The Friends of the Madison Library will offer one summer minicourse entitled “The Classical Era” presented by Dr. Robert Butts in the Chase Room of the library. The class begins on Tuesday, May 30th, and will run five consecutive Tuesday mornings in May and June from 10:00 am - 11:30 am in the library’s Chase Room. Registration opens May 8th.

The Classical era refers to the period 1750-1820 and is sometimes called The Age of the Enlightenment. Composers such as Franz Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Ludwig van Beethoven created the modern ideas of concertos, symphonies, opera, chamber music, and even the concept of what is an orchestra and what is a public concert. While the music of those three composers continues to dominate the music world, many other composers were active, popular, and influential, including Antonio Salieri, Leopold Kozeluch, The Chevalier de Saint Georges, and many others. It was also a time of great change marked by the American and French Revolutions as well as the Napoleonic years. The primary centers of music, artistic, and social change were Vienna, London, and Paris.

Dr. Robert Butts has won acclaim as a conductor, composer, and educator. He is the director of the Baroque Orchestra of NJ, now in its 26th season. He teaches/lectures at Montclair State University, the Caspersen School of Graduate Studies at Drew University, NJ Council for the Humanities, and Saint Elizabeth University. He has conducted major orchestra and opera performances throughout NJ and the US, as well as guest appearances in Romania, the Czech Republic, Russia, Italy, and England. Dr. Butts received his M.A. in Musicology from the University of Iowa with a specialty in 17th and 18th-century music and a D.M.A. in conducting from the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago. He also studied conducting at Julliard with Maestro La Selva.