organised by
Centro Studi Opera Omnia Luigi Boccherini
Palazzetto Bru Zane – Centre de musique romantique française
IAM-Institute for Applied Musicology
Lovere (BG), Centro Studi Opera Omnia Luigi Boccherini
Via Paglia 26/28
11-13 March 2027
CALL FOR PAPERS
The Centro Studi Opera Omnia Luigi Boccherini, the Palazzetto Bru Zane and the Institute for Applied Musicology are pleased to invite submissions of proposals for the Conference «Diaspora of Musicians in the Long Nineteenth Century» to be held in Lovere (BG), Centro Studi Opera Omnia Luigi Boccherini, from 11 to 13 March 2027.
The cultural and social phenomena of transnational migration of musicians and artistic intelligentsia in general, travelling across Europe and seeking their fortune in remote cities and courts, became widespread in Western society starting from the Hundred Years’ War. Since then, the consolidation of a common unified musical style and a geopolitical expansion of the job market have led to the inclusion of remote venues with active musical scenes, attractive employment benefits, or an association with specific patrons. In the late eighteenth century, new territories on the European cultural continent became especially attractive for the cultural intelligentsia from the traditional schools.
The Scandinavian lands, the edges of the Holy Roman Empire, the Iberian Peninsula, and the Russian Empire were crowded with composers and dramatic poets, singers and instrumentalists, choreographers and dancers, stage designers and theater architects from Italy, France, and German lands. Although West European values, genres and patterns had traditionally dominated cultural life of peripheral territories, this massive migration and cultural transfer during the rise of local and national schools created unique conditions.
The exploration of various social and artistic aspects of such a professional diaspora have been critically accessed and given rise to a number of research initiatives, resulting in a series of prominent publications.
This conference seeks to broaden the discussion to encompass the pan-European phenomenon of transnational dispersion of musicians in the period following and instigated by the tectonic political shifts between the French Revolution and the spread of imperialism. The importance of the given period is demonstrated by the ostensible conflict between this cultural cosmopolitanism and the formation of national movements and compositional schools.
Scholars are invited to submit proposals responding to the following topics:
• the dialectics of the transplantation of a cosmopolitan idiom to the local environment;
• the role of West European musicians in the creation of national compositional schools;
• the possible conflict between the national (ethnic and confessional) and professional identity of musicians;
• the social mobility of musicians during their service in the new lands and the upgrading of their social and economic status;
• operatic genres and models transplanted to foreign nations and cultures;
• cultural transfer of genres of the liturgy in Orthodox and Protestant countries;
• musicians in society in post-revolutionary Central and Eastern Europe: professional fame, social status, and conditions of service;
• social “naturalization” of foreign artists in the new environment;
• the dialectics between Western musical genres and local languages;
• the reception of foreign idioms and musicians vis-à-vis the establishment of a national ethos.
Scholarly Committee
• Bella Brover-Lubovsky (Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance)
• Roberto Illiano (Centro Studi Opera Omnia Luigi Boccherini)
• Étienne Jardin (Palazzetto Bru Zane)
• Fulvia Morabito (Centro Studi Opera Omnia Luigi Boccherini)
• Massimiliano Sala (Centro Studi Opera Omnia Luigi Boccherini)
Keynote Speakers
• Bella Brover-Lubovsky (Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance)
• Laura Tumbridge (University of Oxford)
The official languages of the conference are English, French 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, 17 January 2027*** 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.
Further information about the programme and registration will be announced in due course after that deadline.
For any additional information, please contact:
Dr. Massimiliano Sala
conferences@luigiboccherini.org
www.luigiboccherini.org
