Americans in Paris

This talk explores the symbiosis between African-American vernacular-based styles and the Parisian musical avant-garde in the first decades of the 20th century. Key modernists such as Debussy and Stravinsky respond to the rhythmic energy of ragtime and the harmonic-timbral colors and improvisatory vitality of blues and early jazz. Aaron Copland and George Gershwin refine their own ideas of American music in response to the orchestration of Maurice Ravel, the urban patois of Darius Milhaud and Les Six, and the pedagogy of Nadia Boulanger. Retrospectively, Gershwin’s An American in Paris comes to embody a whole generation of exciting musical “cultural transfer” in the City of Light.