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Bretón’s Piano Quintet Performed in Madrid

 

Bretón’s Piano Quintet, edited by Antoni Pizà and María L. Martínez of the Foundation for Iberian Music, has been performed once again. This time in the Teatro de la Zarzuela in Madrid.  The edition was also reviewed by Mundo clásico. The Fundación Juan March has also made available their recording of the portentous work rediscovered by researchers Antoni Pizà and María L. Martínez.

 

 

 

Rediscovery and New Publication: Bretón’s Piano Quintet in G Major

The Way of the Moderns – Six Perspectives on Modernism in Music – Antoni Pizà, ed.

The Way of the Moderns gathers the talks organized by the Barry S. Brook Center of Music Research and Documentation that took place from 2012 to 2016 at The Graduate Center of The City University of New York (CUNY).

Exploring the concept of musical modernism from many different perspectives―including the audience’s often initial rejection; the dominance of popular genres; the blurring of musical genres and categories; the alleged incapacity of modernism to express feelings and its intellectual aloofness; the struggle for an audience in times of a distracting attention economy; the transition from modernist to postmodernist aesthetics; the multicultural and collaborative aspects of many recent musical creations; and the need for questioning the ethics of musical works―they present a non-systematic and yet insightful assessment of some of the crucial issues around contemporary music. The texts address the changing consumption, creation, contexts, and valuations of today’s concert music and, at the same time, highlight the agency of its practitioners―composers, performers, scholars, critics, and the audience―who pursue “the way of the moderns.”

Antoni Pizà is the director of the Foundation for Iberian Music, where he has organized dozens of events, including conferences, talks, and concerts. The Foundation is a project of the Barry S. Brook Center for Music Research and Documentation at CUNY Graduate Center. Author of many books and articles, he has also taught for over twenty-five years at CUNY and has curated the lecture series on which this publication is based.

 

Contents
Acknowledgements
List of Figures
Introduction: Modernism, A Permanent Achievement,
by Antoni Pizà

ACT I: The Challenges of Modernistic Music,
by Charles Rosen
A Conversation with Daniel J. Wakin
Audience Q&A

ACT II: We Are What We Hear, by Paul Griffiths

A Conversation with Jeffrey Milarsky

ENTRE’ACTE I: The Creative Pulse of Collaborative Aesthetics,
by Philip Glass and Claire Chase
Audience Q&A

ACT III: Walking Among Noise: Tonality, Atonality,
and Where We Go from Here, 
by Roger Scruton
A Conversation with Greil Marcus
Audience Q&A

ENTR’ACTE II: Strings Attached
, by David Harrington and Brooke Gladstone
Audience Q&A

Act IV: The Many Dangers of Music, by Richard Taruskin
A Conversation with Scott Burnham
Audience Q&A

Index

https://www.brepols.net/products/IS-9782503597737-1

 

Webinar: Beethoven’s Family Feuds

Join us for this free webinar of the Ensemble for the Romantic Center, to be held on Thursday, 1 December, from 5:30 to 7:00pm. We will addresses Beethoven’s struggles to keep custody of his nephew Karl and his ongoing feuds with his family. Beethoven’s late style will be examined as an artistic sublimation of the pressing issues in his personal life, focusing on the profound aesthetic transformations in his late works.

This webinar provides context for the upcoming Ensemble for the Romantic Century concert, Beethoven vs. Beethoven, to be held on  on 15 December 2022.

Panelists

James Melo, musicologist for the Ensemble for the Romantic Century and Director of the Brook Center’s Seminars of the Ensemble for the Romantic Century.

Harvey Sachs, music historian and Beethoven biographer

Link for Registration
Please use the link below to register for the webinar. Once you are registered, you will receive the actual link to join the webinar:

https://gc-cuny-edu.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_y6SDAnRITGiJOBFEY44fDw

 

Webinar: Reaching the Ears of the Nation: Frederick Douglass’ Narratives and the African American Musical Traditions

Join us for this free webinar of the Ensemble for the Romantic Center, to be held on Monday, 7 November, from 5:30 to 7:00pm. We will investigate the repercussions and influence of Frederick Douglass’s narratives of freedom and personhood and their inspirational role in sustaining African American discourses in culture and the arts, with emphasis on the development of an African American classical music tradition and the cultural role of hip hop and rap music in modern American society.

