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
Andrea Puentes at The Foundation for Iberian Music (Brook Center) Andrea Puentes-Blanco was a Visiting Scholar at the Foundation for Iberian Music (The Brook Center, The City University of New York) from April to July 2023. Puentes-Blanco is Tenured Researcher at the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas [CSIC, Spanish National Research Council], Institución Milá y Fontanals de Investigación en Humanidades (Barcelona, Spain). During her stay at the Brook Center, Puentes-Blanco worked on her research project entitled ‘Exploring Spanish Traditional Music Holdings in US Libraries’ whose aim is to research Spanish traditional music holdings in US libraries and archives that were collected in Spain, mostly by American ethnomusicologists or anthropologists, and Spanish-speaking folk music in the United States collected from Spanish immigrants or from people of Spanish origin. A case in point is Puentes’ research on the legacy of our late colleague and mentor Henrietta Yurchenco (1916-2007). This research is part of a broader current research project entitled “Digital development of the Fondo de Música Tradicional IMF-CSIC” [Desarrollo digital del Fondo de Música Tradicional IMF-CSIC] funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation from 2022 to 2024. Puentes is currently planning an international conference to be held in Barcelona (CSIC, 2024) and NY (Foundation for Iberian Music at the Brook Center, 2025.)
Paulino Capdeón’s Researches on Iberian Music Many of our colleagues are able to keep a prolific scholarly activity, but just a few do so maintaining the highest possible scientific standards. A case in point is Professor Paulino Capdeón, catedrático of musicology at the Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha and Director of the Centro de Investigación y Documentación Musical de Castilla-La Mancha. Dr. Capdeon has had and continues to have, a distinguished career as a teacher and researcher with more than forty books and two hundred scholarly papers. His publications frequently focus on eighteenth-century Spanish music, see for example his recent and very rigorous edition of Antonio Soler’s music and also the much commented influence of Italian music on Spanish repertories. His interests, though, often veer also towards the mainstream musical repertoire that is usual at the concert hall, see for example his study of Beethoven’s reception in Spain. Very often, many of his scholarly interests have centered on extending this same mainstream concert hall repertoire. Thus he has researched lesser-known composers bringing their life and works to the attention of scholars, musicians, students, and, ultimately, the general public. A good example of these endevors are his studies on Ramón Garay (1761-1823) and music theorist Tomás Vicente Tosca (1651-1723), as well as his research on important centers of musical life such as the Colegiata de Santa María la Mayor de Talavera de la Reina. In sum, we celebrate the many scholarly achievements of Professor Paulino Capdeón as a an example of intellectual scrupulousness and scientific rigor.
Marc Migó awarded the Foundation for Iberian Music Composer’s Commission 2022 Marc Migó has been awarded the Foundation for Iberian Music 2022 Composer’s Commission. The composer has written a series of twelve piano preludes entitled L’ILLA DESERTA: Preludes for Piano, Book 1, about which Migó has written the following: “The title “L’illa deserta” refers to a conversation I had with Dr. Philip Lasser early in my studies at Juilliard. The conversation led to being genuine in my compositional endeavors, hence, he suggested I write “desert island music.” This meant to compose without the need to prove anything to anyone but instead to follow my inner, unconditional voice, as if I was living on a desert island, far removed from civilization. Following that precept, I composed 12 preludes that make up this book which inhabits another kind of island; one not deserted but imbued with memory and dreams. Preludes 1, “Tarantella,” and 4, “Evocació,” are based on my souvenirs as a child becoming acquainted with Catalan folksongs. Prelude 2, “Elegia,” evokes the feeling of emptiness that comes when losing something precious. Prelude 3, “Scherzetto,” is a celebration of two dear friends of mine who both have exceptionally joyous and resilient personalities. Prelude 5, “Melodia,” is a homage to Myroslav Skoryk (1938-2020), a Ukrainian composer whom I admire and who embodies my affinity towards the Slavic world and Prelude 6, “Recuerdos del Casar,” invokes my Spanish roots. Despite the deep melancholy that characterizes Prelude 7, “Melangia,” the inspiration to write it did not come from any romantic heartbreak, but from the more prosaic (and, luckily, way more common) event of not being awarded a prize I had been seeking. Preludes 8 to 10 —“Tristor,” “Lament,” and “Capsa de música,” respectively—expand upon the reflective and sorrowful atmosphere captured in “Melangia.” Finally, Preludes 11, “Toccata,” and 12, “Mephisto’s Disco,” share toccata-like and virtuosic elements, the latter one being based on a particularly wild experience I had at a nightclub with a far less exciting name than that of the prelude in question.” You may download the first prelude