Late Moves: Music and Creativity, a panel discussion with Jonathan Biss

Co-sponsor: Assembly Series
Free Event
February 8, 2017 - 5:00 pm
Goldberg Formal Lounge
Danforth University Center
How does age impact the work of creative artists? Does an artist's accumulated knowledge and experience, combined with a sense that the end of life may be near, create the conditions for especially intense or heightened expression? And how do these dynamics - common to artists of all kinds - play out in the realm of music composition?
Join us February 8 at 5pm in the Goldberg Formal Lounge in the Danforth University Center for a wide-ranging discussion of "late style" creativity with visiting pianist Jonathan Biss and Washington University professors Dolores Pesce and Brian Carpenter. Biss, an internationally-known pianist coming to campus to play a solo recital exploring late works by Schumann, Chopin, and Brahms, has made an exploration of late style central to his performing in recent years. Biss has spoken of the surprising variety of "late style" expressivity. Pesce, Avis Blewett Professor of Musicology, recently published a book titled Liszt's Final Decade exploring the creative and personal ferment of the last years of composer Franz Liszt's very long life. Carpenter, Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences, will bring a social science perspective to the discussion from his work on the clinical psychology of aging and mental health issues at the end of life. Todd Decker, professor and chair of music, will moderate.
This panel promises to be an ideal preparation for Biss' solo recital on February 9 at 7:30pm at the 560 Music Center.