Sean Gower is a PhD Candidate in Music History at the University of Pennsylvania. His research explores music and global exchange during the nineteenth century, focusing particularly on musical exchanges between elites in France and the Spanish Americas. His dissertation studies musical salon gatherings or tertulias in nineteenth-century Mexico City, asking how these musical gatherings adapted and disseminated ideals related to beauty, political community, selfhood, gender relations, friendship and social intimacy, and secularization and religion. The dissertation thus shows how a city outside of Europe was crucial to the spread of romanticism and the widespread craze for salon gatherings. Sean Gower’s other interests include mental health theories of the past and their impacts on composers; the history of the piano; operas of the last fifty years; and the compositions of Pauline Viardot and Frédéric Chopin.
Sean Gower is also active as a pianist, lecture recitalist, music critic, and translator. He maintains an interest in engaging public audiences, and has presented lectures and recitals at venues such as the Maryland Public Libraries and the Music in the Pavilion Series at Penn’s Kislak Center. He previously served as the editorial assistant to the Journal of the American Liszt Society (2018-2019). He holds two degrees from the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, a Master’s in Musicology, and a BA in Music with concentrations in Piano Performance and Musicology.