Chicago Studies @ UChicago · Episode 3: Chicago on the Aisle - Claudia Cassidy’s Music Criticism and Legacy
This episode features an interview with Hannah Edgar ('18) whose B.A. thesis involved archival research on the life and work of Chicago critic Claudia Cassidy. The sources for their archival research included Claudia Cassidy’s original papers held at The Newberry as well as transcriptions of oral interviews at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. An admirer of Claudia Cassidy's writing, Hannah said this quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson describes Cassidy's style well: "Speak what you think today in hard words and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said today."
Hannah is a former editor for Chicago magazine and now works as a freelance humanities researcher and writer, with bylines for The Chicago Reader, The University of Chicago Magazine, WFMT, Symphony Magazine, and the Miami Herald. They were a Rubin Institute for Music Criticism Fellow in 2018 and a Bang on a Can Summer Institute Media Fellow in 2019. “Chicago on the Aisle: Claudia Cassidy’s Music Criticism and Legacy” is being adapted into a book, press and publication date pending. Hannah was born in Walnut Creek, California, and they currently live in Chicago with their very chatty cat.
The full paper is available here.
After listening, we hope you'll join us for a related event:
- The Art of Biography, a Chicago Studies Conversation with Nora Titone of The Court Theatre and Will Hansen of the Newberry Library.