Dvorak’s New World Symphony in Context with Douglas Shadle

One Symphony with Devin Patrick Hughes

As an advocate of historically marginalized composers, musicologist Douglas Shadle is a leading voice in public discussions about the role of symphony orchestras and orchestral music in American life. On the latest episode of ONE SYMPHONY, we discuss his latest book, Antonin Dvorak's New World Symphony (Oxford, 2021), as well as his first book, Orchestrating the Nation: The Nineteenth-Century American Symphonic Enterprise (Oxford, 2016), which explores the volatile relationships between composers, performers, critics, and audiences throughout the 19th century and demonstrates why American composers rarely find a home on concert programs today.

Shadle is also a highly-regarded expert on fellow Little Rock native Florence Price, the first African American woman to win international acclaim as a composer. His research on Price has been featured in The New Yorker, New York Times, and NewMusicBox. Shadle’s second book recontextualizes Antonín Dvořák’s iconic New World Symphony within the complex landscape of American culture at the end of the nineteenth century.

Shadle’s publications have won two ASCAP Deems/Taylor Virgil Thomson Awards, the Society for American Music Irving Lowens Article Award, the inaugural American Musicological Society H. Robert Cohen/RIPM Award, and the Vanderbilt Chancellor’s Award for Research. Shadle joined the Blair School faculty in 2014 and has served as the chair of the Department of Musicology and Ethnomusicology since 2019.

Thank you for joining us on One Symphony. Thanks to Douglas Shadle for sharing his knowledge and insights, you can find Antonin Dvorak’s New World Symphony where you get your books. Works on the show today included Dvorak’s American String Quartet performed by the Prague Quartet and his Ninth Symphony with Charles Mackerras and the London Philharmonic, Myun-Wun Chung and the Vienna Philharmonic, and Paavo Jarvi and the Cincinnati Symphony.

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https://www.pricefest.org/about/douglas-shadle

https://devinpatrickhughes.com

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