In celebration of the United States semiquincentennial, DAHA presents a concert of Antonín Dvořák’s renowned chamber works written while visiting Spillville, Iowa in the summer of 1893 – the Op. 96 “American” Quartet and the Op. 97 String Quintet.
Performed by the esteemed Sullivan Quartet and featuring a pre-concert talk by musicologist David Catchpole, the concert is part of Dvořák: The Chamber Music Survey, our multi-year survey of Dvořák’s chamber works exploring his development as a composer for small ensemble, organized by DAHA music advisor and violinist, Laura Jean Goldberg.
The concert and talk will introduce audiences to elements of Dvořák’s American style and his engagement with the aural landscape of the United States. Replete with sonic invocations of American countryside, rail travel, and other musical impressions, Dvořák’s Op. 96 and Op. 97 evocatively express his ideas of musical Americanism as coalesced during his remarkably productive 100 days in Spillville.
General admission: $30; seniors, students: $20. Tickets may be purchased online through Eventbrite or at the door at the time of the event (cash only).
Ticket sales only cover a portion of the programs produced by the Dvořák American Heritage Association, which celebrates its 20th year of public concerts and lectures in 2026. Please consider making a contribution to DAHA.
About
The concert will be preceded by a talk by David Catchpole on Antonín Dvořák’s American works, introducing the audience to key musical moments and historical context, and discuss his impact on American music at America’s 250th through an examination of his ideas on musical nationalism, his own compositions, and those of his students. Dvořák’s pronouncements on American music and his work as a teacher during his three-year tenure at the National Conservatory of Music of America furthered an inclusive idea of American music.
Both at the National Conservatory and at the Prague Conservatory after he returned to Europe, he taught a generation of musicians who would shape American musical culture for much of the twentieth century, such as Harry T. Burleigh, William Marion Cook, and Rubin Goldmark, among others. Dvořák’s embrace of diversity and call to look for America’s music at the margins provides an opportunity to examine how ideas of belonging and identity shaped the creation and reception of music by American composers throughout the twentieth and into the twenty-first centuries.
DAVID CATCHPOLE is a lecturer in Musicology at Texas State University and a Trustee on the board of the Dvořák American Heritage Association. David’s current research focuses on the role of symphonic radio broadcasts in shaping ideas of citizenship and belonging in the United States during the first half of the twentieth century. He has written program notes for the BBC Proms and Austin Cantorum and presented his work at conferences across the United States and internationally, including the American Musicological Society, Society for American Music, and German Studies Association annual meetings. The topics he works on encompass a range of areas, including radio, music and identity formation, twentieth-century opera, Habsburg culture and music around the fin-de-siècle, and Czech-American musical culture in the early twentieth century. His research has been supported by a travel subvention from the American Musicological Society and a Margery Lowens Dissertation Research Fellowship from the Society for American Music.
This event is organized by DAHA with support of the Bohemian Benevolent and Literary Association. The program is supported by a grant from the Coalition of Music Organizations, a voluntary association that provides access to funding and mutual aid. The Coalition is an initiative of the American Musicological Society, a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing our understanding of music.