Music Iconography International Conference Antoni Pizà, Director of the Foundation for Iberian Music, presented a paper at the 23rd International Conference of the Association Répertoire International d’Iconographie Musicale (RIdIM) in collaboration with the Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien (mdw) [Vienna, 29-31 Aug 2024]. The conference was entitled Laughing your staves off: irony, satire, and parody in visual representations and narratives of music Antoni Pizà’s paper, “Mocking Gambara: Balzac’s use of musical instruments as attributes of madness” examines Balzac’s novella Gambara (1837). The book recounts the story of a young aristocrat who, while trying to pursue a woman, meets her husband, a composer and instrument maker “suspect of being insane.” Paolo Gambara is by all accounts either a genius the world might one day acknowledge or, conversely, a wacky, failed artist. The text presents instances that could support both interpretations. As the story advances, however, it becomes clear that Gambara is, by far, a ludicrous charlatan, who in addition to his “mastery” (possibly ironical) of intricate music theory terminology, has also invented a preposterous musical instrument, the panharmonicon. In Balzac’s narrative, instruments, and especially the panharmonicon, are attributes that help characterize the madness, absurdity, and derangement of Gambara. Instruments are also signifiers of failure, demise, and social descent. Gambara, indeed, ends up impoverished and working as a busker on the streets of Paris playing a modest guitar. Balzac’s choice of instrument to create a parody of a mad and failed genius, the panharmonicon, is rather baffling. The real Panharmonikon was a mechanical instrument, which included a broad palette of orchestral timbers, and it was intended for serious, even “scientific,” purposes, not as a ludicrous contraption, as Balzac presents it in Gambara. Invented by Johann Nepomuk Mälzel (1772–1838), Beethoven wrote for it the original Wellington’s Victory, op. 91 (1813). Paralleling Gambara’s ironic deployment of music theory verbiage, Balzac’s panharmonicon is a satirical version of Mälzel’s original Panharmonikon. An early engraving illustrating Gambara depicts it as a comical keyboard instrument, which at times doubles as a bed and perhaps a coffin. Both instruments, the real and the fictional, Mälzel’s and Gambara’s, however, have in common their celebratory attitude of parody and satire through cacophony, loudness, madness, and nonsense.
Rossini’s La Veuve Andalouse: Two More Reviews Rossini’s song La Veuve Andalouse edited by Antoni Pizà and María Luisa Martínez both of the Foundation for Iberian Music has been recently reviewed by Revista de Musicología (Sociedad Española de musicología) and Música, Revista del Conservatorio Superior de Música de Madrid. See below: 03 NUMERO 30 RCSMM web DEF MoralesVillar-ROSSINIOFFENBACHEN-2024
GSIM Conference and the Brook Center 27th Annual Graduate Students in Music Conference (GSIM) held April 12 and 13, 2024. Conference information, including the program and registration information, can be found on the GSIM website at https://gsim.commons.gc.cuny.edu. Some members of the faculty and researchers at the Brook Center are participating in the events, including Antoni Pizà, director of the Foundation for Iberian Music. See below or click here for the full program. GSIM 2024 Program – April 8 +++++++ Professor Kristi Hardman, UNC Charlotte“Considering Ethics in Music Theory and Analysis:What, Why, and How.”Keynote SpeakerSponsored byGRADUATE STUDENTSIN MUSIC CONFERENCEThe 27th AnnualApril 12, Virtual | April 13, HybridRooms 5414 & 5409GSIM 2024 Conference Co-ChairsRebecca Moranis and Joseph VazGSIM 2024 CommitteeAnnie BeliveauJuliana CatininSophie DelphisVlad PraskurninMaurice RestrepoMadison SchindeleBenjamin SchweitzerJi Yeoung SimJong SongAlice (Bai) XueAcknowledgmentsThe GSIM Committee would like to thank the Doctoral andGraduate Students’ Council (DGSC) and the Graduate Center MusicDepartment for their generous financial support of this event. Specialthanks go to Professor Kristi Hardman for accepting our invitationto be the keynote speaker and to Professors Poundie Burstein,Agustina Checa, Yayoi Uno Everett, Antoni Pizá, Stephen Spencer,Mark Spicer, and Joseph Straus for serving as session chairs. Finally,we would like to extend great thanks to the music department,including Executive Officer, Norman Carey, Assistant ProgramOfficer, Tonisha Alexander, and College Assistants, Patrice Eatonand Michael Degregoria, for their assistance and support.ProgramGSIM 2024 – Program and AbstractsFriday, April 12, 2024All times are in Eastern Daylight Time.1:30–3:00 Cultural LandscapesChair: Prof. Antoni Pizá“From Folk to Art Music (and Back Again):Ideological Shift and Identity (Re)Constructionin Yoruba Art Music”Sunday Ukaewen (Harvard University)“Asian and ‘Extraordinary’: Young ConcertArtists (YCA), Concert Artists Guild (CAG), andthe Claim to Classical Music”Audrey Chen (CUNY Graduate Center)“Laughter Through Tears: The Uncanny in TheGovernment Inspector”Piper Foulon (University of Michigan)3:00–3:15 Break3:15–4:45 The Hidden and Overt in Rock andHardcoreChair: Prof. Mark Spicer“Backward Masking and Eerie Intentionality in1980s Anti-Rock Discourse”Philip Bixby (Yale University)“The Glass Closet: Emotional Hardcore, SocialStereotypes, and ‘Hidden’ Queerness”Edward Stewart (University of Ottawa)GSIM 2024 – Program and Abstracts“Biting Through It: Maximalism asHeaviness—Car Bomb & Oneohtrix PointNever”Varun Kishore (University of Virginia)4:45–5:00 Break5:00–6:00 Analysis of Vocal MusicChair: Prof. Joseph Straus“Wistful Remembrance Amidst Wartime: Poeticand Musical Syncretism in Huang Zi’s 黄自‘Homesickness 乡思’ (1932)”Michelle Lin (Harvard University)“The Elektra Chord…Resolves? UnderstandingRichard Strauss’s Chromaticism throughHalf-Step Voice Leading and Schoenberg’sVagrant Chords”Reed Mullican (Indiana University)6:00–7:00 Dinner Break7:00–8:00 Music Theory: Past and FutureChair: Prof. L. Poundie Burstein“Alfabeto, punto, and diapasón: The Guitar as anInstrument of Music Theory in 17th centuryIberia”Juan Saenz (McGill University)“Practice What You Teach: Implementing aSOTL-Informed Music Theory Curriculum”Brendan McEvoy (Michigan State University)GSIM 2024 – Program and AbstractsSaturday, April 13, 202410:00–10:30 Breakfast and Registration (Room 5409,5th Floor)10:30–12:00 Social and Environmental JusticeChair: Prof. Augustina Checa“Sounding Silence: Acoustic Ecology and theOntological Turn”Mark Mahoney (Cornell University)“Reframing the Avant-Garde(n): An Examinationinto Arts for Art’s InGardens Festival”Elizabeth Frickey (New York University)“Defying Patriarchal Lutherie: The Impact ofWomen/Enby Collectives and Higher PublicEducation in South America”Rubens de la Corte (CUNY Graduate Center)12:00–12:30 Lunch (Room 5409, 5th Floor)12:30–2:00 Views on AnalysisChair: Prof. Yayoi Uno Everett“Doming Lam’s Innovation in 20th centuryChinese Orchestral Music – A case study of‘Autumn Execution 秋決(1978)’”Hippocrates Cheng (Indiana University)GSIM 2024 – Program and Abstracts“Form and Structure in Bushmen Music”Alice (Bai) Xue (CUNY Graduate Center)“Dialogues of Sound from Three DifferentWorlds: Timbral Analysis of Zhou Long, TheIneffable”Yani Tan (CUNY Graduate Center)2:00–2:15 Break2:15–3:45 Memory, Topic, and TropeChair: Prof. Stephen Spencer“‘Treasured Memories’: The Re-Imagined Pastin Video Game Music”Pamela Mason-Nguyen (University of California,Santa Barbara)“Inversional axes and embodiment of historicalmemory in ‘Figlia’ from Suzanne Farrin’s Dolce laMorte”Jacob Wilkinson (Indiana University)“The Beyhive, Orientalism, and ‘Arabic Scales’”Lee Thomas Richardson (University of MassachusettsAmherst)3:45–4:00 Break4:00–5:00 Keynote Presentation“Considering Ethics in Music Theory andAnalysis: What, Why, and How”Prof. Kristi Hardman (The University of NorthCarolina at Charlotte)5:00–5:45 