Promoting Community Connection: Contemporary Classical Composers Respond to the Political Environment, a lecture-recital by Dr. Christine Letcher

University of Maine at Augusta, Farber Forum in Jewett Hall
Tuesday, Oct. 24, 2024 at 7 p.m.

Through a unique blend of lecture and piano performance, Dr. Christine Letcher, assistant professor of music at the University of Maine at Augusta (UMA), will explore how the political climate affects the work of classical composers. The event will take place on Thursday, Oct. 24, 2024, at 7 p.m. on the UMA campus at the Farber Forum Auditorium in Jewett Hall.

While popular musicians like Taylor Swift and Beyoncé have used their music as political statements, how do classical composers view their role in society as responders to the social and political environment? Letcher interviewed American classical composers to explore their perspectives on how the social, cultural, and political environments influence the music they compose. She then compared these findings to those of the New Deal and early Cold War eras.

In this lecture-recital, Letcher will discuss the social and political influences on select composers from both the 1930s and the early 2000s, and will demonstrate how these influences showed up in the music as she performs solo piano works by Ruth Crawford-Seeger, Aaron Copland, Florence Price, Martin Bresnick, Reena Esmail, Jerome Kitzke, and more. Special guests for two of the pieces are Dr. Anita Jerosch, trombone, and Eliza Meyer, cello.

The lecture-recital “Promoting Community Connection” is free and open to the public on the UMA campus, at the Farber Forum Auditorium, Jewett Hall, 46 University Drive, Augusta. Thursday, Oct. 24, 2024, at 7 p.m, and will be livestreamed on the UMA YouTube Channel. This lecture-recital will be repeated on Oct. 29, at 7 p.m., at Minsky Hall, University of Maine, in Orono.

Older events:

• February 23, 2020, 2pm,  UMA Senior College Concert Series. Christine will present a program exploring the connection between French modernist music and Jazz. See more here: https://www.umasc.org/christine-letcher/
• March 15, 2020, 4pm, A Monteverdi program at St. Andrews church in Newcastle. 
• Christine Letcher joined Puma, a Jazz Quartet, singing jazz standards, October 15th, 6:30pm, Lithgow Library, Augusta
• Solo Piano Recital with Special Guest Andrea Graichen, Mezzo-Soprano, May 17 2019, 7pm, St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, Falmouth and June 7, 2019 UU Church in Augusta 4pm
• Membra Jesu Nostri Patientis Sanctissima by Buxtehude — soloist,  May 6, 2018, 3pm First Parish Church
• Solo Piano Recital, May 19, 3pm First UCC Congregational Church in Waterville

Christine Letcher as part of the Music at First Concert Series! A fundraising concert series to benefit the Waterville Area Essentials Closet. The Waterville Area Essentials Closet provides personal and household items for community members in need, such as soap, toothpaste, diapers and laundry detergent. The funds raised from this concert will go directly toward providing more items for our neighbors in need! Suggested Donation: $10

• Solo Piano Recital, January 20 4pm Unitarian Universalist Community Church in Augusta