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At the Wilton Library
With 2020 being Dave Brubeck’s centennial year, his son Darius will kick off the lecture series with an overview of the panorama of Dave’s life in music over several decades.
Born in 1920, Dave’s art and philosophy were decisively influenced by his experiences in the 1940s as a GI in World War II. Success and recognition came in the 1950s and, beginning with John F. Kennedy in 1960 and up to Barack Obama in 2009, nearly every President invited Dave and Iola Brubeck to the White House. Focusing on the flow of history, Darius has divided the century into decades using presidential terms as milestones and then has folded in major themes in Dave’s work. In his late career, Dave was perceived as a world figure representing a universal, yet typically American, brand of idealism.
During the 1970s, pianist and composer Darius Brubeck toured the world with Two Generations of Brubeck and The New Brubeck Quartet (Dave, Darius, Chris and Dan Brubeck). He moved to South Africa in 1983, where he initiated the first degree course in Jazz Studies offered by an African university, eventually founding the Centre for Jazz and Popular Music at the University of KwaZulu-Natal where he taught until 2005. He continued performing internationally with many great South African musicians. He is now based in England and performs worldwide with The Darius Brubeck Quartet and Brubecks Play Brubeck.
The moderator is Steve Hudspeth.
Register for this lecture here.
In the thirteenth year of the collaboration between Wilton Library and the Wilton Historical Society, the scholarly lecture series will focus on the theme, “Jazzed Up: The History of Jazz in America.” The series locations are Wilton Library (137 Old Ridgefield Road, Wilton) and the Wilton Historical Society (224 Danbury Road, Wilton).
The series is sponsored by the Charles Schwab Corporation. The media sponsor is The Wilton Bulletin. Informal receptions follow each talk. There is no charge, but donations are always welcomed. Registration is required for each lecture individually.