a musicologist who has authored several books on eighteenth-century music.
Thursday, October 24, from 4-5 p.m.
Cook-DeWitt Center

Keynote lecture: “Lezama Lima’s Baroque Legacy,” by Roberto González Echevarría, Sterling Professor of Hispanic and Comparative Literature at Yale University and winner of the 2010 National Humanities Medal.
Friday, October 25, from 4-5 p.m.
Cook-DeWitt Center

Concierto Barroco, a moveable concert
Saturday, October 26, from 3-6 p.m.
The Leyseca “Miserere” opens the event in the Cook-DeWitt Center. This work is scored for chorus, soloists, and orchestra and was composed in 1781 in Bolivia.

From the Cook-DeWitt Center, the audience will move to the lobby outside the Art Gallery in the Performing Arts Center for a reception and performance of “La Jácara,” a Spanish tonadilla.

Lastly, in the Large Dance Studio, the premiere production in English of the Austrian tragicomedy “Evakathel und Schnudi” by Philipp Hafner, adapted into English by John Sienicki. This piece features incidental music and choreography by Grand Valley dance professor Carrie Brueck Morris.
 
All events are open to the public with free admission. For more information call (616) 331-3484, or visit http://www.i2k.com/~blauegeiger/conference2013.html