We’ve written before on this blog about Dave Burrell and his ongoing five-year series of compositions for the Civil War 150th (see here, here and here); this year’s performances, Listening to Lincoln, will take place next week on Thursday April 10 and Saturday April 12. But this year there’s more–a companion installation, entitled Four Scores on 150 Years Ago, which opened on Wednesday and runs through May 25th.
This installation looks at all four years (thus far) of Burrell’s Civil War compositions and displays his research notes and musical scores alongside the historical materials which inspired him. For example, in this case focusing on the 2014 compositions you can see Burrell’s hand-written scores and drafts of Monika Larsson’s poetic lyrics along with a page from Lincoln’s 1864 Baltimore Address which was the genesis of the idea of “Listening to Lincoln.”
Among the other historical items in the installation are Lincoln’s notes on recruiting black soldiers, an early printing of the Emancipation Proclamation, an album belonging to Confederate spy Belle Boyd, sketches from John Brown’s trial, and an account of the death of Elmer Ellsworth, an early casualty of the war who was revered as a Union martyr.
 |
| Matthew Brady, carte de visite photograph of Col. Elmer Ellsworth. 1860. AMs 811/2.1 |
Four Scores also gives you a chance to revisit past performances through audio and video from Burrell’s concerts and to watch interviews with the artist himself describing his creative process and what the works mean to him. The chance to bring all of this together in one space–the historical documents, Burrell’s working materials, his thoughts, and the music itself–is a real treat!
Kathy Haas is the Associate Curator at the Rosenbach Museum & Library and the primary poster at the Rosen-blog
.JPG){kind=link}