James Madison Program Initiative on Politics and Statesmanship Joseph Horowitz, concert producer, cultural historian, and author of Dvořák’s Prophecy and the Vexed Fate of Black Classical Music John McWhorter, Associate Professor of Linguistics, Department of Slavic Languages, Columbia University Sidney Outlaw, baritone singer; Professor of Voice, Manhattan School of Music; Voice Faculty, Brevard Music Center Summer Institute & Festival Moderated by Allen C. Guelzo, Thomas W. Smith Distinguished Research Scholar and Director of the James Madison Program Initiative on Politics and Statesmanship In 1892, the master Czech composer Antonín Dvořák, teaching in New York City, prophesied that the melodies of African-American musical genres would inspire a “great and noble school” of American classical music. But the Black musical motherlode instead fostered popular genres known the world over; American composers mainly squandered the opportunity at hand. A modernist “standard narrative,” popularized by Aaron Copland, kept a distance from the vernacular. Joseph Horowitz, in Dvorak’s Prophecy, proposes a “new paradigm” privileging Charles Ives, George Gershwin, and Black classical music. The recent excavation of Black composers includes Harry Burleigh – with whose “Deep River” Black classical music begins. Our program includes Sidney Outlaw singing Burleigh; John McWhorter reconsidering Gershwin; and Allen Guelzo exploring Ives and the Civil War. The larger endeavor is to embed American classical music in the larger narrative of American culture. “Horowitz has taught me to listen to Black classical music as what the most American of classical music is. His lesson should resound.” — John McWhorter, The New York Times Venue: Nassau Presbyterian Church (in the sanctuary), 61 Nassau St. Princeton, NJ 08542 Presented by James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions