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The Schiller Institute was founded at a conference in Wiesbaden, Germany, in 1984, and a second conference in Washington, D.C., in 1985, by Helga Zepp LaRouche, along with her husband, the controversial American figure Lyndon LaRouche, and American Civil Rights movement leader Amelia Boynton Robinson. According to its published goals, the Institute seeks to apply the ideas of poet, dramatist and philosopher Friedrich Schiller to the contemporary world crisis, emphasizing in particular Schiller's concept of the interdependence of classical artistic beauty, and republican political freedom, as elaborated in his series of essays entitled Letters on the Aesthetical Education of Man.
In 1988 the Schiller Institute initiated a campaign to return to the so-called "Verdi tuning" in the world of classical music, so called because it was Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi who originally waged a battle to stop the arbitrary rising of the pitch to which orchestras are tuned. The "Verdi tuning" is one where C=256HZ, or A=432HZ, as opposed to the common practice today of tuning to anywhere from A=440 to A in the 450+ range. Many prominent singers and instrumentalists actively campaigned for the Schiller Institute's proposal, including several who performed recitals for the Institute to demonstrate the different quality of the Verdi tuning, compared with contemporary tuning. These included Norbert Brainin, former First Violinist of the Amadeus Quartet, and the following vocalists: William Warfield (baritone), Carlo Bergonzi (tenor), and Piero Cappuccilli (baritone). Other well known vocalists who endorsed the initiative include Shirley Verrett (soprano), Joan Sutherland (soprano), George Shirley (tenor), Luciano Pavarotti (tenor), Sherrill Milne (baritone), Fedora Barbier (mezzosoprano), Grace Bumbry (soprano), Elly Ameling (soprano), Peter Schreier (tenor), Birgit Nilsson (soprano), Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (baritone), Kurt Moll (basso), Marilyn Horne (mezzosoprano), and Ruggero Raimondi (basso).