Reception (Room 5409, 5th Floor)GSIM 2024 – Program and AbstractsAbstractsGSIM 2024 – Program and AbstractsAbstractsCultural LandscapesChair: Dr. Antoni PizáFriday, April 12, 1:30–3:00 PM“From Folk to Art Music (and Back Again): Ideological Shiftand Identity (Re)Construction in Yoruba Art Music”Sunday Ukaewen (Harvard University)In this paper, I examine the identity construction process of Yoruba artmusic composers. While scholarship has extensively explored identity withinthe music itself, the strategies employed by individual composers to navigatethe tension between artistic vision and cultural affiliation remainunderstudied. Through Akin Euba’s (2001) concept of “signification,” Ianalyze the works of composers like Ayo Bankole, Bode Omojola, andEuba himself, who utilize text or textual elements as a tool formeaning-making. Informed by existing literature (Frith, 1996; Omojola,2012; Agawu, 2023), I define identity construction in music as the act ofcomposers inscribing their lived experiences within their compositions. Mycentral argument is that the disparity between Western notions of individualartistic vision and the more communal nature of Yoruba cultural identitypresents a challenge for composers seeking self-expression whilesimultaneously creating music with an aura familiar to their local audience.To substantiate this argument, I trace the historical shift from Yoruba folkmusic to art forms, focusing on the period before, during, and afterEuropean missionary and colonial encounters in Yorubaland. This analysishighlights the lasting influence of European hymns on Yoruba musicalthought. Following this, I delve into the negotiation process employed bycomposers to (re)construct their identities within the context of Yoruba artmusic. In conclusion, I propose that these composers’ negotiations do notrepresent a simple return to a pre-colonial past. Instead, they carve a novelGSIM 2024 – Program and Abstractsspace that acknowledges both Western and Yoruba artistic ideologies,remaining open to ongoing engagement with external influences.“‘Asian and ‘Extraordinary’: Young Concert Artists (YCA),Concert Artists Guild (CAG), and the Claim to Classical Music”Audrey Chen (CUNY Graduate Center)Despite increasing Asian representation in the classical music field, Asiansmusicians continue to face a myriad of negative stereotypes about theirplaying and personality. In this paper, I pose the following question: how doyoung musicians of Asian descent construct their musical identities andcareers within these influences? I focus my inquiry on two pillars of youngartist management in classical music, Young Concert Artists (YCA) andConcert Artists Guild (CAG), two organizations that handpick“extraordinary young musicians” for their roster and provide them withconcerts and career guidance. Through close readings of their websitematerials and interviews with young musicians on their rosters, I argue thatYCA and CAG steer musicians of Asian descent to construct their musicalidentities in differing ways, both with problematic consequences. YCAupholds a meritocracy and presents Asian musicians as unique andcompelling performers despite their racialized backgrounds, but they oftenfail to acknowledge how race influences musical self-presentation, whichmakes tackling issues of representation and racism within the field difficult.On the other hand, CAG views artists holistically, but their over-emphasison identity and marketing contribute to “race-making” and“creativity-signaling,” pushing artists of color to play into their ethnicbackgrounds or engage in cross-genre collaborations to achieve similarlevels of distinction to other CAG artists and within the field at large.GSIM 2024 – Program and Abstracts“Laughter Through Tears: The Uncanny in The GovernmentInspector”Piper Foulon (University of Michigan)In 1926, Vsevelod Meyerhold staged Nikolai Gogol’s The GovernmentInspector at his eponymous theatre in Moscow. Gogol’s farce of provincialintrigue was thoroughly reimagined by Meyerhold and his company: thestaging employed major redactions and rearrangements and Gogol’s five-actstructure was dispensed of in favor of fifteen episodes. The final scenefeatured mannequins which seamlessly replaced the living actors, suggestingunnerving questions about identity and sentience. The composer for theproduction, Mikhail Gnesin, hoped to elicit “laughter through tears” withhis score, a comment that suggests that the creative team sought a decidedlyambivalent reception to their deliverance of a beloved classic.My paper analyzes this production through the lens of the uncanny anddefamiliarization. The uncanny is defined in this context as theuncomfortable and sometimes humorous collision of the familiar andunfamiliar, as theorized by Sigmund Freud, Martin Heidegger, andKatherine Withy. I further situate the sonic uncanny in this historicalmoment and place through the work of Viktor Shklovsky, acontemporaneous Russian critic and theorist, who wrote on the process ofdefamiliarization in literature and art and attended a performance of theplay himself. In particular, I analyze the suite that Mikhail Gnesin wrote forthe final episode of the play, which features parodic imitations ofcosmopolitan dance music and introduces Klezmer elements as a so-called“alienating” element.This production of The Government Inspector, and its accompanying score, is asymptom of a larger aesthetic trend in Russia in the 1920s, catalyzed by theupheaval and cultural anxieties of bloody revolution and rapidindustrialization. Exploring this work, consequently, induces broaderrevelations about the cultural landscape of revolutionary Russia, as well asuncanniness in music in general.GSIM 2024 – Program and AbstractsThe Hidden and Overt in Rock and HardcoreChair: Prof. Mark SpicerFriday, April 12, 3:15–4:45 PM“Backward Masking and Eerie Intentionality in 1980sAnti-Rock Discourse”Philip Bixby (Yale University)Several years before the Parents’ Music Resource Center shined a nationalspotlight on the apparent dangers of rock lyrics, California politician PhillipWyman proposed a bill targeting one of the newer bugbears of the anti-rockmovement: backward masking. A backmask is an ostensible linguisticmessage on a recording that can only be consciously perceived when thatrecording is played in reverse. Wyman and his supporters argued that themusician was responsible for backmasked messages, secretly placing themon albums in order to subliminally influence listeners. But in conservativeevangelical anti-rock discourses, an alternative theory was emerging.Evangelical writers such as Jacob Aranza, Jeff Godwin, and the Petersbrothers contended that musicians’ intentions had little to do withbackmasked messages, because backmasks were actually the sonic traces ofdemonic forces working outside of the musicians’ awareness.Through a discourse analysis of several evangelical anti-rock texts from the1980s, I argue that this spiritualization of the backmask partially develops inresponse to the historical issue of Christian rock’s emergence as amainstream phenomenon in the 1970s. I then explore how theories ofbackmasking lay bare a broader philosophical issue: the contentious role ofthe artist’s intention in the beholder’s formulation of aesthetic judgments.Backmasks certainly resemble language, but they seem to require theascription of intention in order to be rendered meaningful. In my readingsof philosophers such as Monroe Beardsley and Stanley Cavell, I show howthe evangelical account of backmasking provides one of the best contextsfor working through the problematic concept of intentionless meaning.GSIM 2024 – Program and Abstracts“The Glass Closet: Emotional Hardcore, Social Stereotypes,and ‘Hidden’ Queerness”Edward Stewart (University of Ottawa)Although lyrics of emotional expression and acceptance are thematic to thisgenre, Emotional Hardcore (colloquially known as Emo) notably has queerartists hiding their true self due to societal customs. Artists