Lecture at Dickinson College Explores Black History in Classical Music
On Beethoven, Blackness and Belonging
by Maureen Moroz '19
Scholar and historian Kira Thurman will examine what classical music means to African Americans in a lecture at Dickinson, “On Beethoven, Blackness and Belonging: Debating Classical Music in the Black Atlantic.” The talk will take place Thursday, Feb. 28, at 7 p.m. in Rubendall Recital Hall, Weiss Center for the Arts.
Thurman, assistant professor of history and German at the University of Michigan, will look at the past to consider how African Americans made European classical music a meaningful part of their lives. Examining the lives and careers of intellectuals such as W.E.B. DuBois and classical musicians such as Marian Anderson, Thurman argues that African Americans incorporated art music into their black international and black diasporic politics. Looking beyond America's shores, they found a larger and vibrant black history of classical music that they could also claim.
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Published February 13, 2019