Beethoven and Beyond: a Symposium

BEETHOVEN AND BEYOND HAS BEEN POSTPONED. IT WILL NOT TAKE PLACE SATURDAY, MARCH 31st. WE HOPE TO RESCHEDULE SHORTLY.

With Beethoven we deal with not merely a maker of great music, but also a figure of profound cultural, historical, and philosophical significance. In Beethoven and Beyond, a one-day symposium (March 28th) co-presented by Carnegie Hall and Brooklyn Institute for Social Research, leading scholars, critics, and artists will gather to discuss both Beethoven’s transformational impact on Western music, artistry, and sensibility, and the intersections of music and politics, literature, class, and theory more broadly. Across a series of panels, live-performance listening sessions, and workshops, we will ask: What explains Beethoven’s extraordinary singularity? From what cultural, political, and philosophical sources did Beethoven draw? What is “late style?” What is Beethoven’s musical and cultural legacy; and to what extent does he figure, for good or ill, in modern music and performance? In what ways was Beethoven the original “modern” artist and celebrity—and why does he stand, to this day, as a symbol of artistic autonomy and mercurial “Genius”?

Participants will include BISR faculty, Susan Buck-Morss, Scott Burnham, Bora Yoon, Du Yun, Kate Wagner, Elaine Sisman, Olivier Glissant, and the Brooklyn Symphony Orchestra—with more to be announced. A complete event schedule will be shortly forthcoming.

Beethoven and Beyond is being held in conjunction with Carnegie Hall’s Beethoven Celebration. Also included in Beethoven Celebration is the four-week course Music, Revolution, and Romantic Culture: an Introduction to Beethoven, which starts Monday, March 2nd. 

Event Schedule

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