The Salon of Madame Brillon: Music and Friendship in Benjamin Franklin’s Paris

Musicologist and historical keyboardist Rebecca Cypess invites you into the musical world of Anne-Louise Brillon de Jouy (1744–1824), a composer and keyboardist whose reputation extended throughout Europe and across the Atlantic. Before the French Revolution, her salon was one of the most fashionable and glittering in Paris; Benjamin Franklin was a regular guest there and one of Brillon’s most intimate friends. But Brillon—like so many women—has been all but erased from musical history. Using her little-known manuscripts and her extensive correspondence with Franklin and other leading intellectuals of the Enlightenment, Cypess explores Brillon’s tastes and the music she inspired. You’ll hear samples from Cypess’s forthcoming CD In the Salon of Madame Brillon, which will feature world-premiere recordings of Brillon’s music.