Call for papers: Central European Musicians and the Birth of French Piano Virtuosity

Organized by
Centro Studi Opera Omnia Luigi Boccherini, Lucca/Pistoia
Istituto Storico Austriaco, Roma
Académie de France à Rome - Villa Medici

In association with
Palazzetto Bru Zane - Centre de musique romantique française, Venice
Haute École de Musique, Geneva

The Symposium aims to investigate the world of the piano and piano music in France, and the evolution of this instrument between the ancien régime and the Restoration. On the occasion of the 200° anniversary of the death of Jan Ladislav Dussek (1760-1812), the conference will explore the circulation of European pianists within Parisian musical life at the turn of the nineteenth century; the piano industry in France and its impact on the development of French musical taste; issues of performance practice and the bravura tradition; publishers and composers active between the French Revolution and the first Industrial Revolution. 

The programme committee encourages submissions within the following areas, although other topics are also welcome: 

• The existance of a French Piano School and Tradition
• Parisian Musical Life from the ancien régime to the Restoration
• Patrons, Concerts and Musical Institutions in the Public and Private Spheres
• Migration of European Composers to France
• French Composers/Pianists (1750–1830)
• Approaches to the virtuoso concerto by Paris-based Composers of the Early Nineteenth Century
• Composers, Philosophers, Treatises and the Development of French Musical Taste Piano Methods, Performing Style and Virtuosity
• French Publishers and Piano Industry
• Operatic Variation, Musical Genres and New Sources

The official languages of the conference will be English and Italian. Papers selected for presentation at the conference will be published in a miscellaneous volume. Papers are limited to twenty minutes in length, allowing time for questions and discussion. Please submit an abstract of no more than 500 words and one page of biography. All proposals should be emailed to operaomnia@luigiboccherini.org by no later than Sunday 25 April 2012. Please include with your proposal your name, contact details (postal address, e-mail and telephone number) and (if applicable)
your affiliation.

The committee will make its final decisions on the abstracts by 10 May 2012, and contributors will be informed immediately thereafter; further information about the programme, registration, travel and accommodation will be announced after this date.