May 8, 2021 John Burkhalter of Princeton University: “The Jaguar Speaks: Making Music in Maya Art (In Memory of Elin Danien)”
It has been over fifteen years since the Princeton University Art Museum hosted the important exhibition “Music from the Land of the Jaguar”. In the intervening years our understanding and increasing awareness of the various and complex role music and dance played in the highly stratified Maya society has been augmented by further iconographic study of artistic depictions of musicians in Maya art and resolute analysis of musical artifacts. This talk explored these and related themes.
John Burkhalter has lectured extensively on the ancient cultures of the Americas including presentations at Princeton, Rutgers, Drexel, Yale universities, The Chrysler Museum, Mint Museum, and the Worcester Art Museum. He studied the performance of early music at the New England Conservatory of Music and Baroque performance practice at Harvard with the renowned Dutch recorder virtuoso, scholar, and conductor Frans Bruggen. He has composed and prepared music for film, video , and audio projects produced by NJN, Encyclopedia Britannica, PBS / WNET-13, Antennae Audio, The Walters Art Museum, The Museum of Fine Arts Boston, as well as for the following exhibitions: “Maya Monuments – Rise and Fall” at the Newark Museum, “River of Gold” and Elin Danien’s exhibition “Painted Metaphors” both at the Penn Museum, and “Golden Kingdoms” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Mr. Burkhalter was the co-curator with Gillett G. Griffin of the Princeton University Art Museum exhibition “Music from the Land of the Jaguar.”
A note about Elin Danien: John dedicated his presentation to the memory of Dr. Elin Danien, one of the founders of the Pre-Columbian Society, a Maya scholar, a Museum administrator instrumental in creating and organizing the Penn Museum’s Maya Weekend meetings, and the founder of Bread Upon the Waters, a scholarship program at Penn that allows women over 30 to complete their college educations. You can read about Elin Danien here.
If you would like to contribute to her worthy scholarship fund, you can do so here: https://socialfundraising.apps.upenn.edu/socialFundraising/jsp/fast.do?&fastStart=customTemplateByNameOrId&customApplicationNameOrId=bread