Stephen Hinton in Germany

Stephen Hinton is the Avalon Foundation Professor in the Humanities at Stanford University, professor of music and, by courtesy, of German. His principal research focuses on Western music from the classical period through the present, and he has a particular interest in the works of Joseph Haydn, Ludwig van Beethoven, Paul Hindemith, and Kurt Weill. His areas of specialization include Viennese classicism, romanticism, the culture of the Weimar Republic, and exile studies. His book, Weill’s Musical Theater: Stages of Reform, an in-depth survey of Kurt Weill’s complete stage works, received the Kurt Weill Prize in 2013 and was recently published in a revised German edition (2023). Having grown up in London, Professor Hinton was fortunate to have had such early musical experiences as singing as a chorister in various churches and opera houses in the U.K. and playing viola in the London Schools’ Symphony Orchestra.

Professor Hinton’s very first visit to Germany was a school exchange in the state of North-Rhine Westphalia, where he spent time in Aachen and Ahrweiler. After graduate study in Berlin in the early 1980s, he taught for a decade at that city’s University of Technology. During our program, Professor Hinton will discuss the cultural origins of Rhine Romanticism and provide in-depth introductions to the music we will be hearing. In his words, “I much look forward to sharing my passion for German culture—the language, literature, and music—as well as my appreciation of the region's fine Rieslings.”