Electric Bohemian: Flamenco and the Arts in Greenwich Village (1950s-1970s) Electric Bohemian: Flamenco and the Arts in Greenwich Village (1950s-1970s) Meira Goldberg and Elijah Wald in Conversation Wednesday, February 25, 5 p.m.Skylight Room CUNY Graduate Center 365 Fifth Avenue (at 34th Street), NYC Free; reservations suggested gc.cuny.edu/public-programs Flamenco scholar K. Meira Goldberg and cultural historian Elijah Wald (author of Dylan Goes Electric!) explore how “the Village” became a hub of artistic experimentation — the birthplace of the Beat Generation, the 1960s counterculture, and various avant-garde movements. They discuss its rich tapestry of urban bohemia, where small presses, art galleries, and theater and music venues flourished, giving rise to an alternative culture including the queer movement and a thriving flamenco scene, which developed alongside the more famous folk scene. Goldberg is a flamenco performer, choreographer, teacher, and author of Sonidos Negros: On the Blackness of Flamenco. Wald is a musician and writer whose book about Bob Dylan served as the inspiration for the film A Complete Unknown. Followed by Rocío Márquez in concert at 7 p.m. in Elebash Recital Hall Co-sponsored by the CUNY Graduate Center’s Office of Public Programs and the Foundation for Iberian Music at the Brook Center for Music Research and Documentation. Made possible by the Elebash Global Voices Fund.
Beyond the Notes: A Symposium Beyond the Notes A Symposium New Perspectives In Recent Chopin Scholarship Nationalism, Sexuality, Textuality A Panel Discussion and Concert Celda de Frédéric Chopin y George Sand Valldemossa, Mallorca 9 May 2026 2pm Symposium (see below) 7pm Concert – Juan Carlos Fernández-Nieto 9 May 2026 @ 5.00pm – Panel discussion In recent years some scholars have moved away from textual, analytical, and purely musical questions in Chopin Studies to focus on issues of context, cultural and gender studies, sexual orientation, nationalism, patriotism, colonial and postcolonial studies, environmentalism, and disability. This panel discussion gathers world-renowned scholars who have contributed to looking at and listening to Chopin from new, somewhat irreverent, highly debatable, and definitively debated and controversial scholarly perspectives. The discussion will include live musical illustrations using the 1852 Pleyel piano. In English, Spanish, and Catalan. Participants: Antoni Pizà – moderator, Foundation for Iberian Music, The Graduate Center of The City University of New York Francisco Javier Albo – pianist, scholar, and professor, Georgia State University, USA Juan Carlos Fernández-Nieto – pianist and scholar, Real Conservatorio Superior de Música de Madrid John Rink – scholar and professor, University of Cambridge Moritz Weber – pianist and scholar, SRF – Schweizer Radio und Fernsehen 9 May 2026 @ 7pm – A Piano Recital by Juan Carlos Fernández-Nieto at the 1852 Pleyel piano
Conferences in Spain and NY There are three upcoming conferences organized by or with the collaboration of the Brook Center and The Foundation for Iberian Music. New York, 22–23 April 2025: Music Migration, and the Exchange of Knowledge: Spain-North America-Latin America. For all details and the program visit the conference website. Oviedo, Spain, 11–13 June 2025: La música hispana en EE.UU. a través de la prensa: recepción, construcción y crítica/ Hispanic music in the USA through the press: reception, construction and criticism. See link below and click here for details: Oviedo. Valencia, Spain, 25–26 September 2025. See link below International Conference Music, Networks and Nationalism: Ideals of Identity in Epistolary Communication XIII Congreso internacional de la Comisión de Música y Prensa / XIII International conference of the music and press commission
Ricard Viñes, Visionary Ricard Viñes (1875-1943) is mostly known as the pianist of the French impressionists. He premiered works by Debussy Ravel, among many others. The Foundation for Iberian Music dedicated a lecture and symposium to him in 2010. You may listen to the event here Now, the New York Philharmonic celebrates the 150 anniversary of Viñes’s friend, Maurice Ravel, which is also Viñes’s 150 anniversary. Click this link for more information. Philharmonic Events David Geffen Hall has mounted a show at its lobby showing, among many other things Viñes’s Diary. This document, among other things, testifies to the authorship of Sémiramis, a Ravel composition premiered now by the Philharmonic that, for a long time, was considered spurious. Interestingly enough, CUNY professor Arbie Orenstein has determined Sémiramis’s authorship based on Viñes’s Diary. There will also be many more events around Viñes, Ravel, and Sémiramis at Albertine and The Morgan Library. Click this link, again, for more information. Philharmonic Events
Antoni Pizà’s The Way of the Moderns: Reviews Antoni Pizà’s The Way of the Moderns: Six Perspectives on Modernism in Music has recently been reviewed in several prestigious publications. Una ópera aperta de la Modernidad_ The Way of the Moderns _ Múrcia i Cambra _ Itamar. Revista de investigación musical_ territorios para el arte Intersections Review Music & Letters Review NOTES Review
