Conference Agenda

In Lisette: A Song’s Journey from Haiti and Back, Jean Bernard Cerin and Nicholas Mathew trace the circuitous history of “Lisette quitté la plaine,” the oldest surviving song text in early Haitian Creole, arranged several times between the 1750s and the 1940s. This lecture-reictal explores the rich history of elite and vernacular music in colonial Saint Domingue and traces a song, originally famous in a slave-holding society, changed in meaning as it found a new place in Black communities in Louisiana and, subsequently, modern Haiti. Beside and in dialogue with “Lisette,” the program features operatic literature from early Haiti, anthem parodies from the Haitian Revolution and the American Civil War, and virtuosic keyboard music from Louisiana and modern Haiti.