American Voices: Lost and Found

About this event

An exhibition in celebration of American musical life and the 250th Anniversary of the American Revolution

American Voices: Lost & Found explores the music that was present at the dawn of the United States. Home to one of the largest collections of historic musical instruments in the country, Sigal Music Museum is well-positioned to present an exhibition that gives visitors a front row seat to the beginnings of our musical history.

Anchoring the exhibition is the 1775 Berent Piano, the first piano commercially built and sold in the New World. Also on view is Queen Charlotte’s personal harpsichord, crafted by Jacob Kirkman in 1761 and played by the young Mozart, an instrument that arrived from Britain much later and stands in striking contrast to the Berent. Together, these two keyboard instruments illuminate the story of the Revolution both visually and musically. The exhibition also features a Loud & Bros. square piano (1824), presented to General Marquis de Lafayette during his celebrated return to America after a forty-year absence, along with early American woodwinds and rare imported European instruments.

In a meaningful parallel, American Voices: Lost & Found also explores the rich traditions of Gullah music, presented in collaboration with a guest artist working with the Joyner Institute of Gullah Studies at Coastal Carolina University. This section, together with material devoted to Indigenous musical traditions of the period, offers visitors a broader and more nuanced perspective on the intersection of music and history during the nation’s formative years.

To present a fuller picture of musical life in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the exhibition also examines the role of music within Cherokee communities that continued to inhabit the Upcountry during this era. Concerts, lectures, and educational programs will complement the exhibition’s themes throughout the nine-month run of American Voices: Lost & Found .

From Sigal Music Museum