of Third WaveEmo (1999-2008), such as Pete Wentz and Gerard Way, hid their queernessin plain sight through heteronormative presentation; creating a “glasscloset” to provide deniable plausibility to their lyrical content. They adoptedthis “hidden” strategy because of societal pushback against queerness byoutsiders, such as the hyper-masculine Hardcore genre andconservative-leaning members in the media (Payne, 2022). Due to suchpressures, the societal idea of Emo is surface-level, which undermines thecomplexity of Emo and its ideologies. These expectations have continuedthroughout media, as well as scholarship (Ryalls 2013; Peters 2010), leadingto a narrowed mindset of what Emo is and whom it represents. In thiswork, I aim to disprove the stereotype of Emo; that being it is only for andabout “straight, white, middle-class, cis-men.”To do so, I explore the “hidden” queerness within the lyrical content of twoof the largest Emo bands of the 2000s: My Chemical Romance and Fall OutBoy. I analyze the lyrics to demonstrate how the artists draw upon anddevelop common Emo themes, such as body issues, relationship heartaches,and a desire for social acceptance in order to present a queer narrativewithout explicitly declaring their own identity as such. Through my analysisand contextualization of the songs “G.I.N.A.S.F.S.,” “Mama,” and “TheEnd,” I illuminate how the lyrics display queer expression and resist againstsocietal expectations presented by the media. This study thus adopts a queerperspective in relation to previous scholarship in Emo music and genderexpression (de Boise 2014; Carillo-Vincent 2013) for this significant popularmusic genre.GSIM 2024 – Program and Abstracts“Biting Through It: Maximalism as Heaviness—Car Bomb &Oneohtrix Point Never”Varun Kishore (University of Virginia)Through an analysis of Car Bomb’s “Dissect Yourself ” and Daniel Lopatinaka Oneohtrix Point Never’s “I Bite Through It”, I approach two vastlydifferent (on the surface) genres of music through the lenses of maximalismand heaviness, with the goal of highlighting maximalist tendencies in thecomposition, performance, and production of these musics as acontributing factor to their perceived “heaviness”. Can non-metal music beconsidered “heavy”? What exactly are “maximalist tendencies”? I proposethat in this particular interaction between metal and experimental electronicmusic, it is possible to read maximalism as heaviness.Pioaru notes that while the term “maximalism” has been used freely “ todescribe certain cultural productions characterized by an aesthetic ofexcess”, there has been little rigorous study of maximalism as an aestheticcategory, leaving one to simply infer meaning from context. This refrainexists in writing about maximalism in literature, architecture, and music,resulting in a diffuse web of attributes that are ascribed to maximalist worksin these fields. Heaviness (like maximalism) is a term that is oftengeneralized, and employed diffusely. While it is assumed that fans andscholars of metal music know what it signifies, Herbst and Mynett point outthat “no comprehensive definition or systematic understanding of musicalheaviness exists”, proposing that heaviness derives from the relationshipsbetween its constituent compositional, performance, and productioncomponents.In this paper, I explore these ephemeral attributes as an overlapping set ofextremes—of amplitude, spectral information, density of musicalinformation in time, time itself, production techniques, compositionaldevices, detail—that collectively contribute to the overall“maximalism”—and therefore “heaviness”—of the work.GSIM 2024 – Program and AbstractsAnalysis of Vocal MusicChair: Prof. Joseph StrausFriday, April 12, 5:00–6:00 PM“Wistful Remembrance Amidst Wartime: Poetic and MusicalSyncretism in Huang Zi’s 黄自‘Homesickness 乡思’ (1932)”Michelle Lin (Harvard University)Written in 1932 and set to poetry by compatriot Wei Hanzhang 韦瀚章,Huang Zi’s “Homesickness 思乡” (sī xiàng) is a lyrical and longing balladefor voice and piano, in which the poet and speaker yearns to return to hishometown during Japan’s invasion of China. Though composed in the styleof a nineteenth-century Viennese art song, “Homesickness” is not only rifewith allusions to traditional Chinese imagery and culture, but also expresseshis longing for peace and nostalgia for his hometown.This paper will provide a culturally informed analysis to “Homesickness” by1) not only analyzing the literary and poetic devices utilized in WeiHanzhang’s poem; and 2) drawing attention to the allusions and imageryincorporated into this art song, which utilizes predominantly Westerntonality. Firstly, I will demonstrate how the four Mandarin tones influencethe poem’s metrical structure and, in turn, shape the melodic and harmonicrhythm of the art song. Secondly, I analyze the rhyme scheme of“Homesickness” to show how poetic devices such as adnomination,onomatopoeia, and internal rhyme in Mandarin Chinese offer both poeticcohesion, enriched imagery, and deeper artistic meaning to the art song.Finally, I will address the musical parameters of Huang’s art song byoffering insights into the cultural significance of music devices such asmotifs, word painting, and cadential endings used in “Homesickness.”Even though Huang’s early art songs, including “Homesickness,” modelthose of Schubert’s nineteenth-century Viennese art songs in terms ofstructure and in its expressive melodic contour and harmonies, Huang Zi’smusical setting of Wei Hanzhang’s poetic text incorporates a wealth ofGSIM 2024 – Program and Abstractstraditional Chinese imagery, allusions, and both historical and culturalcontexts, resulting in a masterful art song.“The Elektra Chord…Resolves? Understanding RichardStrauss’s Chromaticism through Half-Step Voice Leading andSchoenberg’s Vagrant Chords”Reed Mullican (Indiana University)At the turn of the century, several chords appear in the repertoire that aregiven an auspicious name – the “Augurs Chord,” the “Mystic Chord,” andmany others – indicating that it has an unusual structure that defies typicaltonal description. Strauss’s “Elektra Chord” is one such chord. It can bedescribed as an eleventh chord, a bitonal combination of E major and Dbmajor, a chord with a nonharmonic bass, and Forte number 5-32; yet whatis missing from these attempts at labelling the chord is an explanation of itsfunction.Fortunately, there already exists a framework for understanding chords likethis: Schoenberg’s “vagrant chords” as described in his Harmonielehre.According to Schoenberg, vagrant chords (including fully diminishedseventh chords, half-diminished seventh chords, augmented triads, chordsfrom the whole-tone scale, and quartal chords, among others) can lead to avariety of different keys. Specifically, Schoenberg indicates that these chordsmove mostly by half-steps and common tones to either resolve to a key ormove to another vagrant chord.I propose that we can apply the same logic of vagrant chords to the Elektrachord: specifically, I argue that the Elektra chord “resolves” by half steps totonally classified chords, whether they be tonal triads or one of the morefamiliar vagrant chords. Drawing from my own research into half-step voiceleading, some of these progressions can be analyzed as “displaced” halfsteps, or half steps simply moved to a different register.GSIM 2024 – Program and AbstractsWith this framework, I will analyze each instance of the Elektra chord in thefirst scene (“Wo bleibt Elektra?”) of Strauss’s opera, as well the first Elektrachord in Elektra’s monologue (“Allein! Weh, ganz allein”). I will alsocompare my approach to observations by Richard Andrew Kaplan. SethMonahan, and Kenneth Smith on Elektra and chromatic voice leading.GSIM 2024 – Program and AbstractsMusic Theory: Past and FutureChair: Prof. L. Poundie BursteinFriday, April 12, 7:00–8:00 PM“Alfabeto, punto, and diapasón: The Guitar as an Instrument ofMusic Theory in 17th century Iberia”Juan Saenz (McGill