The Gilded Age

CMSCVA invites you to experience the Gilded Age, when ragtime, spirituals, and the Romantic music of Dvořák inspired American music. Step into the elegant and energetic soundscape of America’s Gilded Age—a transformative era where a bold, new musical identity began to take shape. CMSCVA invites you to experience the lively syncopations of ragtime, the exuberant genre that swept a nation, alongside the groundbreaking influence of Antonín Dvořák. It was Dvořák’s American residency that inspired his String Quintet in E-flat major and challenged a generation of composers to embrace African American and Native American roots. We celebrate that legacy through the haunting melodies of H. T. Burleigh, who brought sacred traditions into the concert hall, and the pioneering Amy Beach, who infused European structures with a uniquely American sensibility. Join us for a journey through a glamorous chapter of history, when American music found its true voice and began to resonate across the globe.