Keynote by Juan José Carreras (University of Zaragoza)

Colégio Almada Negreiros

Room 219

Liberalism, as a political ideology and economic doctrine, shaped the 19th century. It set a new framework for commercial relationships, transformed social structures, and supported a new legal regime. Liberalism contributed to the development of representative democracy and the establishment of the modern nation-state. Its implementation in the Iberian Peninsula went hand-in-hand with the profound transformation of relationships between metropoles and colonies. Moreover, its establishment was uneven and discontinuous.

The liberal context fostered profound changes in musical life. The crumbling down of the structures associated with the ancien régime gave way to a new production system. Music, transformed into a commodity, became fundamental in new forms of sociability that developed in salons and theatres. Participation in voluntary societies reached unprecedented heights. New musical genres emerged with these transformations while a market for musical goods, where European and Atlantic spaces met, developed transnationally.

To highlight the importance of this process, CESEM and SPEMI organize a symposium that aims to examine the relationships between music and Liberalism in the Iberian Peninsula and Latin America through multiple perspectives.

Scientific Committee: Luísa Cymbron, João Silva, Alberto Hernández Mateos.

Download program here.