Souvenir Music from the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893

The Wilmette Public Library will present “Souvenir Music from the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893” on April 7 at 2:00 p.m. During this musical performance, a trio of Lake Forest College faculty members will play pieces that were written as sheet music for World's Fair visitors to purchase as musical “souvenirs.” The music reveals the way the Fair’s visitors understood and remembered their experience and also provides a form of time capsule of American life at the end of the 19th century.

Baritone Brad Jungwirth, violinist Kate Carter, and pianist Chris White will perform at the program, and Professor of Music Donald Meyer will supply commentary. All are faculty at Lake Forest College.

According to Prof. Meyer, “The Chicago World’s Fair of 1893 is justly celebrated as a key moment in the cultural life of the city and the nation.” Prof. Meyer continues to explain that “music
played a significant role at the Fair, both in the Exposition proper and on the Midway, from the officially sanctioned orchestral concerts by the new Chicago Symphony Orchestra and others, to the various cultural ensembles and street musicians on the Midway and beyond.”

“Americans received their first taste of musical exoticism (at the World’s Fair),”Prof. Meyer says, (…and) most visitors regarded these sounds as ‘cacophonous’ rather than musical, but a door had been opened to a wider world of musical experience, and it would never be closed again.”

The event is free and open to the public and part of the Wilmette Public Library’s One Book, Everybody Reads series, which is featuring Rosellen Brown’s historical novel, The Lake
on Fire, this spring. The book takes place in Chicago at the time of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition. Visit www.wilmettelibrary.info/onebook or call (847) 256-6930 for more information.