Acclaimed tenor Ian Bostridge looked at how classical music can express the inexpressible: the nature of existence; the fluidity of identity; the inevitability of death. Through three Berlin Family Lectures focused on “Musical Identities,” Bostridge explored and evaluated some of the works at the very center of the classical vocal repertoire, asking how they construct identities—historically, poetically, and musically.
Lecture 1
Sunday, April 11, 1 to 2:30 p.m. CDT
Identity in Performance
Lecture 2
Saturday, April 17, 1 to 2:30 p.m. CDT
Hidden Histories
Lecture 3
Saturday, April 24, 1 to 2:30 p.m. CDT
Meditations on Death
Video
About Ian Bostridge
Ian Bostridge is an acclaimed tenor, well known for his performance as an opera singer and as a song recitalist. During the past three decades, his international recital career has taken him to the foremost concert halls of Europe, Japan, and North America. His many recordings have won multiple international record prizes and three Grammy awards.
He was awarded a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2004 New Year’s Honours. In 2016, he received the Pol Roger Duff Cooper Prize for nonfiction writing for his latest book, Schubert’s Winter Journey: Anatomy of an Obsession (2015).
Bostridge has always combined his masterful singing with his scholarship. Before he became a full-time professional singer at age 30, Bostridge had earned a DPhil from the University of Oxford and served as post-doctoral fellow at Corpus Christi College in Oxford. His monograph, Witchcraft and its Transformations 1650-1750, was published in 1997.