Summary: Music permeates our lives. It's always with us - via the radio, smart phones, TV commercials and films, even streamed into malls and restaurants. Technology has made it easy to put music in the background. The goal of this lecture is to bring it front and center again. Professor Celenza shows how music doesn't simply reflect culture, it can change it. She highlights three musical masterpieces that, each in their own way, changed America for the better. A 1930s ballad that fueled the need for the Civil Rights movement, a 1980s pop album that influenced American foreign policy, and a recent musical that that forced us to reassess history. Anna Celenza is the Thomas E. Caestecker Professor of Music at Georgetown University. She is the author of several books, including "Jazz Italian Style: From Its Origins in New Orleans to Fascist Italy and Sinatra." In addition to her scholarly work, she has served as a writer/commentator for NPR's Performance Today and published eight award-winning children's books, among them "Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue" and "Duke Ellington's Nutcracker Suite." She has been featured on nationally syndicated radio and TV programs, including the BBC's "Music Matters" and C-Span's "Book TV."
