The Greatest Jubilee: American Music and the 1893 Chicago World's Fair

FAIN: TR-50359-12

API Arts and Outreach, Inc. (New York, NY 10010-6903)
Daniel Anker (Project Director: August 2011 to January 2023)

Production of a documentary film on the development of American music over the course of the 19th century that focuses on music performed at the 1893 Columbian Exposition.

THE GREATEST JUBILEE will be a 90-minute film, intended for national broadcast, that tells the story of the music at the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The focus is on three seminal figures in American musical life: Theodore Thomas, John Philip Sousa, and Scott Joplin. The Exposition took place at a vital time in the life of the country, a political and technological crossroads. Less well-known is the story of the music there. The fair formed a moment of transition for American music: it began to become clear that "classical" music was evolving on a separate course from the larger music marketplace; at the same time, new kinds of popular music found a wider audience. That summer in Chicago, you could hear the sounds of American music for the century to come.