MOZART'S STARLING

Distinguished Speaker Series
Lyanda Lynn Haupt, author and naturalist

The story sounds apocryphal, but it’s actually true. In the spring of 1784, Mozart found a starling in a Viennese shop mimicking the motif from one of his own concertos, and he took the bird home as a pet. How did it come to pass that the sublime classical composer found inspiration in one of the world’s most ecologically despised species? The answer leads to a beautiful tangle of music theory, linguistics, the nature of creative inspiration, and the human relationship with the wild earth.

Sponsored by the Franke Program in Science and the Humanities
Registration link
Poster

4 pm, Zoom EST