Wednesday 5 November 2025 at the University of Minnesota School of Music
and
Thursday 6 November 2025 at the Hyatt Regency, Minneapolis
Click here for location and travel information for the University of Minnesota
The American Brahms Society will host a pre-conference on 5-6 November in Minneapolis, immediately preceding the combined annual meetings of the American Musicological Society and the Society for Music Theory. “Whose Brahms?” Reception and Uses of 19th-Century Music Up to the Present Day will offer fresh looks at Brahms’s music and his world and will address aspects of Brahms scholarship and performance in our world. The final schedule of paper presentations is given below, and a PDF of the abstracts is now available here: Abstracts and Presenter Bios.
This year we are excited to collaborate with the Mendelssohn Network to present joint sessions on Wednesday afternoon and a conference dinner that will allow participants to discuss shared interests in the scholarship of 19th-century music.
Please register here: https://duke.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_d1mX7RHJVjG2tJY
There is no registration fee for the pre-conference, and all are welcome.
For the conference dinner on Wednesday night at noa, please RSVP no later than 22 October to ensure an accurate headcount. Individual diners will pay for their own food and drink at the restaurant; no deposit or pre-payment is required.
Those wishing to make a donation towards the costs of the conference may do so through the website (credit card or PayPal) or by mailing a check (payable to The American Brahms Society) to: The American Brahms Society, Attn: Karen Leistra-Jones, Department of Music, Franklin & Marshall College, P.O. Box 3003, Lancaster, PA 17604-3003. We appreciate your support!
ABS Pre-Conference for AMS-SMT 2025:
“Whose Brahms?” Reception and Uses of 19th-Century Music Up to the Present Day
(final schedule)
Wednesday Morning (11/05) at the University of Minnesota
Ferguson Hall – see directions
Room 280
2106 Fourth Street South
Minneapolis, MN 55455
- 9:00 Breakfast Social, continental breakfast provided
- 9:45 Welcoming remarks
- 10:00–11:00, Session I: Political Receptions (Marie Sumner Lott, chair)
- Andrew Pau, “Huang Zi and Brahms’s Reception in Republican-Era China”
- Barry Wiener, “Furtwängler’s Brahms Centenary Lecture and the Nazis: A Reconsideration”
- 11:00–11:15 short break
- 11:15–12:15, Session II: Chamber Music Performance Histories (Tekla Babyak, chair)
- Mineo Ota, “Jenő Hubay’s ‘French Romanticism’ and the Reception of Brahms’s Music in Budapest circa 1890: On Brahms’ Violin Sonata no. 3 Op.108 and the Franco–Belgian Violin School”
- Paul Allen Sommerfeld, “100 Years of Performing Brahms’s Chamber Music in the Library of Congress Music Division”
- 12:15–2:30 Lunch, provided (and Mendelssohn Network Business Meeting)
Wednesday Afternoon held jointly with the Mendelssohn Network
- 2:30 Lecture-Recital (David Keep, chair)
- Ann DuHamel, “Rückblick: Evoking Nostalgia, Inspired by Brahms”
- 3:00–3:15 pm Coffee break
- 3:15–4:15, Mendelssohn Session (Emily Shyr, chair)
- Heeseung Lee, “Mendelssohn and Moscheles in Sound and Space: The Organ, Immersive Experience, and Romantic Hauntings”
- Deirdre Toh, “Fanny Hensel’s ‘Reise-Album’: An Italian Journey Illuminated through Music, Poetry, and Art”
- 4:15–4:30 short break
- 4:30–5:30, Joint Session: New Perspectives on Singing and Song Composition (Laura Stokes, chair)
- Robert Michael Anderson, “Brahms, Hausmusik, and Historiography”
- Erin Pratt, “The Strophic Song Problem in Song Reception between Mendelssohn and Brahms”
- 7:00 pm Conference Dinner, jointly with the Mendelssohn Network, at noa
- please RSVP here
- Participants will cover their own food and drink costs at the restaurant.
Thursday Morning (11/06) Brahms sessions at the Hyatt Regency, AMS-SMT conference hotel
Meeting Room: Lakeshore C
- 8:30 Breakfast Social (continental breakfast provided)
- 9:00–10:30, Morning Session I: New Directions in Analysis (Loretta Terrigno, chair)
- Solomon Guhl-Miller, “Four Readings of Brahms’s Intermezzo in B minor Op. 119”
- Cristina G. Rojo, “Topical Transformations in Brahms’s Piano Quartet No. 1 in G Minor, Op. 25”
- Joey Grunkemeyer, “The Tragic-to-Transcendent Mirage: Brahms’s Inheritance of a Beethovenian Trope”
- 10:30–10:45, short break
- 10:45–11:45, Session II: All about the ABS!
- Introduction to ABS board
- The ABS Newsletter, Valerie Goertzen and Laurie McManus
- Geiringer Scholarship, Marie Sumner Lott and Tihamér Hlavacsek
- Publication Subvention, David Brodbeck
- 11:45, Invitation to further conversations/collaborations
- Pre-conference concludes c. 12:00 pm
Thursday morning (11/06) Mendelssohn sessions at the University of Minnesota, Ferguson Hall
- 10:00–10:40 am, Session I
- Shaena Weitz, “Mendelssohn, Kalkbrenner, and Friends: Gossip in the Nineteenth Century”
- 10:40–11:00 am: Coffee Break
- 11:00–11:40 am, Session II
- Susan Wollenberg, “‘Remnants of a Lost Civilization’: The Deneke Family, Musical Culture in Oxford, and the Bodleian Library Mendelssohn Collection”
- 11:40 am–12:20 pm, Lecture Recital
- Margaret E. Lucia, “Inspiration from Italy: Piano Character Pieces by Fanny Hensel”
- Pre-conference concludes c. 12:30 pm