SC Talk: Jeffrey L. Stokes, Faculty of Music, Western, “Beethoven and the Commercialization of Maezel’s Metronome”

Speaker: Jeffrey L. Stokes, Faculty of Music, Western

Introducer and Host: Jim Gurd

Title: “Beethoven and the Commercialization of Maezel’s Metronome”

Abstract: For a few years after 1812, the paths of a great celebrity composer and a truly gifted entrepreneur crossed in Vienna, at just the perfect moment during an epochal culture shift, to make for a sudden transformation in musical practice. This talk tells the story of marketing Maelzel’s Metronome, its intersection with Beethoven biography, and the implications for the performance and pedagogy of music since.

Bio: Jeffrey L. Stokes studied double bass (with Oscar Zimmerman, Principal Double Bass in Toscanini’s NBC Orchestra) and musicology at the Eastman School of Music of the University of Rochester. He subsequently took a PhD degree in musicology at the State University of New York at Buffalo.

First appointed to the Faculty of Music of The University of Western Ontario in 1970, he became Director of Graduate Studies in Music in 1984 and served as Dean from 1986 to 2000. During 2010-11, he briefly returned to administration as Acting Chair of Music Performance Studies. Professor Emeritus since 2015, in retirement he continues to undertake occasional research, performance, and consulting projects, but mainly composes and arranges for an amateur brass ensemble, in which he plays euphonium, one of his childhood instruments.

The link to register is https://forms.office.com/r/J81AX8eZ5U.

The Zoom link will be sent to registrants only.