Brahms and His Contemporaries Lecture

FREE and open to the public! 

As part of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra's 2016 Brahms Festival, Brahms biographer and official festival Scholar Jan Swafford will speak about Brahms and those friends on whom he lent great influence and vice versa. These include Georg Henschel, a friend and protégé and the first conductor of the Boston Symphony. A rarely discussed topic, Henschel consulted with Brahms a good deal when he took the job in Boston. The lecture will be held in the Allesee Gallery of Culture, and guests may browse the museum collection following the talk.

Jan Swafford is an accomplished composer and well-known writer on music. He is the author of biographies of Ives, Brahms, and Beethoven. His journalism appears regularly in Slate. He is a long-time program writer and preconcert lecturer for the Boston Symphony and has written notes and essays for the orchestras of Cleveland, Chicago, San Francisco, and Toronto. Visit janswafford.com to view the composer's full biography.