Vendredi 14 Avril, 2018 —— La rédaction.

The Organ in the Global Baroque : Conference-Concert Festival

September 6-8, 2018
Proposal deadline: April 1, 2018
https://westfield.org
Cornell University, Ithaca NY

(in collaboration with the Westfield Center for Historical Keyboard Studies)

The baroque organ was an artifact of global culture produced by international networks of artists, artisans, traders, and adventurers. Organs of the Hanseatic League, built at the nexus of trade routes that reached around the world, incorporated materials from across the oceans: Cornish tin, tropical woods, gold and silver. But organs themselves were also instruments of trade: the organs of the Brebos brothers found their way from Flanders to Spain, and those of Arp Schnitger from Hamburg to Brazil. In the cathedrals of the New World, indigenous artisans collaborated on conquistador organs that sounded out the meeting of colonizer and colonized. And if organs built between the 16th and the 18th centuries embodied and participated in global musical and material networks, so too did the ‘baroque organ’ in the 20th century, with the creation—especially in Asia—of landmark instruments built in historically informed styles that fostered new organ cultures..

This conference is conceived in honor of the late Jacques van Oortmerssen, whose cosmopolitan organ class in Amsterdam embodied internationalism. We invite papers that reflect on the organ in the global baroque. Topics might include: organ building and trade networks, organists and travel, global materials and technologies, colonialism, organs and the exploitation of the natural world, the organ trade in Asia and South America, and the baroque organ today. The conference committee welcomes paper proposals for 25-minute presentations. We particularly welcome proposals from younger scholars, and hope to make some funding assistance available for travel to the conference for current students. Abstracts of c. 300 words should be sent to info -at- westfield.org by April 7st, 2018.