Pre-Concert Talk:
The Reemergence of Music and Celebration After the Thirty Years War
social historian Tanya Kevorkian

Tanya Kevorkian

Tanya Kevorkian, social historian

Social historian Tanya Kevorkian will give free pre-concert talks before Art of the Prophets about the reemergence of music and celebration in Germany after the Thirty Years War. Each talk begins one hour prior to the concert.

The pieces on this program show how very soon after the end of the 30 Years War, people returned to celebrating.

Weddings were important occasions in Baroque Europe, and music was central to them. Wedding engagements provided crucial income to musicians, and music at wedding banquets and dances was considered essential by the wedding party. Beyond weddings, people celebrated a variety of other festive meals and other celebrations with music and dance. Even Christmas was the occasion for celebrating on the street and in homes that, especially to 1700, could be very rowdy. The pieces on this program show how very soon after the end of the 30 Years War, people returned to celebrating important times in their lives and times of the year.

Kevorkian BookTanya Kevorkian is an associate professor of history at Millersville University. She has written and lectured extensively on the social history of Baroque music. She has spoken at the Eastman School of Music, the Milwaukee Bach Festival, and the Montreal Bach Festival; in Belfast, Leeds, Manchester, and Warsaw; in Houston, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and elsewhere. She received her Ph.D. in history from Johns Hopkins University, and has an undergraduate degree in history and music from Mount Holyoke College. Her first book, Baroque Piety: Religion, Society, and Music in Leipzig, 1650-1750 (Ashgate, 2007), received the American Bach Society’s 2008 William H. Scheide Prize. Currently she is at work on her second book, The Musical Experience in German Towns during the Baroque Era.

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