Federico García Lorca, Flamenco, and the Harlem Renaissance T h e F o u n d a t i o n f o r I b e r i a n M u s i c at the Barry S. Brook Center for Music Research and Documentation, The Office of Public Programs, CUNY Graduate Center, The Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies, In Collaboration with Flamenco Festival New York PRESENT Federico García Lorca, Flamenco, and the Harlem RenaissanceAn International SymposiumWed, Mar 5 5:30-6:30pm – Skylight RoomCUNY Graduate Center – 365 5th Avenue at 34th StFree; reservations required – gc.cuny.edu/public-programs Before our evening concert with Kiki Morente and Carlos de Jacoba, join Sybil Cooksey, José Javier León, Noël Valis, and moderator K. Meira Goldberg for a free panel discussion about Lorca’s legacy, almost 90 years after his assassination during the Spanish Civil War. A queer poet who drew inspiration from (and continues to inspire) flamenco, rooted in Gitano (Kalé, Spanish Roma, or so-called “Gypsy”) culture, Lorca was also deeply impacted by the Black artists he encountered during his stay in New York at the height of the Harlem Renaissance. Still influential today is Lorca’s concept of duende, a dark and mysterious aesthetic power, which expresses a kind of tragic ecstasy for singer, dancer, and audience. Featuring: Sybil Cooksey, assistant professor at New York University and author of the forthcoming book, The Objective I: Black Life Writing and Inauthenticity in Post-Negrophilia Paris; K. Meira Goldberg, scholar-in-residence at the Foundation for Iberian Music, a flamenco performer and choreographer, and author of the award-winning monograph, Sonidos Negros: On the Blackness of Flamenco; José Javier León, a professor at Centro de Lenguas Modernas de la Universidad de Granada and author of numerous books related to Lorca, including Finding Duende: Imagination, Inspiration, Evasion; and Noël Valis, professor of Spanish and Portuguese at Yale University and author of the award-winning book, Lorca After Life.
Kiki Morente & Carlos Jacoba in Concert T h e F o u n d a t i o n f o r I b e r i a n M u s i c at the Barry S. Brook Center for Music Research and Documentation, The Office of Public Programs, CUNY Graduate Center, The Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies, In Collaboration with Flamenco Festival New York PRESENT LORQUIANOS Wednesday, March 5, 2025 – 7:00 pm – Elebash Recital Hall Kiki Morente and Carlos de Jacoba, two of the most captivating figures in contemporary flamenco, come together to honor the legacy of Federico García Lorca. Kiki Morente, son of the legendary Enrique Morente, carries the profound poetic essence of Lorca in his voice, weaving the words of the great poet into the deep-rooted traditions of flamenco. Carlos de Jacoba, a master guitarist known for his innovative style, complements this journey, blending Lorca’s timeless influence with the expressive power of flamenco guitar. Together, they create a dialogue between flamenco’s rich heritage and the lyrical soul of Lorca, paying homage to the poet’s enduring impact on Spanish culture. This concert will be preceded by an international symposium on Lorca, Flamenco, and the Harlem Renaissance. Presented with Flamenco Festival New York; the Foundation for Iberian Music; the Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies; the Ph.D. Program in Latin American, Iberian, and Latino Cultures; and the Bildner Center for Western Hemisphere Studies.
Sonia Megías, Composer’s Commission 2025 Sonia Megías has been awarded the Foundation for Iberian Music’s Composer’s Commission 2025. Born in Almansa, Spain, in 1982, composer, singer, and multidisciplinary artist, Megías’s works investigate arts through musical notation, which she calls rare scores, and which manifest themselves through video, choreography, and visual arts. They include skirt-scores, edible scores, video-scores, tactile scores, graphic scores, cartographies… She has shown these scores in exhibitions called Mono+Graphics. Her projects aim at social transformation through playfulness and ritual. She has obtained many awards including public the Sonia Megías Classroom (Alicante, 2018), the Sonia Megías Library (Granada, 2022), Ambassador of the Festival ‘Una mirada diferente’ (Centro Dramático Nacional, 2018), or Resident Composer of the Choral Federation of Madrid (2017-2020). Recently, both the National Museum Thyssen-Bornemisza and the Spanish Agency for Cooperation and International Development (AECID) have published documentaries and books about her work. She has also received numerous commissions from Ministry of Culture of Spain and artistic awards and grants such as the Fulbright Grant (New York, 2010-2012), with which I completed a Master’s degree in Music Composition at New York University. In 2011 I created the publishing house EdicionesDelantal and the experimental laboratory CoroDelantal, currently based in Madrid and at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Alicante (MACA).