Singing like Germans: Black Musicians in the Land of Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms

At the Academy, Thurman will work on her first book project, “Singing like Germans: Black Musicians in the Land of Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms.” Based on archival research in Germany, Austria, and the United States, she traces the history of black classical musicians in Central Europe from the 1870s to the 1960s. Germans and Austrians located their national identity in music, Thurman argues, championing musicians such as Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms as national heroes. But the presence of black musicians performing the works of “great German masters” complicated audiences’ understandings of national identity—and who had the right to express it. Thurman traces the lives, careers, and reception of musicians such as the Jimenez Trio, an Afro-Cuban ensemble who performed Mendelssohn in 1870s Leipzig, pianist Hazel Harrison, who performed with the Berlin Philharmonic in 1904, contralto Marian Anderson, a celebrity in 1930s Austria, conductor Rudolph Dunbar, who led the Berlin Philharmonic in initial concerts after WWII, and Grace Bumbry, who in 1961 became the first black singer to perform at the Bayreuth Festival. By examining the transatlantic history of black musicial migration to Central Europe, Thurman’s book asks how racial identities are reinforced or challenged through musical performance and reception. When did people see the categories of blackness and Germanness as completely separate, and when did they see these categories as malleable? The book takes an interdisciplinary approach to the question Central Europeans debate today—Is it possible to be black and German?—by asking: What has it meant to be black and to perform Germanness?