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About the Author
Sylvia Kahan is Professor of Music at the Graduate Center and College of Staten Island, CUNY, where she is a member of both the Piano and Musicology faculties. As a pianist, she has performed as concerto soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician in all of New York’s major halls and in concerts venues throughout North America and Europe. As a musicologist, Sylvia Kahan specializes in late 19th-century and 20th-century French music and culture. She has written on women’s roles as music patrons, Proust and music, Nadia Boulanger, and 19th-century music criticism.
About the Book
The book served as the inspiration for a lecture and concert produced by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.
Praise
This biography by Sylvia Kahan is easy to read as an adventure story just as much as it is a sideways glance at over half a century's cultural history.– GRAMOPHONE
This is a book to be referred to again and again. . . an authoritative study that will give any interested reader an overview of a fascinating artistic epoch with a complex and intriguing survivor at its helm. Underneath the forbidding exterior, "Aunt Winnie" was a sensitive and selfless philanthropist, both acutely perceptive of genuine talent in others and wide-ranging in her patronage. These aspects shine clearly through the mine of detailed information in Sylvia Kahan's important new study.- TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT
Sylvia Kahan draws an unflinching portrait both of a lost world . . . Winnaretta Singer-Polignac appears as an avant-garde figure in patronage, a major reference for how to work in a useful and lasting manner to support the creation and advancement of the arts, allowing humanity to progress.– RESMUSICA
Upcoming Events
Making Your Move to France: Visas, Life & Buying Property
In-Person Discussion in English with the Franceformation team
Have you dreamed of moving to France but have no idea where to start? During this talk, Allison Grant Lounes will provide you with great tips on how to smoothly plan your move from the States to France!
Seeing Others: Challenges to Recognition in a Changing World
A Talk by Professor Michèle Lamont
How we recognize others shapes our communities. In this timely talk, Professor Michèle Lamont reflects on dignity, respect, and what helps us live better together.
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In Search of the Lost Maestro: Rediscovering Edmond Dédé
A presentation by Marguerite de Bourgoing
For more than a century, one of America’s greatest operas was lost to history. Join documentarian Marguerite de Bourgoing, Harvard librarian Andrea Cawelti, and moderator Morgan Beckford of Boston Lyric Opera for an extraordinary journey into the rediscovery of Edmond Dédé’s forgotten masterpiece, Morgiane, featuring rare insights and archival revelations.
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