Department of Music Lecture: Douglas W. Shadle

Douglas W. Shadle, Associate Professor, Musicology, Vanderbilt University
 
Abstract:
 The mobilization of US government resources that led to the formation of the Federal Music Project, a division of the Works Progress Administration, in 1935 remains unrivaled in scope or ambition. Beyond supporting routine performances of orchestras, bands, and choirs of all shapes and sizes, the endeavor gave significant attention to education, research, and composition. Current biographical narratives of composer Florence B. Price (1887-1953) indicate that highly visible performances of her orchestral music in Chicago and Detroit book-ended the six-year period during which the WPA’s musical programs were in place. Yet, until now, we know very little about her musical activities during this broadly generative historical moment. Drawing from archival resources held at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, Illinois, and the Library of Congress, this presentation shows for the first time how Price’s engagement with the WPA reshaped her compositional endeavors until her sudden death in 1953.
 
Biography:
Douglas W. Shadle is an Associate Professor of Musicology at the Vanderbilt University Blair School of Music. He has published two books with Oxford University Press—Orchestrating the Nation (2016) and Antonín Dvořák’s New World Symphony (2021). He is currently co-authoring, with Samantha Ege (University of Southampton), a biography of Florence B. Price for the Oxford University Press Master Musicians Series.