Language Where Languages End with Jeremy Eichler

This talk by Jeremy Eichler was delivered on Friday, October 17th, 2025 at the 17th annual fall conference on JOY: Loving the World in Dark Times at Bard College. With discussant Leon Botstein.

Jeremy Eichler is the John McCann Assistant Professor of Music History and Public Humanities at Tufts University. His book Time’s Echo: Music, Memory and the Second World War received the Ralph Waldo Emerson Award as well as three National Jewish Book Awards including “Book of the Year.” It was also named “History Book of the Year” by The Sunday Times and hailed as “the outstanding music book of this and several years” by the Times Literary Supplement.

Eichler served for 18 years as chief classical music critic of The Boston Globe, and his writing has also appeared in The New York Times and The New Yorker. In 2024-25, he served as the first Writer-in-Residence of the London Philharmonic Orchestra. For more information, please visit www.jeremy-eichler.com.

Leon Botstein is president and Leon Levy Professor in the Arts of Bard College. Founder of Bard High School Early College, Dr. Botstein put into practice a vision of high school as a public space where young adults, with the guidance of a college level faculty, explore their intellectual potential.

He has published widely in the fields of education, music, and history and culture and is the author of several books including Jefferson's Children: Education and the Promise of American Culture, and editor of The Compleat Brahms and The Musical Quarterly. He is the music director of the American Symphony Orchestra and The Orchestra Now (TŌN), and conductor laureate and principal guest conductor of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, where he served as music director. He is the founder and artistic co-director of the Bard Music Festival. His work has been acknowledged with awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Harvard University, government of Austria, and Carnegie Foundation. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2011.

He is also music director and principal conductor of The Orchestra Now (TŌN) and the American Symphony Orchestra, artistic co-director of the Bard Music Festival. Botstein is editor of The Musical Quarterly and writes on music and culture.

Learn more about the conference at https://hac.bard.edu/joy-2025