Midway between entertainment and ritual, during the Ancien Régime meals accompanied by music became a social must and symbol of power, a veritable mark of elite status. While the ritual royal banquets helped establish the dazzling image of the divine Monarch, the changes brought about by the Age of Enlightenment and new social factors encouraged the elite to shape the courtly model into a mark of social prestige.                              

The issue of music in this table ritual, although essential, has been barely studied.  Going beyond the different forms of Table Music, this multidisciplinary seminar will contextualize the repertoires, practices, venues, ceremonials and mechanisms in order to better understand the nature, function and forms of the music played at such court and social rituals. By gaining insight into how table music complied with imposed strategies, the study sessions will conduct further research into court and high society performances and their audiences under the Ancien Régime.