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New Year’s: Music of Vision and Inspiration

Dec 28, 2022 - Jan 1, 2023

An in-person retreat with Maestro Karl Middleman
$860/private; $720/shared; $545/commuter. Cap of 25.

If you are seeking financial assistance to participate in this program, please click on the link for our Financial Assistance Application form, below. Do NOT register online.

Note: Registration will close on December 20, 2022.

Call Us for More Information!

610-566-4507, ext. 137

Amidst these times of strife, where can we gain inspiration? Where is peace and tranquility to be found? “Music of Vision and Inspiration” offers compelling reasons to be resilient and hopeful. According to reformer and abolitionist Lydia Maria Child, “Music is a prophecy of what life is to be, the rainbow of promise translated into hearing.” “Music of Vision and Inspiration” delivers on Child’s prophecy by exploring composers’ engagement with serious social issues such as war and plague to find edification and upliftment.

Striding across centuries of great music, we will consider Shostakovich’s heroic response to Stalin’s brutal totalitarianism; discover the patriotism of Chopin, Smetana, and Janacek who saw nationalism as a positive force for both identitarianism and universalism; uncover the stellar Mass for Notre Dame by 14th Century Guilliame de Machaut, a survivor of the Black Plague; and salute the perseverance of Gabriela Lena Frank who, amidst her personal struggles with deafness, founded the Creative Academy of Music.

A unique bonus: we will view a special screening of the recent, widely-acclaimed Metropolitan Opera production of “Fire Shut Up in My Bones” by Terrence Blanchard. “Fire'” is the first Met-commissioned opera by a Black composer. Based on the life of New York Times columnist Charles Blow, the story explores sexual predation and reconciliation in a southern family.

Leader(s)

Karl Middleman is both a conductor and an educator. His presentations have been hailed for the easy way they mix scholarship with showmanship. Karl has lectured for the Philadelphia Orchestra over 50 times and has received many awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Pew Center for Arts and Heritage, and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. He teaches at Temple University and at the Chautauqua Institute.


Financial aid may be available. If you are seeking funds to participate in this program, click to review and complete our Financial Assistance Application and a Pendle Hill staff member will follow-up with you shortly (please do NOT register online). Thank you for your interest.


Travel directions to Pendle Hill.