Pre-Concert Lecture at the “Abolitionism and the Arts in the Long Eighteenth Century” Conference, May 6, 2023

You can hear my introductory remarks about a concert of 18th- and 19th-century antislavery music performed by Awet Andemicael (Soprano, Yale University) and Magdalena Baczewska (piano, Columbia University) on YOUTUBE. This concert concluded the conference I organized along with members of the Columbia University Seminar in Eighteenth-Century European Culture on the theme of “Abolitionism and the Arts in the Long Eighteenth Century.” The concert and conference took place at Columbia University on May 6, 2023.

Paper Presentation at the American Musicological Society Conference, November 20, 2021

You can watch my online paper presentation for the 2021 American Musicological Society Conference here, which was entitled “Antislavery Music before Abolitionism, or: Ignatius Sancho’s Musical Hints.”

My paper explored the antislavery potential of Cotillions &c., a recently rediscovered set of dances published in 1776 by the Black British composer, Ignatius Sancho. Expanding on my earlier research on music and abolitionism from the late 1780s through the early 1810s, I described my own circuitous process of searching for references to the problem of slavery in the dance titles in this volume. I considered which titles might have been understood as antislavery critiques to British musicians playing through Cotillions &c. in the year 1776. I argued that “The Runaway” and “The Feathers” in particular would have called to mind the issue of slavery. “The Runaway” alludes to the act of self-emancipation, and “The Feathers” references an anti-racist story in Laurence Sterne’s novel, Tristram Shandy.

Ultimately, I argued that Sancho used these titles to encourage musicians to spend some time thinking about the problem of slavery. I framed this subtle antislavery critique as an earlier approach to the problem of slavery that contrasted with the more heavy-handed approach to antislavery song that would emerge in the late 1780s.