FREE EVENT – The entire symposium is free and open to the public. There is no registration required EXCEPT YOU MUST REGISTER FOR LUNCH BY 8 AM Monday, May 12 if you would like a boxed lunch provided by the Academy. You are also welcome to bring your own lunch.

Jeremy Barham speaking at the MahlerFest 37 Symposium

10:00 AM | Jeremy Barham – Mahler on Screen: Defiant Clichés, Resistant Truths
Mahler’s music has been used in over 200 big- and small-screen productions. Clichés relating to received opinion about Mahler or deriving from Visconti’s potent Death in Venice (1971) have proved stubbornly resistant in this practice. Given Mahler’s own ambiguous views on the meaning of his music, to what extent does its appropriation in audiovisual media constitute a form of travesty or a version of the truth?

11:10 AM | Marilyn McCoy – Plotting a New Pathway to an Unknown Peak: Hiking the Andante moderato of Mahler’s Sixth Symphony

12:15 PM | Lunch – Register by 8 AM on Monday, May 12 for a boxed lunch provided by the Academy. You are also welcome to bring your own lunch.

1:15 PM | Leah Claiborne – William Grant Still’s Dismal Swamp: Origins and Background

2:00 PM | Ryan Hugh Ross – The Music of Diaspora – in Four Perspectives
 This illustrated lecture provides an introduction to the ‘Lost Generation’ of composers, artists, musicians and performers who were exiled and suppressed by the Fascist Nazi regime between 1933-1945. This is conveyed through the life stories of four composers – Julius Burger [Bürger] (1897-1995), Walter Bricht (1904-1970), Walter Arlen (1920-2023), and Viktor Ullmann (1898-1944). Each perspective offers a glimpse at the effects of Nazi institutionalized bigotry, the ensuing diaspora and industrialized barbarism on the lives of these artists and the wider effect these ruptures had on early 20th century Western culture.

Other talks and educational programs will be presented throughout the season. Ryan Hugh Ross will introduce the 2001 film “Estranged Passengers – In Search of Viktor Ullmann” at a showing at 11AM on Thursday, May 15 at the Academy Mapleton Hill.  And Dave Maass will present a talk as part of “Opening Night: Death Goes on Strike” – Death Strikes: Behind the Panels

More talk titles and synopses coming soon!

Academy Mapleton Hill – our new host for the Symposium in 2025!