*CFP* "MUSIC, CINEMA, AND MODERNISM: THE WORKS AND HERITAGE OF KURT WEILL BETWEEN EUROPE AND AMERICA", CONFERENCE

Music, Cinema, and Modernism: The Works and Heritage of Kurt Weill between Europe and America

Torino, Università degli studi di Torino, Palazzo Nuovo

22-24 May 2020 

The conference aims to address aspects of Kurt Weill’s works in relation to his contemporaries and his heritage to succeeding generations, both in the United States and in Europe. The creative activities of the German-American composer have been characterized by his keen interest in new media: principally, in radio in Germany and in the cinema in the United States, and in new forms of experimentation in musical theater on both sides of the Atlantic. The fact that his compositions as well as his sensibilities tended to situate themselves somewhere between the poles of highbrow and the lowbrow culture allows for multiple interpretations, while prompting various possible themes for research. 

The themes suggested here are not intended to be restrictive but, rather, to invite a wide range of reflections, and other topics are also welcome:

• The modernity of Kurt Weill: borrowings and assimilations among his contemporaries 
• After 1950: the theoretical and aesthetic legacy of Kurt Weill after his death 
• Kurt Weill’s german-american contemporaries: aesthetic, artistic, and compositional choices 
• Marc Blitzstein as a translator and interpreter of the German Weill in the United States 
• Love Life on Broadway: a new musical theater genre is born? 
• Musicals, American opera, Radio Opera and so on: the ideas about musical theater by Kurt Weill 
• The debates for and against modernism among German émigré composers to the United States before and after World War II 
• Aesthetic and theoretical debates concerning film music between the 1920s and 1940s 
• Film music as “modern music”: identity and perspectives 
• Kurt Weill and Hollywood: New Music for the Cinema? 
• Composer and arranger: new roles and new relationships 
• Berlin, Broadway, and Hollywood: a comparison of their modes of organization and cultural production

The official languages of the conference are English and Italian. Papers selected at the conference will be published in a miscellaneous volume.

Papers are limited to twenty minutes in length, allowing time for questions and discussion. Please submit an abstract of no more than 500 words and one page of biography.

All proposals should be submitted by email no later than Sunday 16 February 2020 to conferences@luigiboccherini.org. With your proposal please include your name, contact details (postal address, e-mail and telephone number) and (if applicable) your affiliation.

The committee will make its final decision on the abstracts by the end of February 2020 and contributors will be informed immediately thereafter. Further information about the programme, registration, travel and accommodation will be announced after that date.

For any additional information, please contact:

Dr. Massimiliano Sala

conferences@luigiboccherini.org