Philip I. Eliasoph Open VISIONS Forum: Espresso - Lucy Hallman Russell

“When Handel Ba-rocked London”

His singers were costly temperamental Italians, his orchestras played in the French style, and George Frederick Handel (1685 – 1759) created a great to-do while glorifying the German kings of England with spectacles of water music and fireworks music. Parodied by The Beggar’s Opera into bankruptcy, both loved and hated, Mr. Handel found favor with audiences by turning his skills to the biblical oratorio in English, in which everyone could sing along.

Join Lucy Hallman Russell for a fascinating account of 18th-century music traditions, social mores, and controversies surrounding Handel and the Hanoverian kings of England, well before America declared independence from them.

About the speaker:

Sharing her passion for cross-cultural insights is a main feature of the presentations by Lucy Hallman Russell. Born in Alabama, she attained four diplomas in piano, music history, and harpsichord, with additional studies in Italian, art history, pre-history, and archaeology.

After advanced studies in Germany, she has enjoyed a long career as associate professor of music and music history at the Wuerzburg Conservatory and the University of Music Wuerzburg. As a harpsichordist she has performed and taught master classes throughout Europe and in the United States, China, and Russia.

Lucy Hallman Russell loves nothing better than speaking to interested listeners about her familiarity with all things cultural to help them better enjoy their own individual travel experiences. And if you like, just ask her about pre-historic archaeology, finding artifacts on the fields, making stone mosaics, baking Southern biscuits or pecan pie, or the construction of music instruments!