The biennial conference of the American Handel Society will take place in Boston, Massachusetts, from February 6–9, 2025. The conference will include academic panels, the Howard Serwer Memorial Lecture given by Dr. Ayana Smith (Associate Professor of Music at Indiana University Bloomington), and performances by Boston’s Handel and Haydn Society and the Boston Early Music Festival.
The Society invites submissions of abstracts for papers on any topic connected with Handel’s life, his music, his close contemporaries, or the contexts in which his music was composed or performed. Given the setting, the Program Committee would especially welcome papers dealing with the performance, reception, and circulation of Handel’s music in Boston, the American colonies and post-revolutionary America, or elsewhere on the American continent. Abstracts of up to 500 words should be sent to Wendy Heller (wbheller@princeton.edu) by September 15, 2024.
April 6-9, 2017
Princeton University
| Year | Speaker | Title | Location |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | Nathan Link | Narrative and Drama in Handel's Operas | Bloomington, IN – Indiana University |
| 2021 | Berta Joncus | Posterity vs Celebrity: Handel Studies and the 21st Century | Virtual Conference – Hosted by Indiana University |
| 2019 | Ellen Rosand | Handel's 'Music' | Bloomington, IN – Indiana University |
| 2017 | John Butt | Handel and Messiah: Harmonizing the Bible for a Modern World? | Princeton, NJ – Princeton University |
| 2015 | Nicholas McGegan | Handel in My Lifetime | Iowa City, IA – University of Iowa |
| 2013 | Reinhard Strohm | Handel: Opera and Ritual | Princeton, NJ – Princeton University |
| 2011 | David Hurley | Once More with Feeling: Da Capo Patterns in Handel's Oratorios | Seattle, WA |
| 2009 | Robert Ketterer | London as Athens: Teseo and Arianna in Creta | Danville, KY - Centre College |
| 2007 | Andrew Porter | How Handel's Operas Entered the Modern Repertory | Princeton, NJ – Princeton University |
| 2005 | Graydon Beeks | Private Patronage of Church Music in the Reign of George I | Santa Fe, NM |
| 2003 | Terence Best | Handel Editions | Iowa City, IA – University of Iowa |
| 2001 | Nicholas Temperley | 'In Virtue's Cause': How Handel's Music was Sanctified | College Park, MD – University of Maryland |
| 2000 | Ruth Smith | Fifteen Ways to Skin an Oratorio, of Understanding Theodora | College Park, MD – University of Maryland |
| 1998 | Anthony Hicks | Handel's Jephtha: A Sacridice to Theology? | College Park, MD – University of Maryland |
| 1996 | Donald Burrows | M. Handel's Friends: Contemporary Accounts of the Composer from the papers of James T. | College Park, MD – University of Maryland |
| 1994 | Winton Dean | Handel's Operas in the Theatre | College Park, MD – University of Maryland |
| 1992 | John Roberts | The Song for St Cecilia's Day and Handel's 'Borrowing' from other Composers | College Park, MD - University of Maryland |
| 1991 | Paul Brainard | Bach and Handel: Another Look | Washington, D.C. – George Washington University |
| 1990 | Don E. Saliers | Words and The Word: Sounding the Text of Handel's Messiah | College Park, MD – University of Maryland |
| 1989 | Bernd Baselt | The War of Spanish Succession, Italy, and Handel | College Park, MD – University of Maryland |
| 1988 | Ellen T. Harris | Integrity and Improvisation in the Music of Handel | College Park, MD – University of Maryland |
| 1987 | Jens Peter Larsen | The Turning Point in Handel's Oratorio Tradition | College Park, MD – University of Maryland |
The American Bach Society, American Handel Society, Haydn Society of North America, Mozart Society of America, and Society for Eighteenth-Century Music sponsor a series of virtual presentations and conversations.
Friday, September 8, 2023, 3:30–5:00 pm EDT
"Celebrating Elaine Sisman: Haydn and the Classical Variation and Mozart: The 'Jupiter' Symphony at 30"
Thursday, October 26, 2023, 3:00–4:30 pm EDT
"Listening in the Caribbean"
Tuesday, January 16, 2024, 5:00–6:30 pm EDT
"Confessions of a Telemanniac: Challenges and Opportunities for the Musician-Historian"
Friday, February 23, 2024, 3:30–5:00 pm EDT
"Opera Seria, Identity, and the Performance of History"
Friday, May 10, 2024, 1:30–3:00 pm EDT
"Non-Verbal Teaching of a Non-Verbal Art"
CALL FOR PAPERS: INTERNATIONAL SCHOLARLY CONFERENCE AT THE HANDEL FESTIVAL IN HALLE 2024
May 26–29, 2024 | Halle (Saale)
If one can trust the Mémoires d'un Musicien of 1756, then George Frideric Handel had in his library numerous volumes of operas by Jean-Baptiste Lully, André Campra, Jean-Marie Leclair, and Jean Philippe Rameau. These volumes included Rameau's works for keyboard and treatises on music. In 1733 Abbé Antoine François Prévost mentioned that Handel had "emprunté le fond d'une infinité de belles choses de Lully, et surtout des Cantates Françaises." This is a good reason to set up the International Conference to reconsider the conditions, requirements, scope, and significance of the impact of French music on Handel's oeuvre. These influences affect nearly all genres in his oeuvre: the Italian operas based on French librettos (Teseo, Amadigi di Gaula), and the English oratorios based on French plays (Esther, Athalia, Theodora, Jephtha), the overtures and suites for orchestra, and for harpsichord. The influences are also visible in the cantatas (of which the French Sans y penser is certainly a special case), in Handel's church music, the music for the stage drama Alceste, and in the collaboration with the French dancer Marie Sallé. The conference aims to explore the transfer routes of French music to Germany, Italy, and England as well as the adaptations and transformations of French models in Handel's works. Other focal points will be the history of the impact and performance of Handel's music and the changing images of Handel in France from the 18th century to the present. Comparative reflections on the reception of French music by Handel's contemporaries are also very welcome.
The organisers invite interested scholars to participate in the conference with a 25-minute paper and ask for an application with a proposal and abstract by October 15, 2023. Travel and accommodation costs will be covered for the conference days (three nights, May 26–29).
Organizers: Georg-Friedrich-Händel-Gesellschaft e.V., Internationale Vereinigung; Martin-Luther Universität Halle-Wittenberg, Institut für Musik, Medien-und Sprechwissenschaften, Abteilung Musikwissenschaft; Stiftung Händel-Haus Halle.
Dr. Annette Landgraf, landgraf@musik.uni-halle.de
Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Hirschmann, mailto:wolfgang.hirschmann@musik.uni-halle.de
Dr. Juliane Riepe, leitung.bibliothek@haendelhaus.de
Ulrike Harnisch, gesellschaft@haendel.de
HALLE HANDEL FESTIVAL
"Oh là là! Handel? - French inspirations"
May 24–June 9, 2024 | Halle (Saale)
INTERNATIONAL SCHOLARLY CONFERENCE, HALLE (SAALE)
"Endless Beauties: George Frideric Handel and French Music Culture"
May 27–29, 2024 | Halle (Saale)