K. Dawn Grapes Lecture

Thursday, October 23, 2025 at 6:00pm CDT

Vail Chapel

Associate Professor of Music History at Colorado State University, K. Dawn Grapes specializes in the music of early modern England and music history pedagogy. She is the author of John Dowland: A Research and Information Guide and Dowland, featured in Oxford University Press’s Composers Across Cultures series, as well as the “John Dowland” entry for Oxford Bibliographies. 

Tears of Joy: Celebrating 400 years of John Dowland

When lutenist John Dowland was laid to rest on February 20, 1626, his reputation was already cemented as the most internationally successful English musician of his day. Composer of more than 200 identified songs, lute solos, and instrumental consort pieces, the sixty-two-year-old court lutenist left behind five published musical anthologies, including the best-selling songbook of the sixteenth century, as well as a translated theory text. Versions of his music are found in hundreds of manuscripts across Europe. His travels through Denmark, France, and the Italian and German lands laid the foundation for a delightfully cosmopolitan musical style, recognized both at home and abroad. Dowland’s most iconic work was the tune Lachrimae, which he himself reset in multiple arrangements throughout his lifetime. Each setting portrays a different facet of Dowland’s life and career. This multi-media lecture honors this remarkable musician through an examination of his signature composition, how the piece reflected his unique personality within the culture of Elizabethan-Jacobean England, and his music’s reception over the four centuries since his death.

Explore the Evelyn Dunbar Memorial Early Music Festival