“The Music of German Emigrants Outside Europe in the 18th and 19th Centuries”

International Conference

“The Music of German Emigrants Outside Europe in the 18th and 19th Centuries”

 4 to 6 May 2016

UDESC Florianópolis and FURB Blumenau

The musical practice of German emigrants outside Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries has already been the subject of musicological research – although not substantially from within Germany itself. The musical practice of the Moravians or Pennsylvania Dutch, for example, has already been well documented, reconstructed and contextualized; the musical life within German settlements in Southern Brazil during the late 19th century has been the focus of several master theses at local universities. Furthermore, the musical activities of missionaries in the colonial history of the German Empire in Africa has been investigated.

All these examples have, however, two problems in common: First, they have not yet been considered together in comparison in order to recognize and discuss similarities and differences with regards to the shape of musical practices of German emigrants within their new, culturally divergent surroundings. Second, a reference back to musical practices and developments ‘at home’ together with a contextualization of emigrated music and its agents as part of German music history is still missing.

The international conference “The Music of German Emigrants Outside Europe in the 18th and 19th Centuries” will focus on these desiderata and for the first time invite researchers from Brazil, Germany, Poland, Canada, Venezuela, South Africa, the U.K. and the U.S.A. to an interdisciplinary exchange.

CONFERENCE PROGRAMME (subject to alteration)

Wednesday, 4 May 2016, UDESC, Museu da Escola Catarinense, Centro, Florianópolis

13:00-13:30: Registration
 
13:30-14:00: Opening
Marcos Holler and Christian Storch (Florianópolis, Brazil)
 
14:00-15:00: Keynote
Tiago de Oliveira Pinto (Weimar, Germany)
»Music and German emigration: An introduction«

15:00-16:30: Session I
Marianne Betz (Leipzig, Germany)
»German immigrants as catalysts for urban musical life in the United States«
Joachim Junker (Kaiserslautern, Germany) – via video conference
»The Western Palatine Wander Musicians in North America«
Werner Ewald (Pelotas, Brazil)
»Between hope and memory: Songs of diaspora«
 
16:30-17:00: Coffee break
 
17:00-18:00: Session II
Danilo Kuhn da Silva (Pelotas, Brazil)
»Music of Pomeran influence in the Serra dos Tapes (South region of Rio Grande do Sul)«
Katrin Lengwinat (Caracas, Venezula)
»German folk music traditions from the 19th century in Venezuela. The polca and the accordion: transfer and transformation«
 
18:30-19:30: Dinner
 
Thursday, 5 May 2016, UDESC, Museu da Escola Catarinense, Centro, Florianópolis

9:30-10:30
Christian Storch (Florianópolis, Brazil)
»Art music and German immigration in Santa Catarina, c. 1900«
 
10:30-11:00 Uhr: Coffee break
 
11:00-12:00: Session III
Lucas Speck Mateus (Florianópolis, Brazil)
»A German song on Brazilian soil: ›Das Lied‹ by Alfred Brandt-Caspari as an example of music by German immigrants at the beginning of the 20^th century«
Hans-Jakob Zimmer (Stuttgart, Germany)
»19th century travelogues as source material for research into the music of German immigrants in Brazil«
 
12:00-14:00: Lunch
 
14.00-15.30 Uhr: Session IV
Lisa Feurzeig and Niklaus Schroeder (Allendale, USA)
»German-American Musical Practice in Late Nineteenth-Century St. Louis: The Music of William Henry Pommer«
José Manuel Izquierdo König (Cambridge, United Kingdom) – via video conference
»Calling back home: Identity and double-meanings in the music works by Wilhelm Frick (1813 – 1905) written in Valdivia, Chile, and sent to be played in Germany«
Walther Kreyszig (Saskatoon, Canada) – via video conference
»The Music of German Emigrants to North America: Theodore Frederic Molt (1795-1856) as Emigrant to the United States of America and Canada«

15:30-16:00: Coffee break
 
16:00-17:00: Session V
Anna Piotrowska (Krakow, Poland) – via video conference
»›The first American national opera‹ that was sung in German«
Stephen Guokas (Cincinnati, USA)
»Mein Gott, My God: A Case Study in the Liturgical Practices of German Catholic Immigrants«
 
17:00-19:00: Dinner
20:00: Concert
 
Friday, 6 May 2016, FURB, Blumenau

7:00: Departure for Blumenau

10:00-11:30: Session VI
Devandré Boonzaaier (Port Elizabeth, South Africa)
»The role of the Moravian missionaries in establishing a music tradition in the Moravian Church of South Africa«
Detlef Melsbach (Hamburg, Germany)
»From ›Feste Burg‹ to ›Castelo forte‹ – the meaning of Lutheran songs for confessional and cultural identification of German immigrants in Brazil«
Nepomuk Riva (Berlin, Germany) – via video conference
»Bringing Mute Sources to Sound: The Reconstruction of Mission Music From Silent Film«
 
11:30-13:30: Coffee break
 
13:30-15:00: Session VII
Roberto Fabiano Rossbach (Blumenau, Brazil)
»Music in Blumenau, Santa Catarina, in the 19th century«
Tiago Pereira (Blumenau, Brazil)
»Sonorities in the resounding city: Musicians and music performances and the urban construction of Blumenau, Santa Catarina«
Camila Werling (Florianópolis, Brazil)
»The traditional Musikkapellen as ›typical bands‹ of Blumenau, Santa Catarina, during the 1980s: the transformations of musical groups«

15:00-16:00: Final discussion
 
16:00: Sightseeing tour in Blumenau
18:00: Concert
c. 20:00: Departure for Florianópolis

Fonte: Portal Udesc/Grupo de pesquisa, Música, Cultura e Sociedade“ (MusiCS)