Co-presented by Kaufman Music Center & One Day University

POSTPONED - Sound of History: The American Revolution – Inside the Minds of the Founding Fathers

Thursday | May 7 2020 | 7:30 pm

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This event has been postponed. 
In-person events at Kaufman Music Center have been suspended through July 31. See Kaufman Music Center community updates related to COVID-19.

With Professor Louis Masur and rising star musicians from Kaufman Music Center's Special Music School, who will perform sonatas by Beethoven and Mozart written at the same moment the founding fathers were beginning to form a new country called America.

Long after the Revolutionary era, John Adams asked “what do we mean by the American Revolution?” He said, “the Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people,” that the real Revolution was a radical change in thinking — “the principles, opinions, sentiments and affections of the people.” Focusing on the ideas of such leaders as Adams, Jefferson, Hamilton, Madison and Washington, this lecture will examine that revolution in the principles and conflicts that characterized the revolutionary era of 1770-1800. Adams believed that through a common set of beliefs “thirteen clocks were made to strike together,” but by 1800 that unity of purpose had unraveled into violent political debate that threatened the survival of the nation. “Whether you or I were right, posterity must judge,” Adams wrote to Jefferson. We are that posterity.

Concert Program

BEETHOVEN  –  Piano Sonata No. 3, Op. 2, Movement 1
MOZART –  Violin Sonata in G Major, K. 301
BEETHOVEN  –  Piano Sonata No. 11 in B-flat Major, Op. 22, Movement 1
BEETHOVEN  –  Clarinet Trio No. 4, Op. 11, Movement 1

Louis Masur is a Distinguished Professor of American Studies and History at Rutgers University. He received outstanding teaching awards from Rutgers, Trinity College and the City College of New York, and won the Clive Prize for Excellence in Teaching from Harvard University. He is the author of many books including Lincoln’s Last Speech. His essays and articles have appeared in the New York Times, Boston Globe, Dallas Morning News, and Chicago Tribune. He is an elected member of the American Antiquarian Society and serves on the Historians’ Council of the Gettysburg Foundation.

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