Elizabeth Morgan

Playing the pianoforte in Austen’s house in 2006

On Friday, May 25, I’ll be performing a conversational recital program of music that Jane Austen studied as an amateur pianist at the Piedmont Center for the Arts in Piedmont, California.  It’s a program that I’ve performed a number of times, both here and in the UK.

As a woman of the middle class in Georgian-era England, Austen studied the pianoforte as one of her feminine accomplishments.  Her collection of sheet music, which was passed on through her family and eventually archived, included works in numerous styles: solo keyboard pieces, chamber works, and songs.  Some of the music that she owned is actually written out in her own hand; Austen must’ve borrowed sheet music from friends and family members and made copies by hand so that she could continue to play a work after returning the score.

In 2006, I spent a week at Austen’s former home in Chawton, Hampshire, studying the music in her collection.  (The musical notebooks have since been moved to the Hampshire Records Office.)  It was amazing to sit in the author’s kitchen, sorting through sheet music written in her own hand, imagining her life and music’s role in it.  I have since returned to Chawton many times, including in the summer of 2009 when I gave a recital at Austen’s house to celebrate the 200 year anniversary of her moving there.  

Information about my upcoming conversational recital of music from Austen’s notebooks can be found at http://www.piedmontcenterforthearts.org.

You’re invited to a free solo recital that I’m giving at St. Joe’s on March 15.  I’m performing Brahms’s moving 6 Klavierstücke, Opus 118, as well as two of my favorite works by the Czech composer, Leos Janacek: his Piano Sonata and Book 1 of On the Overgrown Path. The recital is in Bluett Theatre at 7:30 PM.

This Saturday, 2/18, the mid-Atlantic chapter of the American Musicological Society is meeting at St. Joe’s.  The chapter has been dormant for a number of years and this is the first step toward reviving it.  All pertinent information about the event can be found here: http://amsmidatlantic.wordpress.com.  If you are a faculty member, graduate student, undergrad, independent scholar, performer, or just someone with an interest in musicology, please join us!

It’s a new semester at SJU!  I’m teaching the second semester of our yearlong music history survey as well as a course about J. S. Bach.  I’m also busy working with my piano students and preparing for my first faculty recital at SJU this March, which includes solo works by Brahms and Janacek.

This Friday, November 18, at 7:30 PM in the Chapel of Saint Joseph, SJU students present a Schubertiad, an evening of music to celebrate Franz Schubert.  Student vocalists and pianists, along with a few faculty members, will perform works by the great Viennese composer.  This is the first event of this kind that SJU Music has hosted and promises to be a wonderful night of Lieder, poetry, and piano music.  Please join us!  You can e-mail me at emorgan@sju.edu for more information!

This Friday evening (10/28) at 5:30 PM, pianist Yu Xi Wang will give a masterclass at Saint Joe’s to five students working on pieces by Franz Schubert.  The event is free of charge and promises to be very exciting.  After working with each student, Yu Xi will perform Ravel’s La Valse for the group.  All are welcome to attend this event.  Please e-mail me at emorgan@sju.edu for more information.

Next week I’ll be in New York for “Counterpoints: Nineteenth-Century Literature and Music,” a conference sponsored by Fordham University and 19th-Century Music.  I’m presenting a paper on a panel on Friday morning on British domestic novels of the early 1800s and accompanied sonatas, focusing on the work of two women: the author, Maria Edgeworth and the composer, Maria Hester Park.  The conference also includes a recital of piano works related to the theme of nineteenth-century literature and music; I’ll be performing pieces by Haydn and Ryan Francis on the recital.  For more information, visit http://tinyurl.com/6hjwvzs.  All events are open to the public.