is honored to announce
the Winner of the
16th Marfield Prize
for outstanding writing
about the arts in 2021 to
Kira Thurman
author of
“Singing Like Germans:
Black Musicians
in the Land of Bach,
Beethoven, and Brahms”
Ms. Thurman will receive $10,000
as the Marfield award winner for 2021.
“Grace Bumbry glittered in gold. The African American soprano glided around the set of the Bayreuth Festival Theatre, shimmering under a dim glow of light filtered through laced netting that flooded the stage in gentle waves. Playing the role of Venus in the nineteenth-century German composer Richard Wagner’s 1845 opera, Tannhäuser, Bumbry sparkled with each turn, embodying the tempting seductress she had been cast to perform, singing of love and lust to an enraptured audience of nearly two thousand listeners, including international dignitaries, high-ranking classical musicians, music critics, and socialites.
What my book demonstrates is that by virtue of what they performed, where they performed, and how they performed it, Black classical musicians consistently challenged their audience’s ideas of Blackness, whiteness, and German national identity. White German and Austrian listeners frequently assumed that the categories of Blackness and Germanness were mutually exclusive. Yet Black performances of German music suggested that these typologies were not as fixed as listeners had been conditioned to expect. Audiences, I demonstrate, oscillated between seeing Black classical musicians as rightful heirs and dangerous usurpers of Austro-German musical culture.”
book cover by Cornell University Press
photograph by Leisa Thompson
Kira Thurman Kira Thurman is an assistant professor of History and German Studies at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. A classically-trained pianist who grew up in Vienna, Austria, she writes about music, the Black diaspora, and German-speaking Europe. Her essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Point magazine, and The New Yorker.
Photo by Michael Turpin
Picture was taken at the Library of Congress on Thursday, June 9th, 2022, during a recording session for Grace's podcast The Poet and the Poem.
The Marfield Prize Committee would like to thank all volunteer readers, both Club members and community members, who generously gave their time and insights to read and rate dozens of books that were considered during the initial phase of the 2021 Marfield Prize.
The Marfield Prize or the National Award for Arts Writing is given annually by the Arts Club of Washington to the author of a nonfiction book about the visual, literary, media, or performing arts. Established to generate broader interest in the arts among general readers, the award celebrates prose that is clear, eloquent and inspiring, creating a strong connection with the arts and artists. Books are judged by a distinguished independent panel of judges. First given in 2006, the prize's endowment was established by a devoted and generous Arts Club member Jeannie S. Marfield.