Alix Boivert

For several years, I have been exploring the popular repertoires of the British Isles in the eighteenth century. Over the course of my research, one question has become unavoidable: what became of these musics when they crossed the Atlantic with the first settlers and took root in a new territory in the making?

My project is to follow this musical migration to the North American colonies, where these repertoires encountered other traditions and began to transform. I want to trace this history through printed collections, manuscripts, street songs, newspapers, instruments, and archives preserved in major American institutions, but also through more modest, sometimes peripheral sources that offer alternative perspectives on these circulations.

I am not simply seeking to identify melodies or lines of transmission. What interests me is the process of transformation itself. How does a Scottish tune become an American song? How do dance practices evolve? What exchanges take place between Anglo-Irish traditions, African musical cultures, and the practices of Indigenous peoples?

Through these questions, the gradual emergence of an American musical identity begins to take shape, long before it was given that name.

This residency will above all be a period of observation and research. Upon my return, this material will form the basis of a new concert program with my ensemble, The Curious Bards, combining previously unpublished pieces, historical arrangements, and performances on period instruments, some of which may be reconstructed from models studied during the journey. The project will also result in a recording.

Rather than simply reconstructing the past, I want to tell a story of circulation, cultural mixing, and transmission, in which music becomes a sensitive witness to the movements of history.

For me, the United States represents less a destination than a new point of departure. For several years, I have been studying European popular music before it left for the New World; it is now time to follow its journey to the territory where it would profoundly change in character.

Boston, New York, and Washington, D.C. form the three essential stages of this research. In Boston, I want to trace the earliest evidence of repertoires brought to the colonies through printed collections, dance manuals, and early American musical editions. New York interests me for the cultural diversity that characterized the city as early as the eighteenth century: it offers a privileged setting in which to observe encounters between traditions brought from Europe and local practices. Finally, Washington, D.C. holds exceptional collections that will allow me to study instruments, their construction, and the practices surrounding them.

Beyond heritage institutions, this residency offers an opportunity to engage in dialogue with those currently working on these questions: curators, researchers, instrument makers, musicians, and programmers. I want to bring my perspective as a European musician into conversation with theirs and enrich my research through these exchanges.

The 250th anniversary of American independence gives this investigation a particular resonance. At a moment when the country is reflecting on its history, I want to return to one of the narratives that has accompanied it since its origins: that of a music born from encounters, movements, and cultural mixing, whose echoes continue to cross the Atlantic.