Musicologist Rebecca Marchand, of The Boston Conservatory, will present a lecture entitled “Copland in the Steel Mills: The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra’s ‘Concerts for Industry’” at the West Virginia University Creative Arts Center, Feb. 5.

Sponsored by the WVU School of Music, the lecture will begin at 7:30 p.m. in Bloch Learning and Performance Hall (Room 200A) and is free and open to the public.

Pittsburgh in the 1950s was captivated by the insidious marriage of politics and Hollywood sensationalism that framed steelworkers unions as hotbeds of Communism.

In an attempt to combat this image, the Congress of Industrial Organizations, the United Steelworkers, and the Pittsburgh Symphony joined forces in 1952-54 to present “Concerts for Industry,” taking the orchestra to steel towns in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia. In a risky move, the headliner concert for the series featured Copland’s “Lincoln Portrait,” which had been indicted by both Theodor Adorno in 1951 and Eisenhower’s inauguration committee in January 1953 as an emblem of Communism.

Marchand’s lecture will highlight how this joint effort between industry and symphony used Copland’s work (and Lincoln’s iconic status) to renegotiate the class warfare that had worsened in the scarlet zeitgeist of the Red Scare.

Marchand, who has recently worked on the role of music in labor education and cultural diplomacy during the Cold War period, is currently the president of the New England Chapter of the American Musicological Society.

For more information about the Feb. 5 event, contact Evan MacCarthy, WVU assistant professor of Music History, phone: 304-293-4513, or email EAMacCarthy@mail.wvu.edu.

-WVU-

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