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Lectures
Musicology Distinguished Lectures (Winter 2013)
The Univ. of Michigan Department of Musicology is delighted to announce the full schedule for the 2012-2013 Distinguished Lecture Series. All talks are scheduled on Fridays at 5pm. Most will be held in 506 Burton Memorial Tower (the Curry Lecture will be held in Thayer). We look forward to seeing you at these special events starting this fall.
Thursday, January 24, noon, Space 2435 North Quad
"'Yongdong Nongak': Mountains, Music, and the SamulNori Canon"
Professor Nathan Hesselink (University of British Columbia)
Sponsored by the Nam Center for Korean Studies, Co-sponsored by the Departments of Musicology and Asian Languages and Cultures
This presentation outlines the compositional development of the piece “Yŏngdong Nongak” for samul nori ensemble. Based on fieldwork conducted with Kangnŭng Nongak during the summer of 2006, I describe the process by which a regionally based, communally oriented group dance performance was transformed into a smaller scale, presentational, and musically focused event for the concert-hall stage. The primary goals of this project were to bring a long overdue appreciation to the yŏngdong region and its musical practices, and to stimulate a revival of new works written for the traditional percussion quartet while building on the established canon.
Friday, February 1, 5:00 PM, 506 Burton Memorial Tower
“And the Colored Girls Go….: African American Women Vocalists and the Sound of Race, Gender, and Authenticity in Rock and Roll”
Professor Maureen Mahon (New York University, Music)
This paper addresses the experiences and musical style of African American women such as P. P. Arnold, Merry Clayton, Venetta Fields, and Doris Troy who brought their gospel-trained voices to hard rock during the late 1960s and 1970s. Their interracial, cross-gender collaborations with artists such as David Bowie, Elton John, Lynryd Skynrd, Pink Floyd, the Rolling Stones, and Neil Young highlight the intersection of race, gender, authenticity, and romanticized notions of "black sound" among artists and fans.
Friday, February 15, 5:00 PM, 506 Burton Memorial Tower
"Royalty, Celebration, and Attribution in a Fourteenth-Century French Motet"
Professor Anne Robertson (University of Chicago, Music)
The tumultuous period in France surrounding the fall of the Capetian dynasty and the rise of the Valois line in 1328 is documented in French literature, music, and art. One musical witness to this fascinating time is the motet Servant regem / O Philippe [Ludovice] / Rex regum, preserved in the Roman de Fauvel. Heretofore unrecognized features of this piece place the motet squarely in the category of royal entrance motet. The tenor has a particularly interesting story to tell, too; its melody reveals that the composer hails from northeastern France and strongly suggests that this person is Philippe de Vitry.
Friday, February 22, noon, North Quad Room 2255
"Digitizing 170 Years of the New York Philharmonic Archives"
Barbara Haws (New York Philharmonic) and Michell Brodsky (Digital Archives)
The New York Philharmonic Archives has just completed the first phase of a three-year project to digitize 1.3 million pages of archival material and make it freely available over the web. The Archivists will discuss the project’s overall planning; how former intellectual controls were leveraged; onsite digitization workflows; copyright; and lessons learned and assumptions revised.
Co-sponsored by the Department of Musicology and the UM School of Information
Friday, February 22, 5 PM, 506 Burton Memorial Tower
"When Worlds Collide: Leonard Bernstein, Racial Barriers at the Philharmonic, and the Black Panthers
Barbara Haws (New York Philharmonic)
In a five-month period in 1969, Leonard Bernstein had to defend himself against charges of racial discrimination in hiring at the New York Philharmonic and attacks that he was aiding the Black Panthers. Pulled from original sources in the Philharmonic’s Digital Archives, this paper will focus on what was behind these events and how Bernstein and the Philharmonic responded.
Co-sponsored by the Department of Musicology and the Interdisciplinary Music Forum
Friday, March 22, 5:00 PM, 506 Burton Memorial Tower
"Operatic Staging in Paris in the 1780s as Seen through the Eyes of a Cellist in the Orchestra"
John Rice (University of Michigan)
During the 1780s a cellist at the Opéra known only as Monsieur Hivart served as an agent for the opera-loving Russian nobleman Nicholas Sheremetev. Hivart's letters to Sheremetev, preserved in the Russian State Historical Archive in St. Petersburg, contain valuable eyewitness accounts about how opera was staged in Paris. After briefly discussing Sheremetev's activities as a patron of opera and his relations with Hivart, this paper will focus on what Hivart's letters tell us about the first production of Salieri's Les Danaïdes, one of the most successful French operas of the 1780s.
Friday, April 12, 5:00 PM, Cady Room of Stearns Building
Lecture-recital on Beethoven's Diabelli Variations
William Kinderman (University of Illinois)
Ethel V. Curry Distinguished Lecture in Musicology
In addition to lectures offered by visiting scholars, the Musicology Department boasts an endowed lecture series, created by H. Robert Reynolds in honor of his mother, Ethel V. Curry.
Friday, April 5, 5:00 PM, 202 S. Thayer (room 2022)
"Progressive Modernism: Left-Wing Politics and Twelve-Tone Music"
Professor Anne C. Shreffler (Harvard University, Music)
Left-wing politics in the 20th century is usually associated with tonal, accessible styles, while dodecaphony is seen to occupy a more elitist, establishment position. Many composers, including Hanns Eisler, Ruth Crawford Seeger, Stefan Wolpe, Wladimir Vogel, and Wallingford Riegger, viewed advanced music as going hand in hand with progressive politics, especially during the 1930s. In discussing some examples, I offer an alternate view to the prevailing historiography, as well as addressing the complexities involved in linking music and politics at all.
Interdisciplinary Music Forum
IMF is a Rackham Interdisciplinary Workshop that fosters conversation among faculty and graduate students who work with music in their research. Lectures are open to all, and workshops are intended for graduate students. For more information, please contact Patrick Parker (parkerp@umich.edu) or Leah Weinberg (Musicology; leahwein@umich.edu).
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