here: L’ILLA DESERTA PRELUDES 5 You may also listen to the first prelude, “Cançó” here: https://brookcenter.gc.cuny.edu/files/2023/09/01-Canco.mp3 A full recording of the Preludes can be found here: Antoni Pizà, the Director of the Foundation, expressed his gratefulness and excitement about these piano preludes, which announce the relaunch of the series Composer’s Commissions, which have had in the past many eminent composers including Tania León, Benet Casablancas, Paquito D’Rivera, Antoni Parera Fons, Albert Guinovart and many others. See complete list here. The work will be premiered in full by Marisa Gupta in Saratosa, FL on Dec 15, 2023 with a subsequent performance in St Petersburg, FL. In addition on September 30 Kiryl Keduk will play Preludes 8, 9, and 10 at Bechstein Hall in Berlin and Víctor Braojos will perform the same pieces in London. Click here to watch a fascinating interview between Antoni Pizà and Marc Migó
Antoni Pizà in Conversation with Allegra Giagu on Literes and Spanish Vocal Music During the Bloomington Early Music Festival, Antoni Pizà, Director of the Foundation for Iberian Music, held a conversation with Allegra Giagu on Literes and Spanish Vocal Music. You may watch by clicking here.
Coros y Danzas: Folk Music and Spanish Nationalism: A Conversation Between Antoni Pizà and Daniel Jordan Daniel David Jordan has just published Coros y Danzas: Folk Music and Spanish Nationalism in the Early Franco Regime, 1939-1953. In the following conversation Dr. Jordan discusses his book with Antoni Pizà, the Director of the CUNY Foundation for Iberian Music. Currently, Dr. Jordan is also also organizing “Worlds Apart,” a two-day conference and recital series that explores how refugees and displaced peoples in Canada have used music to “fill” cultural absences, create diasporic communities, and build intercultural bridges since 1945. You can see more details here https://www.worldsapartjhi.com/. The event will take place on May 25-26, 2024, at the University of Toronto, Faculty of Music. It is funded by the Jackman Humanities Institute.
The 2023 Claire Brook Award The CLAIRE BROOK AWARD, established in April 2018 by the Barry S. Brook Center for Music Research and Documentation (The Graduate Center of The City University of New York), honors an outstanding monograph, dissertation, edited collection, or exhibition catalogue on a topic related to works on music iconography or the relationship between music and the visual arts. The author(s) of the work will receive a certificate and optionally an invitation to present a public lecture on the topic of the awarded publication at The Graduate Center of The City University of New York. In the event that the nominated work has multiple authors/editors, the lead author/editor may be invited to deliver the lecture. If there are no strong candidates in a particular year, the award will not be given that year. The award committee for 2023 consists of the members of the editorial board of Music in Art, a journal published by the Research Center for Music Iconography, which is a project of the Brook Center. The journal’s editor serves as committee chair; the director of the Brook Center serves as an ex officio committee member. The committee may appoint ad hoc member(s) to review nominated works written in languages outside of its expertise. Committee members are listed here. Publication nominations will be accepted by the award committee from any individual or organization. In the event a nominated publication was authored or edited by a committee member, that member will recuse him/herself from the committee that year. Nominated works may be published in any country and in any language. Works nominated for the 2023 award must bear a copyright date of 2022. The nominating person/organization must arrange with the publisher to supply each member of the award committee with a print or electronic copy of the publication. Nominated publications must reach members of the committee by 1 September 2023. Publishers or individuals choosing to supply nominated publications in pdf, should send them to zblazekovic@gc.cuny.edu using WeTransfer app. Awards will be announced in December 2023. Address questions to Zdravko Blažeković: zblazekovic@gc.cuny.edu CLAIRE BROOK (1925–2012) was vice president and music editor of W.W. Norton & Co. in New York, in a distinguished lineage that included Paul Henry Lang, Nathan Broder, and David Hamilton. She sponsored the publication of dozens of books in Norton’s series “Books that Live in Music,” including seminal works on the music of Africa, jazz, and contemporary music, as well as editions of Joseph’s Machlis’s The Enjoyment of Music and Donald Jay Grout’s A History of Western Music that have kept them at the forefront of the music textbooks ever since. She was the author of a spirited contribution on “Music Publishing Today” in MLA Notes (1975). In 1999 she was awarded the degree of Doctor of Music, honoris causa, by the New England Conservatory. After retirement from Norton, she served for a number of years as Executive Editor of Pendragon Press. Claire left a generous bequest to the Brook Center that has supported many of its activities over the years. It is in her honor that this award has been established. Past winners of the Claire Brook award can be found on this page.
