One of Florida State University’s noted authorities on music is available to answer media questions and comment on the 200th anniversary of Francis Scott Key’s writing of “The Star-Spangled Banner” on Sept. 14, 1884.

U.S. soldiers raised the American flag after their victory at the Battle of Fort McHenry, a crucial win over the British in the War of 1812. After 25 hours of bombardment in Baltimore, the sight of the flag’s “broad stripes and bright stars” inspired Key to write a poem that would officially become the national anthem in 1931.

•Charles E. Brewer, professor of historical musicology in the College of Music: (850) 644-6403; [email protected]

Brewer is a specialist on music in the early Americas and is particularly interested in the intersections of politics, religion and music during the period of the American Revolution, especially as found in the works of the composer and mechanic, William Billings of Boston. He is the author of “Protestant Church Music in England and America” in the “Cambridge History of Eighteenth-Century Music.”

“The flag that flew over Fort McHenry has become a visual icon of our country,” Brewer said. “The melody used by Francis Scott Key for his poem ‘Defense of Fort McHenry’ has become our sonic icon. It was originally titled ‘The Anacreontic Song’ and was written by John Stafford Smith in 1775 for a gentlemen’s music club in London. Retitled ‘The Star-Spangled Banner,’ the combination of this popular song with Key’s evocative lyrics started a transformation so that anyone in the world now hearing that melody, at a baseball game or the Olympics, will think only of the United States of America.”

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