Dante's birth musically marked in Philadelphia

The 750th anniversary of Dante's birth in 1265 will be celebrated by the Center for Italian Studies and the Department of Music at the University of Pennsylvania with an international conference on "Dante and Music" to be held in Philadelphia November 5-6, 2015. 

According to Dante music expresses the divine order of the «Cosmos». «L’armonia che temperi e discerni» (Paradiso, I, 78) is the divine tuning of life whose multiple bodies are harmonized like notes. Conversely, disharmony evokes the absence of the divine.  In poetry, music is able to produce different meanings and visions of the world from the «dolce» sound of «stilnovo» to the «aspre e chiocce» effects of the «rime petrose».

The fascinating theme of music in Dante engages also the theme of music after Dante. How did Dante inspire musicians and how were his works put to or translated into notes? Furthermore, since Dante’s own music is made of words, what kind of verbal styles in the poetic tradition from the Middle Ages to the present refer or contest Dante’s choices?

Program here. Links to more conference info on the site.