Joseph Bologne, and the French Musical Enlightenment

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This event will be held in English.

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This presentation provides an introduction to the life and music of Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, tracing the violin virtuoso’s remarkable trajectory from the plantations of Guadeloupe to the stages of pre-revolutionary Paris. The talk explores Saint-Georges’s contributions to the musical landscape of the French Enlightenment through a sampling of representative repertory—considering works composed for public concerts, aristocratic salons, and commercial print markets. More broadly, it situates this musical output within a transatlantic context, discussing the links between the Parisian art world and France’s colonial projects in the Caribbean across the long eighteenth century.

Julia Doe is Associate Professor of Historical Musicology at Columbia University, specializing in the music, literature, and politics of eighteenth-century France. She is the author of The Comedians of the King (University of Chicago Press, 2021), as well as articles in the Journal of Musicology, Cambridge Opera Journal, and Eighteenth-Century Music, among other publications. Doe is the recipient of the H. Colin Slim, Alfred Einstein, and M. Elizabeth C. Bartlet awards from the American Musicological Society, as well as grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Fulbright Program.

The Rendez-Vous de l’Institut Series is generously supported by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation.

This event will be recorded and may be broadcast as part of our SNF Rendez-vous de l’Institut podcast series. By participating and asking questions, you consent to the use of your voice in this context.