The Hugh Hodgson School of Music will host a symposium celebrating 200 years of composer Felix Mendelssohn April 11 in Edge Recital Hall on the third floor of the music building.
Larry Todd of Duke University will be the guest speaker and will discuss Mendelssohn and Mendelssohn’s sister, Fanny Hensel. Todd is the English-speaking world’s leading Mendelssohn scholar and the author of Mendelssohn: A Life in Music (2003), which was named best biography by the Association of American Publishers, and other publications on Mendelssohn of other composers. Todd was named both a Guggenheim Fellow and a National Humanities Center Fellow for 2007-2008. His new biography, Fanny Hensel, the Other Mendelssohn, will be released later this year by Oxford University Press.
The symposium will start at 10:30 a.m. April 11 with a lecture entitled, “Mendelssohn and Us: Reflections on the Bicentennial, Part I.” There will be a recital at 11 a.m. At 11:45 a.m. “Mendelssohn and Us: Reflections on the Bicentennial, Part II” will be discussed. Lunch is at 12:15 p.m. and at 1:30 p.m. there will be a lecture on “Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel’s Piano Cycle: Das Jahr (The Year).” There will be another recital at 2 p.m. and at 2:45 “Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel Reconsidered” will be discussed.
The symposium is open to the public at no charge.
Todd will also give a lecture April 7 at 3:30 p.m. in Edge Recital Hall as the Willson Center Visiting Artist.
On April 9 and 10, there will be performances of Mendelssohn’s Elijah by the University of Georgia Choruses and Orchestra in Hodgson Hall at 8 p.m. Todd will give a pre-concert lecture at 7:15 p.m. Tickets are $15 and may be purchased by calling the UGA Performing Arts box office at (706) 542-4400.