As a Fulbright Scholar in Paris during the 2014-2015 academic year, John Romey, a graduate student in the Department of Music, undertook an enormous archival project that catalogued and analyzed manuscript chansonniers and print sources, documenting song texts that circulated in street culture.
Detailing his time in Paris, Romey will give a Graduate Student Work-in-Progress lecture at the next Baker-Nord Center for the Humanities event Tuesday, Sept. 29, at 4:30 p.m. in Clark Hall, Room 206.
His talk will be titled “From the Street to the Stage: Popular Song and the Construction of Parisian Spectacle, 1648-1713.” Romey will use broad strokes to present the types of songs that were performed in the streets and on the Pont Neuf in Paris, and to outline how these song practices functioned within early modern communication networks.
He will offer better insight into the nexus connecting the streets and the stage by revealing that, in 17th-century Paris, the Comédie-Italienne and the Comédie-Française adapted the repertoire and cultural practices that constituted the quotidian soundscape of 17th-century Parisian public spaces.
A pre-lecture reception will be held at 4:15 p.m.
The event is free and open to the public. Registration is available online.