Symposium: March 10-11, 2015

This two-day symposium, 1915: Music, Memory, and the Great War, takes as its starting point musical settings of the iconic poem “In Flanders Fields” (1915), and brings together international  scholars working on music, history, and literature to explore creative responses to World War I in Britain, France, Canada, and the United States. Talks will embrace contemporary reactions to the conflict through musical composition and performance, as well as the impact and legacy of the war on  recorded sound media and film.

Co-ordinated events include Beyond Zero1914-1918 (Kronos Quartet) at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts,  performances of “In Flanders Fields” settings and Ralph Vaughan Williams’s Dona nobis pacem, an exhibit at the Sousa Archives, a half-hour recreation of The Dumbells’ wartime music and comedy troupe,  A Night at the Cinema (silent film viewings with live musical accompaniment), and a MillerComm public lecture.

The symposium is hosted by the School of Music and co-ordinated by Professors Gayle Sherwood Magee and Christina Bashford.  It forms part of the cross-campus initiative at the University of Illinois, .

See https://www.facebook.com/1915musicmemorygreatwar.