EMAP presents: Lafayette's Fiddlers (3pm)

In November 1824, the Marquis de Lafayette visited his dear friend Thomas Jefferson in Charlottesville. His visit was heralded with great fanfare, including a grand banquet at the Rotunda on the grounds of the University of Virginia. The Scott family fiddlers, of Black and Indigenous heritage, provided the musical entertainment for this event.

Early Music Access Project will commemorate the 200th anniversary of Lafayette’s visit to Charlottesville and Monticello with two free concerts inside The Rotunda on Sunday, November 10, 2024. Based on his research as a fellow of the International Center for Jefferson Studies, EMAP artistic director David McCormick has curated a program that includes music that may have been played for the occasion and French songs that Lafayette and Jefferson admired. 

Five east coast musicians will take the stage, all experts in 18th and 19th American music: baroque violinists David McCormick and Carmen Johnson-Pájaro, historical clarinetist Dominic Giardino, double bassist Sam Suggs, and fiddler and vocalist Rebecca Scout Nelson. An actor will portray three Black historical figures who left written accounts of Lafayette’s visit.