UI was center of baroque music world with four-day conference and festival

Sunday, April 19, 2015

Choir singingIf they were not already in Iowa City for the week, baroque music scholars, performers, and aficionados from around the nation had their eyes on Iowa City and the University of Iowa when the School of Music presented a free concert of Monteverdi’s 1610 Vespers in Iowa City's St. Mary’s Catholic Church.

Not only was anticipation high for the performance itself—featuring nationally recognized vocal and instrumental soloists; the choral ensemble Kantorei; and an orchestra that includes period instruments such as the cornetto, sackbut, and lute—but the concert also kicked off the first-ever joint conference and festival of two international scholarly organizations, The American Handel Society (AHS) and the Society for Seventeenth-Century Music (SSCM), hosted by the UI Department of Classics and School of Music.

The four-day conference and festival included these events:

  • Three unique concerts:
  • The 2015 AHS Howard Serwer Memorial Lecture by Nicholas McGegan, conductor of San Francisco’s Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra; 4:00 p.m., Saturday, April 25; Sheraton Iowa City Hotel; FREE and open to the public
  • Four days of scholarly paper sessions and panels; Sheraton Iowa City Hotel; FREE without registration to all UI students, faculty, and staff with UI ID

Professor Robert Ketterer of the UI Department of Classics serves on the board of directors for AHS, and Professor Christine Getz of the School of Music is treasurer of SSCM. The two departments—both units of the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences—collaborated to host the unprecedented weekend of music and scholarship. The conference received support from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Perry A. and Helen Judy Bond Fund for Interdisciplinary Interaction.

The University of Iowa College of Liberal Arts and Sciences offers about 70 majors across the humanities; fine, performing and literary arts; natural and mathematical sciences; social and behavioral sciences; and communication disciplines. About 15,000 undergraduate and nearly 2,000 graduate students study each year in the college’s 37 departments, led by faculty at the forefront of teaching and research in their disciplines. The college teaches all Iowa undergraduates through the college's general education program, CLAS CORE. About 80 percent of all Iowa undergraduates begin their academic journey in CLAS. The college confers about 60 percent of the university's bachelor's degrees each academic year.