Stop the Bells Tolling

Join us for a dramatic concert of befores and afters, as The Publick Pleasure explores changes in Philadelphia’s musical landscape caused by the city’s Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793. Concert life, performers, impresarios and musical tastes in Philadelphia underwent profound shifts as the population fled the city, and ordinary life ground to a halt. The city’s own soundscape changed, with church bells silenced and gunpowder exploded in the streets. This concert will include texts from period newspapers and personal accounts of 1793 as companions to musical compositions from before and after Philadelphia’s “unhappy calamity.” Music will be performed on instruments of the period.