NY Andalus Ensemble Upcoming Performance The New York Andalus Ensemble, in conjunction with the Foundation of Iberian Music and La Nacional, presents Tajdid (Renewal) An evening of music and song from al-Andalus and North Africa For five hundred years, Christians, Jews, and Muslims lived side by side in medieval Iberia, sharing their arts and sciences to create a scintillating, multicultural tradition of music and poetry. Singing in Arabic, Hebrew, and Ladino to reflect this cultural pluralism, the New York Andalus Ensemble presents spiritual texts and songs of love and everyday life in Al-Andalus, emphasizing the expressive quality of the region’s shared tradition even as it respects the individual cultures that comprise it. Meticulous attention is paid to authenticity of style and pronunciation as ensemble members, hailing from Algeria, Syria, Israel, Morocco, and the United States, pool their linguistic and musical expertise. “You won’t want to miss the chance to see such a diverse and versatile group.” —Spain Culture, New York
Musicians’ Self-Portraits from the Renaissance to the Digital Age Antoni PIZÀ, director of the Foundation for Iberian Music, will present “Staging a Musical Self though Paper, Canvas, and The Screen: Musicians’ Self-Portraits from the Renaissance to the Digital Age” at the Ictm Study Group on Iconography of the Performing Arts, Università Roma Tre – Fondazione Teatro Palladium (Rome, 18–20 May 2023) Schoenberg’s Self-Portrait Musicians, he argues, have engaged in visual self-representation at least since the Renaissance and they have continued the tradition all the way to modern times with contemporary practices including selfies and generative technology and AI art. The practitioners include so-called classical composers (Schoenberg is a well-known case) and performers (Caruso, for instance), but also pop singers and musicians (Joni Mitchell and Patti Smith, among others). The media used varies from oil on canvas to drawings on paper, from traditional photography to digital media. In some instances, there are grave, pompous self-representations, but caricatures also abound (e.g., Donizetti). There are also many miscategorized self-portraits (i.e., portraits misattributed to their subject), and many more purposely fake or mocking self-portraits including contemporary Roman musician and comic Federico Maria Sardelli, which would indicate that the category of “self-portrait” adds value and prestige to any visual artifact. Furthermore, many visual artists, especially during the Renaissance, present themselves as faux musicians, possibly as a sign of nobility or education. Women, slowly but surely, have also claimed a space in the realm of musicians’ self-portraits since many of them, belonging to the higher echelons of society, were both visual artists and active musicians (Ducreaux and Schröter, among others). In some instances, the musician is truly obsessed with his or her own image to the point that, in addition to visual self-representation, he or she also provides written autobiographies and even musical self-portraits in sound (Spohr, for instance). In the end, any attempt to create a taxonomy of “musicians self-portraits” amounts to a serious interrogation of the usual categories of “self-portrait,” “musician,” and “artist” and to the staging of a vulnerable, doubtful self that wants to be reasserted.