University)In this paper I explain how the five-course guitar functioned as an“instrument of music theory” (Rehding 2016) in 16th and 17th centuryIberia. During this period, Iberian music theory was characterized by a great“theoretical rift” separating the writings produced by church musiciansfrom those produced by secular musicians who were predominantly guitarplayers (Gallardo 2012). While the former group’s treatises emphasize“conservative” topics such as plainchant and modal theory, the latter groupproduced “progressive” works including some of the earliest theoreticalconceptions of the triad as an independent entity, and some rules for theaccompaniment of melodies anticipating some of the principles of bajocontinuo. Through the study of pedagogical texts by Amat (1596), Velasco(1640), Sanz (1674), and De Huete (1702) I explore their original theoreticalideas including the tenets of alfabeto (alphabet) notation, the theoreticalemancipation of the triad in the punto concept, a rule-of-thumb system forthe harmonic realization of a bassline, and highly refined understandings oftonal space and chordal inversion condensed in Velasco’s musical circles andSanz’s laberinto. Furthermore, their sophisticated topographicalrepresentations of tonal space using figures of circles—possibly influencedby Cartesian rationalism—contain explicit references to theoreticalconstructs such as the notion of transposition and intervallic cycles,anticipating Johann David Heinichen’s and Johann Mattheson’s morecelebrated circular representations by several decades and arguablyinteracting with canonical ideas of harmonic syntax in a rarely discussedform of transnational intellectual dialogue between the Iberian peninsulaand other European powers.GSIM 2024 – Program and Abstracts“Practice What You Teach: Implementing a SOTL-InformedMusic Theory Curriculum”Brendan McEvoy (Michigan State University)As music theory is reckoning with exclusionary pedagogical canons andentrenched teaching practices, perspectives from curricular theory andScholarship of Teaching and Learning (SOTL) can help us increase studentengagement and curriculum relevance. In my paper, I use examples from amusic theory class for non-music majors I am teaching this semester, as wellas possible implementations of interdisciplinary STEM concepts andcurricula. SOTL concepts are critical in these contexts, as music studentsmay not have backgrounds in interdisciplinary studies and SOTLimplementations ensure that all students learn at desirable levels ofdifficulty.Metacognition—being aware of one’s own thought processes—spacing,—adding delays before recalling learned information—and retrievalpractice—frequent formative testing intended to teach rather thanevaluate—are techniques from SOTL research (McGuire, McGuire 2023;Brown et al. 2014; Lang 2021, among others) that promote effectivelearning. Before- and after- questionnaires activate prior knowledge studentshave about concepts from reading assignments and prime them forengagement. Cumulative quizzes function as spaced, effortful retrieval.Larger scale conceptual synthesis is generated through a final project,scaffolded throughout the semester, allowing students to pursue morein-depth exploration and giving them practice with relevant stylistic andmechanical considerations.This presentation will include student surveys of their self-perceptions oftheir experiences in the class, my observations of student progress, andsamples of student assignments and projects from my class in progress thisspring. Attendees will leave with resources for integrating SOTL andinterdisciplinary perspectives into their classrooms, and concrete examplesof such integrations. I aim to spark conversation around further possibilitiesfor undergraduate curricula and the opportunities afforded by them toensure better outcomes for our students.GSIM 2024 – Program and AbstractsSocial and Environmental JusticeChair: Prof. Augustina ChecaSaturday, April 13, 10:30 AM–12:00 PM“Sounding Silence: Acoustic Ecology and the OntologicalTurn”Mark Mahoney (Cornell University)With the acceleration of academic and artistic interest in the environmentalimpacts of music and sound in recent years, acoustic ecology has emergedas an important and, in some cases, prescient historical antecedent. Acousticecology explores sonic environments and the relationship of humans totheir surroundings, anchored in the concept of the ‘soundscape.’ Theestablishment of the World Soundscape Project (WSP) in 1971 and theWorld Forum for Acoustic Ecology in 1993 have helped to institutionalizethe field and facilitate the establishment of a far-reaching artistic andscholarly lineage. Positioned at the interstices of artistic, ethnographic, andscientific practice, many of its practitioners have addressed pressingcontemporary issues such as anthropogenic climate change, indigenousdispossession, and environmental racism.More recently, acoustic ecology has also come under sustained critique: forits historic and ongoing failures to reckon with settler-colonialism, itsromantic view of nature, and its investments in universalist and organicistNew Age ideologies. I contend that it is precisely because acoustic ecologyso emphasizes discourses of land, voicedness and place that it has become acentral site for thinking through these issues. The foregrounding of thesequestions within acoustic ecology also offers the possibility of enacting anagainst-the-grain ‘decolonial’ approach to its practices, as artists such asRaven Chacon have done. In this regard, Chacon joins a number of artistsand scholars who have worked within and against acoustic ecology toreconstitute some of its basic assumptions about community, nature andbeing. Though acoustic ecology’s appeals to nature as an indisputable ‘good’GSIM 2024 – Program and Abstractshave historically allowed it to mask and thoroughly naturalize itssettler-colonial ideologies, the manifestly ontological character of its claimshave also made it ripe for rethinking. My paper explores thesecontradictions, critically probing the limits of environmental activism withinthe field and the academy more generally.“Reframing the Avant-Garde(n): An Examination into Arts forArt’s InGardens Festival”Elizabeth Frickey (New York University)Within existing historiography of New York City’s rich “experimental”music scenes, it is increasingly apparent that musicians both directly shapeand are shaped by broader processes of urbanization (Rifkin 2023, Bradley2023). While these less commercial scenes have historically relied uponinexpensive real-estate for performances, the flourishing of unique artsscenes also generates mainstream interest in previously “undesirable”neighborhoods, generating a cycle of constant migration as artists bothparticipate in and are negatively impacted by gentrification. There are,however, organizations which have sought to provide solutions to thisexistential problem. Founded in 1996, Arts for Art (AFA) is a nonprofitorganization dedicated explicitly to “the promotion and advancement ofFreeJazz — an African American indigenous art form in whichimprovisation is principle.” As a part of this ongoing mission, AFA hoststhe annual InGardens Festival: a series of free concerts held fromSeptember to October in a variety of Lower East Side community gardens.Community gardens, and especially those contained within the Lower EastSide, have long been the sites of their own existential activist struggles(Schmelzkopf 1995, von Hassell 2002, Martinez 2010, Strombeck 2020,Schrader 2020). This paper narrows in on this often overlooked intersectionbetween New York City’s avant-garde music scenes and its communitygardens. I identify in both spaces a mutual activist struggle not only forrecognition and real-estate, but community justice in a more expansiveGSIM 2024 – Program and Abstractssense. Here, I take AFA’s InGardens Festival as a case study through whichto consider the interdependence of sonic forms of activism and gardensthemselves – the ways in which gardens have historically relied onsound-based activist movements but also the extent to which these formsof often explicitly activist music-making have been reliant on gardens asaccessible venues.