Ives and American Music

In this session, the co-organizers of the Charles Ives at 150 festival address why Ives’s music matters. Joseph Horowitz summarizes the new narrative history of American classical music in his book Dvorak’s Prophecy, which argues for the significance of composers and works that engage with vernacular music, and places Ives in that context as a master of embodying cultural memory through music. J. Peter Burkholder shows how Ives’s works celebrate the music and music-making of common people in his region of New England and New York, asserting through music itself that music from America is of equal value to its European counterparts, representing the people who make, hear, and love that music, and offering hope.

Musicology Colloquium 

Ives Festival Keynote Event 

Ives and American Music 

Sergio Ospina Romero (Musicology, Indiana University), chair 

Joseph Horowitz (Cultural Historian) 

Ives and Cultural Memory: A “New Paradigm” for American Classical Music 

J. Peter Burkholder (Musicology, Indiana University) 

The Power of the Common Soul: Diversity, Music-Making, and Hope in Charles Ives’s Music 

This program is supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.