Prokofiev in Paris:

Exploring early 20th Century Cultural Networks through Digital Archives

June 18 & 19, 2026

Columbia University Paris Global Center, Reid Hall
4 Rue de Chevreuse, 75006 Paris

Advancing scholarship on Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953), this symposium will draw on digital humanities methodologies and archival innovation to offer new perspectives on his professional activity in France. The symposium will foster dialogue between traditional musicological scholarship and emerging digital humanities methodologies. The period selected for examination – roughly dating from his first connection with France in 1914 until his return to the Soviet Union in 1936,  is arguably one of the most experimental and least understood in Prokofiev’s artistic output. The symposium, therefore, will explore connections with both historical and theoretical topics related to this period. 

• Register for the Symposium here (free)
• Tickets for the Thursday June 18 concert here (€50)
• Tickets for the Friday June 19 concert here (€20)

Thursday June 18 – Grand Salle

9-9:15am Symposium Welcome & Opening Remarks

9:15-11am – Panel 1 – Prokofiev’s Musical Networks (Chaired by Nelly Kravetz) 

• Laetitia Le Guay-Brancovan Prokofiev dans l’espace social parisien : entre cercles russes et salons 
• Alexandra Magazin Prokofiev and Triton: Rewriting the Map of Parisian Modernism
• Harlow Robinson Serge Prokofiev And Serge Koussevitzky In Paris: Concerts Symphoniques Serge Koussevitzky (1921-28)
• Kristin Van den Buys Bridging Cultures: Prokofiev in Brussels (1923-1936).
  Russian-Belgian Musical Correspondence and Modernist Networks 

11:15-12:15pm – Panel 2 – Performing Prokofiev (Chaired by Inessa Bazayev)

• Yihan Jin Forging a Piano-Virtuoso: Prokofiev’s December 1924 Paris Recital
• Viktoria Zora The composition, publication and early performance history of Prokofiev’s First Violin Concerto

12:15-1:45pm – Lunch [own arrangements]

1:45-3:15pm – Keynote by Nicolas Moron  (Chaired by Christina Guillaumier)
« Toutes les lettres que je dois écrire m’étouffent » Itinéraires méthodologiques et herméneutiques autour de l’édition numérique d’un déluge épistolaire.

3:30-5:30pm – Prokofiev’s Letters as Data: A DH Workshop for Music Studies – led by Natalia Ermolaev and Antonina Puchkovskaia
Salle de Conférences

7:30pm  – Recital featuring Svetlana Sozdateleva, Evez Abdulla an Sergei Dreznin – Grand Salle

Svetlana Sozdateleva (soprano)
Evez Abdulla (baritone)
Sergei Dreznin (piano)

Serge Prokofiev
Selected scenes from The Fiery Angel

Bertold Brecht – Kurt Weill
The Seven Deadly Sins (abridged)

Friday June 19  – Salle de Conférences

10-11:30am – Panel 3 – Prokofiev’s ballets (chaired by Inessa Bazayev)

• Philip Bullock “Where is le Borysthène? Rethinking the Ballets Russes”
• Vito Lentini “Le fils prodigue: esthétique et anthropologie d’un commencement et d’une fin en danse” 
• Giuseppe Montemagno “Giuseppe Montemagno : « Entre le pathétique et la fantaisie burlesque » : Le Fils prodigue et la collaboration avec Boris Kochno” 

11:30am -1:30pm – Lunch [own arrangements]

1:30-2:30 – Panel 4 – Reinterpreting Prokofiev’s Early Works 
(Chaired by Nelly Kravetz)

• Nuno Lucas “Designing Chout: A Study of Compositional Progress and Architecture”
• Shiori Kikuma Exploring “Oriental” features in Prokofiev’s White Quartet via Stravinsky’s The Nightingale 

2:45-3:45pm – Panel 5 – Prokofiev and the Rachmaninoff Conservatory 
(Chaired by Christina Guillaumier)

• Elena Rovenko Les archives du Conservatoire Rachmaninoff comme reflet de la vie culturelle de la communauté émigrée dans les années 1920–1930
• Arnaud Freilly (presented by Erwan Barillot) Prokofiev in his Parisian walls. The Rachmaninoff Conservatory

4-5pm – Plenary- Prokofiev studies in the 21st Century
Nicolas Moron, Christina Guillaumier, Natalia Ermolaev, Inessa Bazayev, Nelly Kravetz & Gabriel Prokofiev

7:30pm –  Concert – Grand Salle

Event sponsors include the  Serge Prokofiev Foundation, the Columbia University Rare Book and Manuscript Library, and the International Centre for Contemporary Music.