“Defying Patriarchal Lutherie: The Impact of Women/EnbyCollectives and Higher Public Education in South America”Rubens de la Corte (CUNY Graduate Center)Classical guitar making has been a predominantly cis-masculine and whiteoccupation under patriarchal control for centuries. Most existing womenguitar makers are either wives or daughters of other makers. Based onarchival findings, the first women guitar builders to break this paradigmemerged in Germany, France, Canada, and the United States in the early1980s. Nowadays, they are present on all continents, especially in Europeand Latin America, as a novel and innovative workforce, but stillsignificantly outnumbered by cis-male luthiers. South America and Europehave also been shown as two distinct global areas where the field of lutherieis also taught and learned in public institutions with a significant presenceof women. This paper focuses on South America’s women, enby, andqueer-identified luthiers, emphasizing their scenes and milieu in Argentinaand Brazil. More specifically, it investigates Red lutherística, a luthier networkand community comprising women, non-binary, queer professionals, andthose in training. Red lutherística strengthens the exchange and solidaritybetween luthiers from Latin American countries and beyond. Furthermore,this paper examines a few public universities and institutions offeringdegrees in lutherie in South America, emphasizing gender equality, diversity,innovation, and their influence and contribution to guitar-makingenvironments. Public universities and vocational courses are some outletsand channels where gender equality opportunities in lutherie can beachieved more successfully, in opposition to conservative and patriarchalGSIM 2024 – Program and Abstractsguilds and family line traditions. Moreover, this paper advocates fordiversity in lutherie by encouraging more women, enby, and ethnicminorities to participate and attain opportunities to establish themselves asprofessionals in the industry. It explores their inspirations, challenges, andcontributions to the field, stressing the importance of recognizing theirexpertise, innovative ideas, identity, sense of community, and gender issuesrelated to lutherie.GSIM 2024 – Program and AbstractsViews on AnalysisChair: Prof. Yayoi Uno EverettSaturday, April 13, 12:30–2:00 PM“Doming Lam’s Innovation in 20th century Chinese OrchestralMusic – A case study of ‘Autumn Execution 秋決(1978)’”Hippocrates Cheng (Indiana University)Chinese orchestral music developed quickly in the 1950s because of theestablishment of modern Chinese orchestras initiated by the People’sRepublic of China (PRC). Modern Chinese orchestras followed the formand principles of Western symphony orchestras. The goal of formingChinese orchestras is to promote and broadcast traditional Chinese music.Doming Lam (1926 – 2023), the “Father of New Music in Hong Kong,”passed away at 96 in January 2023. Lam dedicated himself to modernizingChinese music from the early 1950s. He was well-known for his motto,“Search for roots in tradition, find ways in the avant-garde.” He was one ofthe few Chinese musicians who was recognized in the “New GroveDictionary of Music and Musicians.”Before he returned to Hong Kong in the early 60s, he studied compositionat The Royal Conservatory of Music and the University of SouthernCalifornia. His primary teacher was Oscar-winning film composer MiklósRózsa and he also interned in Hollywood for a few years. After his return toHong Kong, he directed and wrote new music for the Hong Kong ChineseOrchestra which was founded in 1977.This paper explores the innovative contributions of composer Doming Lamto 20th century Chinese orchestral music, focusing on his work “AutumnExecution” from 1978. Lam’s unique approach blended Western classicaland traditional Chinese music, marking a significant development inmodern Chinese orchestral composition. The paper provides an in-depthanalysis of Lam’s techniques, such as his adaptation of Chinese orchestralGSIM 2024 – Program and Abstractsmusic from Western classical traditions, “symphonization,” orchestration,and his exploration of melody, timbre, and idioms in Chinese music andensemble performance.It also discusses Lam’s use of Western notation, composition inspirationsfrom Richard Strauss, Igor Stravinsky, Krzysztof Penderecki, WitoldLutosławski and film music writing techniques, and elements of ChineseOpera in his compositions. By examining these aspects, the paper highlightsLam’s role in modernizing Chinese music and his impact on the innovationof Chinese orchestral music.“Form and Structure in Bushmen Music”Alice (Bai) Xue (CUNY Graduate Center)In the studies of African music, form remains an understudied, neglectedsubject. In fact, the common assumption is that due to the nature of oraltradition which characterizes much of African music, the compositions arepredominantly products of spontaneous improvisation; this beliefovershadows the possibility of structured and deliberate compositionaltechniques in African music.In my presentation, I will discuss the music of the Bushmen of the Kalahariin southern Africa, a musical culture that remains relatively underexploredwithin African music studies. My research is based on my owntranscriptions and analysis of various recordings of Bushmen music. I willpresent a series of identifiable, recurring forms found within thesecompositions, arguing that form and system are the essence of Bushmenmusic. I propose the possibility that these recurring forms play a crucial rolein the memorization and oral transmission of Bushmen music.Furthermore, I suggest a similar presence of structured forms in othermusical traditions across the African continent.GSIM 2024 – Program and AbstractsThrough the course of my research, I aim to bridge a gap in the scholarstudy of both the Bushmen music, as well as form within African musicoverall, enhancing our appreciation of its underlying rationale andsystematic approach.“Dialogues of Sound from Three Different Worlds: TimbralAnalysis of Zhou Long, The Ineffable”Yani Tan (CUNY Graduate Center)Zhou Long’s sextet The Ineffable, which was first performed in 1994,combines Western instruments with traditional Chinese instruments.Previous discussion of this piece, and similar pieces by Zhou Long andothers, have emphasized the East-West timbral contrast, and have beenmainly concerned to find evidence of conflict, co-existence, and possibleharmonious reconciliation, all under the banner of “interculturality.” In thispresentation, I take a different approach. I will show how the Chinese andWestern instruments jointly navigate a timbral space characterized by threedifferent sound worlds, which I designate the Natural, the Mechanical, andthe Human.My presentation is divided into two parts. In the first part, I introduce thecharacteristics of the three sound worlds through the use of verbaldescription and spectrographic analysis. In the second part, I show howthese sounds interact with each other to promote a sense of development asthe instruments co-operatively move from a relatively simple, pure state,through a violent and antagonistic state, to a final reconciliation.GSIM 2024 – Program and AbstractsMemory, Topic, and TropeChair: Prof. Stephen SpencerSaturday, April 13, 2:15–3:45 PM“‘Treasured Memories’: The Re-Imagined Past in Video GameMusic”Pamela Mason-Nguyen (University of California, Santa Barbara)To what extent can music in multimedia convey a musical history? Whensetting a video game in the past (either a literal or imagined one), music canadd a texture of what Stephanie Lind (2023) calls “pastness” to the visualexperience. Composers musically exploit the player’s approximation of whatthe “past” sounds like through timbre and allusions