Harvard Music Professor to Deliver Neumann Lectures at University of Richmond
February 4, 2003
Harvard music professor Christoph Wolff will deliver the Neumann Lectures on Music Feb. 12-14 at the University of Richmond.
Wolf will lecture on "In Search of Johann Sebastian Bach's Human Face: The Everyday Life of the Leipzig Thomascantor" at 6:30 p.m. Feb. 12 at the Second Presbyterian Church Adult Forum, 5 N. 5th St., and again Feb. 13, 4 p.m. in the Camp Concert Hall at the Modlin Center for the Arts.
He also will speak on "Bach's Music and Newtonian Science: A Composer in Search of the Foundations of His Art" Feb. 14, 4 p.m., at Jepson Alumni Center. A reception will follow.
All the lectures are free and open to the public, honoring the late Frederick Neumann, a violin professor at the university and concertmaster of the Richmond Symphony.
While on campus, Wolff will teach a music history class for music majors and lead a session for students in the German culture seminar offered by the modern languages and literature department.
Wolf, Adams University Professor at Harvard, has published widely on the history of music of the 15th -20th centuries, including the books "Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician" and "The New Bach Reader." He is a past winner of the Dent Medal of the Royal Musical Association and a Humboldt Research Award.
Wolf is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and sciences and a member of the American Philosophical Society. At Harvard, he is former dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and former chair of the music department.
The lectures are the first of a planned annual series honoring Neumann, who taught on the music faculty at Richmond from 1955 to 1978 and founded the University Symphony. Neumann won the Otto Kinkeldey Award from the American Musicological Society in 1987 for his book "Ornamentation and Improvisation in Mozart." He died in 1994.
