[AMS-announce] CONF: The Hidden Composer: Critical Views on Life and Works of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Heringsdorf, Sep 2009

[Announcements for the AMS]

The hidden composer – critical views on life and works of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy from the nineteenth century to this day
Heringsdorf, September 13–15, 2009
in cooperation with the Usedom Music Festival 2009

Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy has been one of the most disputed composers in the canon of European art music. The evaluation of his oeuvre has shifted radically during the past 150 years, oscillating between complete dismissal and near idolization. Even his adversaries acknowledge that he was one of the most gifted and cultured artists of the Romantic era. It is well known that one main reason for the ambivalence towards Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy’s art has been Richard Wagner’s condemning criticism, and his propagandistic anti-Semitic statements remain ingrained in the communal cultural consciousness to this very day. Also for that reason a group of international researchers will meet in Heringsdorf, previously to the Usedom Music Festival: On the occasion of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy’s 200th birthday a new approach to the life and work of the “hidden composer” and pathfinder of the Bach-Renaissance should be tried.

Speakers are: Hans-Joachim Hillerbrand (Duke University), Julius H. Schoeps (Moses Mendelssohn Zentrum Potsdam), Michael Steinberg (Brown University), Ruth Ha-Cohen (Hebrew University of Jerusalem), Angela R. Mace (Duke University), R. Larry Todd (Duke University), Cornelia Bartsch (Universität Paderborn), Julius Reder Carlson (UCLA), Judit Frigyesi (Bar Ilan University Israel), Efrat Frommer (Bar Ilan University Israel), Sebastian Panwitz (Moses Mendelssohn Zentrum Potsdam), Beatrix Borchard (Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg), Yvonne Wasserloos (Robert Schumann Hochschule Düsseldorf), and Michael Beckerman (New York University).

Piano concert by Florian Uhlig, featuring works of Haydn and Mendelssohn.

Contact: Judit Frigyesi (judit.frigyesi at gmail.com) or Anna-Dorothea Ludewig (aludewig at uni-potsdam.de).

Further info: www.mmz-potsdam.de