The Barry S. Brook Center for Music Research and Documentation

🏖️Summer reminder! 🌞

Nominations remain open for the 2026 Barry and Claire Brook Award, recognizing outstanding scholarship in global music history.

We welcome nominations of monographs, dissertations, and collaborative collections that explore music through migration, mobility, transculturation, circulation, and other interconnected historical and cultural perspectives.

📅 Eligible works must have a 2025/26 copyright date
📅 Submission deadline: 1 September 2026

Learn more and submit a nomination:
https://brookcenter.gc.cuny.edu/.../the-2026-barry-and.../

Please share with colleagues, publishers, and institutions who may wish to nominate exceptional work.

Did you know that Music in Gotham continues the groundbreaking work of music historian Vera Brodsky Lawrence? Her monumental trilogy Strong on Music (1836–1862) opened a window onto New York’s vibrant 19th-century musical life through the diaries of George Templeton Strong.

When Lawrence passed away before completing her study, musicologists Adrienne Fried Block and John Graziano took up the torch, expanding her vision into the digital age. With support from the Barry S. Brook Center, the NEH, and the Baisley Powell Elebash Endowment, they built a searchable database documenting every known musical performance in New York City between 1862 and 1875.

Today, Music in Gotham stands as a living archive of America’s musical past, freely accessible to scholars, students, and music lovers everywhere.

Explore the database: www.musicingotham.org

How RILM began The idea for RILM, as its founder Barry S. Brook later reflected, originated in 1964 from the belief that “the alternative to automation was inundation”. The idea was first publicly pre…

The full proceedings of Voicing Innocence: Trauma, Memory, and Contemporary Opera in the Work of Kaija Saariaho are now fully digitized and available to watch.

From keynote conversations to interdisciplinary panels, revisit the ideas, questions, and exchanges that shaped two remarkable days at the CUNY Graduate Center—or experience them for the first time.

▶️ Watch the complete playlist on the Brook Center YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLznFJbNzkNK-czh_9jUEBxwZ25wRVfhOK

Free, accessible, and open to all—because these conversations deserve to keep resonating.

And if you haven’t yet experienced Innocence live, there’s still time to see The Metropolitan Opera's powerful production before it closes on April 29—take the conversation from the screen to stage.

Voicing Innocence: Trauma, Memory, and Contemporary Opera in the Work of Kaija Saariaho Voicing Innocence is an international public conference that explores how music and sound give voice to trauma, vulnerability, and ethical responsibility in ...

Yesterday, Voicing Innocence brought together an extraordinary community of scholars, artists, and listeners to engage deeply with Kaija Saariaho’s Innocence—its artistry, its questions, and its urgency. The conversations were rich, thoughtful, and resonant well beyond the room.

And we’re not done yet.

Join us today as we close the conference with a special concert celebrating Saariaho’s work with electronics—an immersive program that extends the themes of the conference into sound.

Featured Performers:
Tuija Hakkila - harpsichord and piano
Hannah Collins - violoncello
Joann Whang - violoncello
Olga Heikkilä - soprano

This evening also marks the opening of the Overdrive Festival, and the Brook Center is thrilled to partner with them to bring this concert to life.

🎶 Come be part of the closing moments of Voicing Innocence—and the opening energy of Overdrive.
Learn more: https://overdrive.nyc/

Electric Bohemian: Flamenco and the Arts in Greenwich Village (1950s-1970s) K. Meira Goldberg and Elijah Wald in ConversationThis event was recorded live on February 25, 2026.Flamenco scholar K. Meira Goldberg and cultural historian ...

Now streaming live: Voicing Innocence (Day 2)

Brook Center for Music Research and Documentation Live Stream Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

Now streaming live: Voicing Innocence (Day 1)

Brook Center for Music Research and Documentation Live Stream Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

We went to Innocence—here’s what happened.

Ahead of Voicing Innocence, conference participants assembled at The Metropolitan Opera for the dress rehearsal of Kaija Saariaho’s Innocence.

We asked them what they expected going in—and what stayed with them after.

▶️ Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joLSJIik43U

Tomorrow, the conversation begins in earnest. Join us!

The Brook Center attends the dress rehearsal for Innocence Filmed at The Metropolitan Opera House, Lincoln Center 3 April 2026Co-produced by Jackie Santos and Julia Viegas Special thanks to our interviewees! Tina Frü...

💻Can’t join us in NYC? You can still be part of the conversation.

The Voicing Innocence conference will be livestreamed on YouTube, making this important international dialogue on trauma, memory, and contemporary opera accessible wherever you are.

🗓 7–8 April 2026
🕘 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM (EDT)
🔗 Watch live here: https://www.youtube.com//streams

Follow the full program live, wherever you are.