Music in America Lecture Series

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Venue:	Wenham Museum
Hours:	Lecture held at Wenham Mluseum, Burnham Hall at 7pm
Ages:	Teens, Adults
In/Outdoor:	Indoor
Cost:	$ see below
Category:	Music & Concerts

Stephen Marini, Elisabeth Luce Moore Professor of Christian Studies and Professor of American Religion and Ethics at Wellesley College,speaks on the New England Singing Movement (1720-1820). America's tradition of popular sacred music began right here in Massachusetts with Pilgrims and Puritans bringing the practice of unison psalm-singing to the colonies.

The music thrived for a century but by the 1720s, however, musical performance in the Commonwealth’s Congregational churches had become so chaotic that a group of Boston-area ministers began calling for local 'singing schools' to teach congregations how to read music and to sing psalmody properly.

In 1770 William Billings of Boston launched the Golden Age of the New England Singing School with the publication of The New England Psalm-Singer, his collection of more than one hundred original musical compositions for singing schools. For the next half-century, Billings and his successors spread the singing school throughout New England and beyond. This lecture tells how this first great American musical style developed, featuring audience participation in singing a Puritan psalm and one of Billings's popular 'fuging tunes.'

Stephen Marini is Elisabeth Luce Moore Professor of Christian Studies and Professor of American Religion and Ethics at Wellesley College. He has also taught for many years on New England theological faculties, including recent appointments at Harvard Divinity School, Andover Newton Theological School, and Yale Institute of Sacred Music.

He is author of Sacred Song in America: Religion, Music, and Public Culture (University of Illinois Press, 2003) and The Nuremberg Harmony: Historic and Contemporary Hymn Tunes and Anthems from the New England Singing School Tradition (University Press of Mississippi, 2004).

COST

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$10 per lecture or $21 for the series of three lectures$9 for students and seniors

WEBSITE

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www.wenhammuseum.org

LOCATION

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132 Main Street, Wenham, MA, 01984 map
Phone: 978-468-2377

From points south: Take Route 128 north to exit 20-A (Route 1A - Hamilton). Follow Route 1A north for 2.3 miles. The Museum is on the right before the Wenham Town Hall.
From points north: Take Route 95 South to Route 128 North. Then follow the directions as above.

Public Transportation:
B&M Commuter Rail to Hamilton-Wenham; 15-minute scenic walk south from the depot on Route 1A.