to compositionaltechniques to communicate aspects of the setting.By addressing allusions to historical musical traditions in Yoko Shimomura’smusic for Kingdom Hearts (2002) and Peter McConnell’s soundtrack for SlyCooper: Thieves in Time (2012), I argue that these soundtracks present apredominantly Westernized approach to “pastness.” Their employment ofvoice-leading allusions (schemata) and stylistic references (topics) rely onassociations with genres, styles, or music-making and are thought to beimplicitly understood by certain people in a certain cultural—andhistorical—context. My analysis will demonstrate the power of theseconventions and tropes to focalize a perceived history through the lens ofthe composer and intended player. In Kingdom Hearts, Shimomura engageswith the Western classical tradition and Disney film soundtracks to appealto a shared nostalgia amongst players. McConnell’s soundtrack for Thieves inTime symbolizes the protagonist’s ancestry by fusing styles from the pastand present. Both make use of musical-cultural tropes and stereotypes toconvey this relationship between space, time, and story. These musicalmediations encourage us to think about not only whose “pastness” thesecomposers write but also through whose “pastness” the players listen.GSIM 2024 – Program and Abstracts“Inversional axes and embodiment of historical memory in‘Figlia’ from Suzanne Farrin’s Dolce la Morte”Jacob Wilkinson (Indiana University)In her essay “Composing in (a) Place,” Suzanne Farrin discusses thephenomenon of historical memory as an aesthetic category in new music.Farrin describes two works by American composers, Aur by Robert Phillipsand her own opera based on poetry of Michelangelo Dolce la Morte, thatengage in some way with material that is historically, culturally, orlinguistically distant. Her purpose in doing so is to investigate ways in whichAmerican composers can respond meaningfully to the unique problemsposed by their own history and forge an artistic identity “with theconfidence and sincerity to believe in oneself.” Central to Farrin’s discussionis the concept of historical memory presented by Walter Benjamin in hisessay “On the Concept of History.” The purpose of the present essay willbe to show, through an in-depth analysis of the pitch, formal, and textualrelationships of the movement “Figlia” from Dolce la Morte, how Farrinexpresses Benjamin’s understanding of historical memory. It will be revealedthat this expression is achieved by means of a “constellation” of inversionalaxes that, like the thinking of the historical materialist in Benjamin’s essay,crystallizes into a literal and figurative “monad” at the point of greatesttension before breaking the bounds it originally set for itself. Thisprocedure is similar to the one described by Joseph Straus in his analysis ofthe “Unico Spirto” movement of the same work and one that will be shownto be expressive of Farrin’s ideas about the importance and persistence ofhistorical memory in contemporary art.GSIM 2024 – Program and Abstracts“The Beyhive, Orientalism, and ‘Arabic Scales’”Lee Thomas Richardson (University of Massachusetts Amherst)Despite musicology’s overwhelming focus on professional musical actorssuch as composers, performers, and theorists, the rise of commercial musicindustries over the last century has led to an increasingly important role inthe musical consumer and audience that demands scholarly attention andconsideration. In this paper, I center a particularly unique phenomenonarising from the commercial musical audience: music fandom. Specifically, Ifocus on the fandom of Beyoncé Knowles-Carter—the infamousBeyhive—in the space of Stan Twitter. I look to musical moments that haveoften been described as containing “Arabic scales,” a description that hasbeen almost entirely conceived of and disseminated by fans on social media.I first situate this “Arabic scales” discourse within a history of Beyoncé’scareer, particularly within an idealized and mythologized narrativeconstructed by fans. I argue that the uses of such music-theoretical labelsconstruct bits of social capital within the space of digital music fandom forall parties involved: the individual fan, the gestalt of the Beyhive, andBeyoncé herself. I then analyze two musical examples that are perhaps mostsubject to “Arabic scales” descriptions: select performances of the songs“Dangerously in Love” and “Drunk in Love.” Through these analyses, Ilargely situate the label of “Arabic scales” as a product of musical exoticism,suggesting fandom communities as spaces that can perpetuate and reinforcereductive (and often, harmful) stereotypes with little critical engagement.However, these case studies also highlight the rather sophisticated musicanalysis and discourse occurring within the milieu of digital musicfandom—a public space formed almost entirely apart from the academy—aswell as the unique dynamics of music audiencing and popular musicalculture in the 21st century.GSIM 2024 – Program and AbstractsKeynoteSaturday, April 13, 4:00–5:00 PM“Considering Ethics in Music Theory and Analysis:What, Why, and How”Prof. Kristi HardmanThe field of music theory has demonstrated a widespread goal of expandingthe analytical canon, but there is a need to also diversify analyticalapproaches (Agawu 2003, Attas 2019, and Ewell 2020). Music theory tendsto practice Robinson’s concept of “hungry listening” (2020), which “takespart in content-locating practices that orient the ear toward identifyingstandardized features and types” (50). In analyzing a piece of music, settlermusic theorists, such as myself, orient listening habits toward recognition offormal structures and the categorization of musical features, however this isnot an ethical practice for all types of music. In this keynote paper, Iconsider the ethics of music analysis, proposing an analytical approach thataddresses ethical concerns in analysis by engaging with Indigenous researchmethodologies (Kovach 2021, Rigney 1999, Smith 1999, and Wilson 2008)and inspired by the work of Indigenous music scholars Avery (2012),Browner (2000), and Robinson (2020). To demonstrate this analyticalapproach, I provide fictional stories as a means to communicate myinterpretation of Tanya Tagaq’s “Sivulivinivut” (2016). This analyticalapproach allows for multiple interpretations of the same song, reliance onsound rather than notated musical examples, and is grounded in context. Byallowing storytelling to serve as analysis, we decenter Westernmusic-theoretical traditions, forgoing the hunger to know and understandwith certainty as the receiver or the creator of an analysis.GSIM 2024 – Program and AbstractsKristi Hardman is an Assistant Professor of Music Theory at theUniversity of North Carolina at Charlotte. She received her Ph.D. in MusicTheory from the Graduate Center, CUNY in 2022. Kristi also holdsdegrees in music and education from the University of Manitoba and amaster’s in music theory from UBC. Her work centers on usingcomputer-assisted methods of analysis to develop a greater understandingof the intersections between changing sound qualities and our experiencesof rhythm, meter, and form. Other research interests include text/musicrelations, issues of transcription, the ethics of analysis, and music theorypedagogy as these topics pertain to Indigenous and popular music made inNorth America. Kristi has presented research in these areas at regional,national, and international conferences, including the Society forEthnomusicology, Society for Music Theory, Analytical Approaches toWorld Music, MUSCAN, and the International Association for the Study ofPopular Music. Her most recent publication, “The Continua of SoundQualities for Tanya Tagaq’s Katajjaq Sounds,” was published in the editedvolume Trends in World Music Analysis (2022). Kristi is also engaged withthe broad discipline of music scholarship, serving as a co-chair of the SMTAnalysis of World Musics Interest Group and as a member of EngagedMusic Theory.
