The year 2019 was the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the death of Ignacio Jerusalem y Stella (1707–1769), chapel master of the Mexico City Cathedral from 1750 until 1769. There were three conferences held to mark this occasion. The first took place in November 2019 in Mexico City and the second in Baeza, Spain in December. In March 2020 I had the opportunity to attend and present a paper at the third of these, a conference held at Florida International University's Modesto A. Maidique Campus.

On Thursday 5 March we were warmly welcomed to campus by the organizers of the conference, Javier Mendoza and David Dolata. Mendoza set the tone by giving his opening comments in both English and Spanish. Throughout the conference, papers were given in one language or the other, sometimes partially translated; this did not pose a problem, as most of the attendees spoke both languages. The welcome was directly followed by a talk by Suzanne Stratton-Pruitt (Thoma Foundation), who gave a virtual tour in images of the Mexico City Cathedral and discussed its history.

The second session comprised two remote presentations, one from Mexico and one from Spain. Lucero Enríquez Rubio (Musicat, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México) spoke on a topic similar to that of Stratton-Pruitt but connected the visual arts to the musical at the time of Ignacio Jerusalem. Unlike the painters, whose guild employed a master–apprentice system, musicians in this time and place had no such organization and no one to advocate for the rights and concerns of the younger generation of practitioners. Javier Marín López (Universidad de Jaén) took a more concrete approach to Jerusalem, looking at issues surrounding his biography and revelations about the discography performers have now created.

The presentation by German Labrador (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid) was one of the highlights of the conference. He discussed the history of the ‘breve teatro’ – short, intermezzo-style comic pieces – in Madrid, specifically works by the author and composer Blas de Laserna (1751–1816). The focus of his talk was El poeta escribiendo un melólogo (The Poet Writing a Monologue), a piece about writer's block and the ways in which the poet tries to continue his work. The talk was divided into two halves: the first half was about the piece and its nested settings of opera, play and author's bedroom, while the second half concerned a twenty-first-century recreation of the work that Labrador himself had helped direct. Even though not everyone in the present audience was fluent in Spanish, it came across quite well, showing that some humour definitely transcends the boundaries of language.

Luciana Kube Tamayo (Florida International University) gave a paper about the use of nature and natural elements in the work of early eighteenth-century composer Manuel de Sumaya (1678–1755). Craig H. Russell (emeritus, California Polytechnic State University) gave an entertaining paper entitled ‘From Heavenly Stars to the Foot of the Cross: Music and Drama in Mexico's Conservatorio de la Rosas’. Russell, in his typical jubilant fashion, jumped quickly from pop-culture reference to political jab so as better to prove his points regarding the musical style of the two pieces he analysed.

Thursday night featured the first of three public concerts associated with the conference. Florida International University's Collegium Musicum, directed by Juvenal Correa-Salas, gave an enjoyable performance of music from Mexico dating from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. As an audience member associated with the conference, I would have preferred to hear more than one piece by Jerusalem. Still, the works were enjoyable and left the audience requesting an encore.

The following day, the conference began with a presentation by Paul Feller (Northwestern University) on villancicos from Santiago de Chile, and their prevalent use of dance types and rhythms such as the pastorella. Miriam Escudero (Universidad de La Habana) gave a paper on three composers who travelled from Spain to Cuba, and finally to Puebla, Mexico. The first of the three examples, Joaquín Ugarte (died 1778), was especially interesting because of the discovery of a letter that he wrote to his wife while in Cuba updating her on his situation there. Gustavo Sánchez (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid) discussed his research on Gaetano Brunetti (1744–1798) and his project of recording all of Brunetti's symphonies. This is a large undertaking for the more than forty symphonies because Sánchez is also making modern performing editions of them.

Three further papers comprised the afternoon session. My own paper (Dianne Lehmann Goldman, Columbia College Chicago) examined the presence and prevalence of Jerusalem's musical sources at the Basilica of Guadalupe in Mexico City. Faith Lanam (University of California Santa Cruz) then gave a paper provocatively entitled ‘Behind Closed Doors’, which was similar to Javier Marín López's in that it took a primarily biographical approach; however, Lanam also discussed the composer's daughters, especially Micaela. She incorporated the most up-to-date information about where Jerusalem studied (Naples) and worked (Ceuta, a Spanish city in northern Africa), a topic that had been discussed at the Baeza conference, and included much historical background about the Mexican institutions, such as the convents of Belém and Vizcainas, where Micaela Jerusalem spent much of her life.

Finally, Drew Edward Davies (Northwestern University) finished the academic portion of the day by refocusing on Jerusalem himself and the style of his works. He gave an overview of where Jerusalem's compositions can be found today and how they came to be in those locations. More importantly, however, Davies called into question the practice of applying the work concept to the composer's liturgical pieces, since in many cases the ‘piece’ underwent layers of adaptation to make it serviceable to successive generations of cathedral musicians, even far into the nineteenth century.

Florida International University's Concert Choir, directed by Maria Guinand, and the Encantus Choir, directed by Maibel Troia, gave a spirited and well-rehearsed performance of a broad range of music from New Spain. As on the night before, the audience demanded an encore, which the performers happily gave.

On the final day, free time in the morning allowed attendees to reflect on the papers, discussions and concerts of the first two days, and to take in local sights. The penultimate academic portion of the conference, commencing mid-afternoon, featured another presentation by Russell, this being a lecture-recital consisting of pieces written during the eighteenth century and played on the baroque guitar. This prepared us for the final event of the conference, a roundtable discussion which attempted to answer the question ‘now what?’. After three large, successful international conferences on Ignacio Jerusalem, how do academics and performers proceed to put his music into the mainstream but also give it the specialized attention that it deserves? Several thoughts were put forward, including that there needs to be more access to modern editions of his music, that conferences such as this one should take place more often and that academics from both sides of the Atlantic should keep in better touch. While no conclusions were reached, it was a sociable way to end the discussion part of the conference.

The Chicago Arts Orchestra, directed by conference co-organizer Javier Mendoza, travelled to Miami to give the final concert. Unlike the other two concerts, this programme focused exclusively on Jerusalem's music. Drew Edward Davies and Carol Damian (Florida International University) gave the pre-concert lecture; Damian focused on the immensely rich architecture and visual art to be found in the Corpus Christi Chapel, where the concert was held, while Davies focused on what the audience would be hearing during the concert. Mendoza also spoke in between the pieces. Several of the pieces that the group performed are available on their latest recording, Ignacio Jerusalem, Mass in G ‘de los niños’: Galant Music from Mexico City (Navona Records NV6274, 2020), the second in their series featuring Jerusalem's music. The concert was repeated the next day.

Overall, the conference was an excellent event, with few problems except for an over-ambitious air-conditioning system. It was a great time to socialize with colleagues, see old friends and make new connections in the field. We were very lucky to have the conference when we did. In early March, the travel worries and restrictions in connection with Covid-19 had not yet set in, and everyone who was scheduled to travel did so with relative ease. (By the following week many countries had restricted domestic and international travel.) It is hoped by many attendees that this will be the first version of an annual conference on Jerusalem, or at least a regular event, whether in person or online.