The People's Music: Religious and Political Songs of Revolutionary New England

Join us to learn about the fascinating musical culture of Revolutionary New England from Stephen Marini, Elisabeth Luce Moore Professor of Christian Studies at Wellesley College and singing master of Norumbega Harmony.

Discover the world of singing masters hired by 18th-century Congregational parishes to teach music to their members; the English tradition of parish music they initially conveyed; and the development of these masters into publishing composers like William Billings of Boston (1746-1800), Revolutionary America's premier creator of sacred and political choral music.

This talk will also include examples and recordings of this repertoire of Revolutionary-era sacred and secular music.

Join us for this next event our Religion of Revolution lecture series, sponsored by New England's Hidden Histories.

The Congregational Library & Archives newest digital exhibition, Religion of Revolution: Congregational Voices on Liberty, is free to visit anytime at https://congregationallibrary.quartexcollections.com/online-exhibits/revolution.

SPEAKER BIO

Dr. Stephen A. Marini is Elisabeth Luce Moore Professor of Christian Studies at Wellesley College. He is an expert both on the history of religion in Early America and on American sacred music, having written books in both fields, including Radical Sects of Revolutionary New England (Harvard, 1982), Sacred Song in America (Illinois, 2003), and The Cashway Psalmody: Transatlantic Religion and Music in Colonial Carolina (Illinois, 2020). In addition, he is the founder and singing-master of Norumbega Harmony (1976), a choral ensemble specializing in the New England Singing-School music that is the subject of today’s program.