Mariano Parra: An Obituary Estela Zatania has published the following obituary in Spanish of dancer Mario Parra. Ninotchka Bennahum & K. Meira Goldberg contributed to the article. https://www.expoflamenco.com/estela-zatania/mariano-parra-maestro-norteamericano-de-flamenco-y-danza-espanola-fallece-a-los-91-anos/ Mariano Parra, maestro norteamericano de flamenco y danza española, fallece a los 91 años Una autoridad respetada en todos los géneros de la danza española, Mariano Parra asesoró y coreografió para varias compañías importantes con sede en Nueva York, como la American Bolero Dance Company de Gabriela Granados y Flamenco Vivo Carlota Santana. Se echará de menos su gran sabiduría. 30 MARZO, 2024 14:23 Estela Zatania 0 0 Nacido en 1933 de padre andaluz y madre rusa, Mariano Parra fue criado en los Estados Unidos cerca de Pittsburgh entre trabajadores inmigrantes de fábricas y acerías. Después de ver un anuncio en el periódico local, su padre, un trabajador del acero, metió a la familia en el coche y condujo a Pittsburgh para ver a José Greco. Esa noche, Parra decidió convertirse en bailarín español. Después de la escuela secundaria, su profesor de baile clásico, Karl Heinrich, lo recomendó para una beca de verano en Jacob’s Pillow. Allí, mientras estudiaba con Ted Shawn y Joseph Pilates, conoció a Russell Meriweather Hughes La Meri, la famosa defensora de la “danza étnica”, quien se convertiría en su mentora. Ella era una modernista como Antonia Mercé La Argentina, quien encarnaba sus representaciones en la línea de la columna vertebral y de la cabeza, llevando así técnicas de danza moderna a formas no occidentales. Mariano absorbió todo lo que pudo en Jacob’s Pillow, pero la forma que más profundamente lo llamaba era la danza española. De vuelta a casa, mientras trabajaba en el ferrocarril de Pennsylvania, practicaba castañuelas y pasos de baile en los vagones vacíos durante su descanso para almorzar. Ahorró para el viaje y finalmente se mudó a Nueva York, comenzando un curso de estudio de cuatro años con La Meri en el estudio que había tomado de Isadora Duncan y luego Ruth St. Denis en la calle 59. También estudió baile clásico con Tudor, danza moderna con Martha Graham y danza española con Juan Martínez. Al igual que Carmen Amaya, Antonio Triana, Encarnación López, La Argentinita, su hermana Pilar López, Florence Pérez Padilla y Antonio Ruiz Soler, Rosario y Antonio, y muchos otros intérpretes de menor renombre, Juan Martínez fue un emigrante que huía de la Guerra Civil Española. «A finales de los años 60, Mariano viajó a España para estudiar con Francisca González La Quica, la esposa del gran bailarín de principios de siglo Francisco León Frasquillo, quien también enseñó a Antonio Ruiz Soler. Mientras estaba en Madrid, Mariano comenzó un estudio intensivo con Luisa Pericet, matriarca de una renombrada familia de bailarines de la escuela bolera, la escuela española de danza clásica» Mariano Parra, en el Lincoln Center, 2013. Foto: Angelica Escoto Mariano tenía solo 26 años cuando fundó su propia compañía, junto con sus hermanas, las bailarinas Mariana e Inés, y su hermano Juan, guitarrista. Con su pareja Jerane Michel, debutó en el Carnegie Hall de Nueva York en 1957. Siguiendo los principios de los grandes ballets españoles de la época, Mariano presentó un amplio espectro de danza española, que incluía bailes folclóricos de diversas regiones, danzas neoclásicas a los grandes compositores españoles como Nin, Turina, Granados, Albéniz y Falla, y, por supuesto, flamenco. En 1964, Parra alquiló un estudio en la calle West 20th, donde el bailarín moderno Jeff Duncan también tenía un estudio. Estaban sin dinero, pero Parra y Duncan organizaron una serie de conciertos informales, “Lunes a las 9”. A finales de los años 60, Mariano viajó a España para estudiar con Francisca González La Quica, la esposa del gran bailarín de principios de siglo Francisco León Frasquillo, quien también enseñó a Antonio Ruiz Soler. Mientras estaba en Madrid, Mariano comenzó un estudio intensivo con Luisa Pericet, matriarca de una renombrada familia de bailarines de la escuela bolera, la escuela española de danza clásica. Con su técnica de ballet, Mariano aprendía rápidamente. Con su humildad y pasión, pudo absorber los matices estilísticos de esta forma exquisita. Luisa le pidió que se quedara y enseñara en su estudio, pero Mariano regresó a Nueva York a principios de los años 70, introduciendo a una nueva generación de bailarines españoles en la escuela, incluyendo a Matteo Marcellus Vittuci, Mateo (quien ya trabajaba como dúo con Carol Weller, Carola Goya), y Roberto Bobby Lorca, cofundador de Flamenco Vivo Carlota Santana. Mariano realizó giras hasta principios de los años 80, y luego se dedicó a la enseñanza. Una autoridad respetada en todos los géneros de la danza española, Mariano asesoró y coreografió para varias compañías importantes con sede en Nueva York, como la American Bolero Dance Company de Gabriela Granados y Flamenco Vivo Carlota Santana. Se echará de menos su gran sabiduría. * Ninotchka Bennahum, K. Meira Goldberg y Estela Zatania colaboraron en la preparación de este artículo. Imagen superior: Mariano Parra. Foto: Archivo de familia Mariano Parra. Foto: Archivo de familia
In Conversation with Antoni Pizà In Conversation is a series of interviews and dialogues between Antoni Pizà and a selected group of artists and intellectuals. Mostly centered around music and the experience of listening, the series explores broader concerns including history, memory, and identity. Guests include: Allegra Giagiu, Ángel Gil-Ordóñez; Eliot Bates; Hayk Arsenyan; Marc Migó; Daniel Jordan; K. Meira Goldberg; and others. You may watch these conversations here: https://www.youtube.com/@apiza26
International Symposium: Paco de Lucía and The Americas International Symposium: Paco de Lucía and The Americas PacoDeLuciaProgram An international symposium dedicated to exploring the indelible sway of the Americas on Paco de Lucía and, conversely, the impact of Paco de Lucía on the music and the musicians of the Americas. To mark the tenth anniversary of Paco de Lucía’s passing this conference will investigate the transformative influence of Paco de Lucía (Francisco Sánchez Gómez, 1947-2014) on the global concert stage. Paco de Lucía was undoubtedly one of the most important contributors to the history of the guitar. His music transcended and transformed the genres of classical, jazz, and flamenco guitar, and his virtuosity as an instrumentalist, encompassing his unique fusions of Spanish musical idioms with North American, Caribbean, and Latin American genres, continues to influence classical, flamenco, jazz, pop, and world music today by drawing together the musical legacies of Africa, the Americas, and Europe. Join acclaimed musicians and prestigious scholars from around the world to honor and celebrate the antecedents and the legacy of this remarkable artist. Thursday, March 7, 2024 ― 9:30 am-6:00 pm The Segal Theater, CUNY Graduate Center 365 Fifth Avenue @ 34th St Free Admission ― Registration is required. www.gc.cuny.edu 212-8178215 Organizing directors: Antoni Pizà & K. Meira Goldberg Presented by: The Foundation for Iberian Music at Brook Center for Music Research and Documentation The CUNY Graduate Center This event has already received some attention from some media outlets. K. Meira Goldberg is interviewed here. For the full program click here: PacoDeLuciaProgram This symposium is part of the Flamenco Festival NY 2024. Click here for the Festival’s full program: FlamencoFestival
