This one-day invitational workshop on September 17 is organized by Marsha Siefert (Central European University Budapest/Vienna) and Christiane Tewinkel (Universität der Künste Berlin, a Fellow at the IAS/CEU Budapest in 2019/20). The workshop aims to address questions of transatlantic cultural diplomacy and cultural migration, with a focus on musical life in Vienna and Budapest, and on transatlantic cultural crosscurrents in general in the period before the First World War. Potential areas for discussion include (but are not limited to) the concept of musical pilgrimage, experiences of American musicians travelling to Vienna or Budapest, the question of re-migration as exemplified by musicians who studied and concertized in their former home countries, as well as current issues of migration in our globalized Classical music world.
The discussion will be framed by the larger political, social and economic milieu of the late 19th and early 20th century when American influence in musical culture throughout Europe was in its beginnings. Formulating the gathering as an exploratory workshop, we aim to bring together (cultural) historians and musicologists, to feature music more prominently in the ongoing discussion of transatlantic relations and cultural diplomacy. In addition, we hope that this event can be an inaugural look at the transatlantic relations now represented by Central European University, as it builds its own links between the New York campus, its extensive Budapest campus and its new Vienna location. What better topic to celebrate these connections than music, a centerpiece of the cultural life of all three cities in the period under discussion until today.