America 250 Lecture Series to Explore the Music of the Revolutionary War
University of Iowa musicologist Marian Wilson Kimber will bring the sounds of America’s founding era to Quincy during a free presentation at John Wood Community College on Sept. 16.
QUINCY, Ill. The sounds that accompanied America’s struggle for independence will take center stage in Quincy as the America 250 Lecture Series continues with a special program examining music from the Revolutionary War era.
The Historical Society of Quincy and Adams County, in partnership with John Wood Community College, will present “Revolutionary Period Music” on Wednesday, Sept. 16, at 6:30 p.m. in the Mary Ellen Orr Auditorium on JWCC’s Quincy campus.
The program will feature Dr. Marian Wilson Kimber, Professor of Musicology at the University of Iowa, who will explore the music that inspired, entertained and reflected the lives of Americans during the Revolutionary period.
Rather than examining the founding of the United States solely through political speeches, battlefields and historic documents, the presentation will offer another way of understanding the era by considering what the people who experienced the Revolution may have heard and performed.
Wilson Kimber will incorporate musical selections into the program, providing attendees with an opportunity to experience sounds associated with the period while learning more about their historical and cultural significance.
Wilson Kimber is a scholar of 19th-century music whose research has examined gender, biography, performance and bibliography. At the University of Iowa, she teaches courses covering music from the 18th through the 21st centuries.
Commemorating America at 250
The presentation is part of the ongoing America 250 Lecture Series, organized in recognition of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and the founding of the United States.
The Sept. 16 presentation offers audiences an opportunity to experience that history through a medium that is sometimes overlooked.
The American Revolution was not experienced in silence. Its generation sang songs, played instruments and created music that reflected patriotism, military life, popular culture and the uncertainty of a nation being born.
For one evening in Quincy, some of those sounds will be heard again.
Revolutionary Period Music will begin at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 16, in the Mary Ellen Orr Auditorium at John Wood Community College in Quincy.
The program is free and open to the public.