Conference on Iberian Historical Male Voices and the Press The Sociedad Española de Musicología has just announced this conference to be held in Palma de Mallorca (March 20, 21, and 22 2024) and Antoni Pizà (Foundation for Iberian Music) is a member of the Scientific Committee. Read the full information here: https://xiimuspres.com/ Cartelxiimuspres XII MUSPRES Congreso internacional La comisión de trabajo de la Sociedad Española de Musicología, “Música y prensa” (MUSPRES), en colaboración con el grupo de investigación “Musurba“, de la Universidad Internacional de Valencia (VIU) y el grupo de investigación del “Institut de Musicologia Pau Villalonga” se complacen en organizar el Congreso internacional “Divos: las voces masculinas de ópera y la prensa”, en memoria del gran bajo mallorquín Francisco Uetam. Este es el duodécimo encuentro científico impulsado por la mencionada comisión de trabajo de la SEdeM. Desde el año 2013, el grupo “Música y prensa” ha sido el anfitrión de congresos anuales con el objetivo de fomentar y compartir investigaciones musicológicas basadas en fuentes hemerográficas. Esta convocatoria se centra en la ópera y, de forma más específica, en los cantantes varones que han representado en escena personajes inolvidables, desde el emperador Carlos a Lohengrin, pasando por Figaro, Fausto o Werther.En el XII MUSPRES, exploraremos el legado dejado por los cantantes de ópera desde nuevas perspectivas y contextos actuales, pero siempre a partir de la prensa. ¡Esperamos contar con vuestra participación! UETAM. Cor fedele Comité científico Dr. Francesc Cortès i Mir (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) Dra. Bàrbara Durán (Institut de musicologia Pau Villalonga) Dr. Enrique Encabo (Universidad de Murcia) Dra. María Ordiñana (Universidad Internacional de Valencia) Dr. Antoni Pizà (Foundation for Iberian Music) Dr. Alberto José Vieira Pacheco (Universidad Nova de Lisboa) Dirección del congreso Dra. Eugenia Gallego Cañellas (Universidad Internacional de Valencia) Sociedad Española de Musicología – Música y Prensa (MUSPRESS) Antoni Pizà, Foundation for Iberian Music, The Graduate Center, The City University of New York, will present the following paper: “Cómo eliminar casi todas las claves del solfeo y morir en el intento: Los intentos frustrados de Francisco Frontera de Valldemosa reflejados en la prensa española y europea” En 1837, el cantante, compositor, pedagogo y gestor musical Francisco Frontera de Valldemosa (Palma, 22 de septiembre de 1807 — Palma, 7 de octubre de 1891) publicó en París un peculiar tratado de solfeo encaminado a eliminar o, al menos, reducir las claves del solfeo. En ediciones sucesivas, el libro acabaría llamándose Equinotación ó Nuevo sistema musical de llaves. El breve volumen consta de dos partes. La primera detalla la reducción de todas las claves a sólo tres. La mayoría de las claves —arguye el autor— son innecesarias y, además, retrasan o incluso pueden llegar a abortar la creatividad musical del joven estudiante. La segunda parte es una curiosa antología de música que incluye en la página izquierda fragmentos musicales en su notación original, y en la página opuesta, a la derecha, en su transcripción al nuevo sistema de equinotación, o sea sin claves “innecesarias”. A pesar de que el sistema de Frontera no logró imponerse, la prensa española y europea reflejaron la originalidad del método y la posible necesidad de un sistema así: en Francia, la Revue et gazette musicale, L’Orphéon, La presse teatrale; en España, El león español, La España, La Libertad, El Artista, Revista y gaceta musical, La Correspondencia de España; en Italia, Bocherini, Il Pirata, Gazzetta musicale di Napoli, etc. A pesar del éxito entre muchos críticos y profesores, Hippolyte-Raymond Colet (Uzès, 5 de diciembre de 1808 – París, 21 de abril de 1851) denunció el tratado por plagio e inició una polémica en la prensa denominada la querelle des cléfs en la que participaron varios críticos, profesores y teóricos musicales. Inquebrantable en sus convicciones y sin una resolución clara del posible plagio, Frontera publicó tres ediciones más de su tratado, una de ellas poco antes de morir.
New Conference on the Transatlantic Circulation of Knowledge After the a very successful series of conferences and publications on the circulation of music and ideas across the Atlantic, including Celebrating Flamenco’s Tangled Roots: The Body Questions (2022); “Natives, Africans, Roma, and Europeans: Transatlantic Rhythms in Music, Song, and Dance” (published in Música Oral del Sur 2020); “Spaniards, Indians, Africans and Gypsies: The Global Reach of the Fandango in Music, Song, and Dance” (also in Música Oral del Sur 2015); Transatlantic Malagueñas and Zapateados in Music, Song and Dance: Spaniards, Natives, Africans, Roma (2019); and The Global Reach of the Fandango in Music, Song and Dance: Spaniards, Indians, Africans and Gypsies (2017), now the Societat Catalana de Musicologia has issued a call for papers. Music, Migration, and the Exchange of Knowledge Spain – North America – Latin America A bicontinental symposium at the Institut d’Estudis Catalans, Barcelona, 28–29 November 2024, and at the Barry S. Brook Center for Music Research and Documentation, CUNY, Graduate Center, New York, 22–23 April 2025 Convenors & Coordination:Tina Frühauf (The CUNY Graduate Center, New York / RILM)Andrea Puentes-Blanco (IMF-CSIC, Barcelona & Societat Catalana de Musicologia) Dates:Barcelona symposium: November 28–29, 2024New York symposium: April 22–23, 2025 Abstracts should be sent through this form https://forms.gle/3NjBa4tsj3x2uw6a8 by 15 March 2024 in English or Spanish. Participants must indicate whether they want to participate in the Barcelona symposium in 2024 or in the New York symposium in 2025. For individual papers: abstracts of c. 350 words; for panels: abstracts of c. 300 words of the proposal as a whole and c. 200 words on the contribution of each participant. Applicants will be notified by 1 June 2024. For more information visit the symposium website: https://sites.google.com/view/bicontinentalsymposium/home
Publications by Antoni Pizà in The News The Way of the Moderns (Brepols, 2022) by Antoni Pizà was prominently featured at the American Musicological meeting in Denver in November 2023. Additionally, the literary podcast Ciutat Maragda dedicated an extensive segment to La dansa de l’arquitecte (Ensiola, 2012). You may want to hear to the whole podcast here. For an excerpt only, click here (in Catalan): https://brookcenter.gc.cuny.edu/files/2023/12/Xenia.m4a Additionally, the volume THE BODY QUESTIONS (Cambridge, 2022) has been reviewed and recommended the prestigious journal Revista de Investigación sobre flamenco “La Madrugá.” You may download the article here: BodyQuestions_Uribe