Explorations of the American Dream Part 1 at Tinkham Veale University Center, Ballroom A

Presented in partnership with Case Western Reserve University

Join the first of two robust conversations about the American Dream by participants sharing diverse viewpoints from across political, social, economic, and cultural spectrums. A performance of the opera, La Fanciulla del West, follows the day’s presentations.

12:00pm – 2:00pm | Puccini’s La fanciulla del West and its influences: placing the opera into a perspective
With Allison Loggins-Hull, Kira Thurman, Douglas Shadle
Elena Dubinets, moderator

Presentations/discussions by leading musicologists studying the opera, its time, reception, and influences. Kira Thurman, author of Singing Like Germans, will speak about the American Dream from a perspective of an African-American scholar studying the musicianship of black artists. Douglas Shadle, author of Orchestrating the Nation: The Nineteenth-Century American Symphonic Enterprise and co-author of a forthcoming book about Florence Price, will address institutional problems related to underrepresented composers in the United States. Allison Loggins-Hull is The Cleveland Orchestra’s Daniel R. Lewis Composer Fellow, and Elena Dubinets is Curator of the Mandel Opera & Humanities Festival: The American Dream.

Learn more about the second part of this conversation, Cleveland’s Cultural DNA and The American Dream: Past, Present, and Future at
3:00 – 5:00pm.