Drawing on her experience as a classically trained pianist who grew up in Vienna, Austria, Thurman traces the sweeping story of Black musicians performing in Germany and Austria over more than a century in her book, Singing Like Germans: Black Musicians in the Land of Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms.

As musicians like Marian Anderson and Grace Bumbry broke barriers on stage and in concert halls, they found opportunities in German-speaking Europe that were denied to them in the Jim Crow-era U.S. In doing so, they also challenged categories of Blackness and Germanness and complicated the public's understanding of how music is tied to racial and national identity.

This event will include a book-signing, offered in partnership with Elliott Bay Book Company.