This webinar provides context for the upcoming Ensemble for the Romantic Century concert on 17 November.

Panelists
James Melo, Senior-Supervising Editor at the Répertoire International de Littérature Musicale (RILM), CUNY Graduate Center, and musicologist for the Ensemble for the Romantic Century.

Jason Lee Oakes, Popular Music Editor, Répertoire International de Littérature Musicale (RILM), CUNY Graduate Center.

Link for Registration
Please use the link below to register for the seminar. Once you are registered, you will receive the actual link to join the seminar.Register in advance for this webinar:
https://gc-cuny-edu.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_oqdJsVuzQhOPjucmgB2fVg

The Body Questions: A Talk Series

Sunday October 16, we were pleased to begin a series of book talks with the authors of The Body Questions  There are seven talks in all over the next few months, and we are inviting everyone to attend, beyond the ones who are already participating.

There are in total four events organized by The Foundation for Iberian Music

  • Sunday 16 Oct 12:00-14:00 NY time, with Noel Allende Goitía, Miguel Ángel Vargas, and Antonio Cortijo Ocaña. Here is the Eventbrite link.
  • Sunday 30 Oct 12:0014:00 NY time, with Karen Silen, Ryan Rockmore, Constance Valis Hill, Lynn Brooks, and Guillermo Castro.  Here is the Eventbrite link.
  • Sunday 6 Nov 12:0014:00 NY time, with Russell Brown, Clara Chinoy, Anna Shalom, and Gabriela Estrada
  • Sunday 11 Dec 12:0014:00 NY time, with Scott Barton, Agnes Kamya, and Julie Baggenstoss

These events will be bilingual in English and Spanish/ Estas presentaciones se realizarán en castellano e inglés.

There are also three events being sponsored by Rosemary Cisneros at Coventry University featuring some of the Roma and Roma-allied authors in the book:  Belén Maya, Miguel Ángel Vargas, and Russell Brown. 

These will happen on Nov. 14, 15, and 16 at 17:00-18:30 CET (Spain’s time). More details to follow, but you can register for these events here.

Celebrating Flamenco's Tangled Roots: The Body Questions

Analytical Approaches to World Music Symposium: Call for Papers

Announcing the second installment of the Analytical Approaches to World Music symposium series, dedicated to theoretical, analytical, and cognitive approaches to rhythm and meter in all  global musical traditions, past and present. The symposium will be held virtually on 1-2 June and on 8-9 June 2023, and will be hosted by the CUNY Graduate Center, the Brook Center, and IFTAWM.

Our goal is to facilitate a gathering of some of the world’s leading scholars on these issues in a special four-day virtual research symposium the results of which will be available to scholars worldwide via publication in our eponymous  open-access, peer-reviewed online journal.

The call for papers is here.

More information:

There will be a total of 48 individual presentations. Of these, 16 will be invited presentations. The keynote speaker will be Daniel Avorgbedor (University of Ghana). A call for papers will be issued in late September. Paper presentations will be virtual with a duration of 30+15 minutes. Paper sessions will be held in parallel on June 1–2 and on June 8, and will include two parallel morning sessions (9:00–12:00) and two parallel afternoon sessions (14:00–17:00). The final day of the conference will convene on Friday, June 9 and be devoted to panel and discussion sessions exclusively while using the same schedule mentioned previously. Accordingly, the morning panel sessions (A and B) will meet from 9:00–12:00; the afternoon panel sessions (C and D) will meet from 14:00–17:00.

Invited Speakers:
Simha Arom
Daniel Avorgbedor
Stephen Blum
Sylvie Le Bomin
Susanne Furniss
Keith Howard
David Huron
Kelly Jakubowski
Yonatan Malin
Rainer Polak
Jay Rahn
John Roeder
Chris Stover
David Temperley
Michael Tenzer
Renee Timmers
Richard Widdess

More information is available here.

Rossini’s La Veuve andalouse, a facsimile edition

Based on its autograph sources, lost until recently, Gioachino Rossini: «La Veuve andalouse» presents the first and only critical edition of Rossini’s song. In addition to including a performing transcription of the music and the lyrics in all the languages of the first printed versions, this volume provides many contextual sources, such as several unknown Rossini letters, illustrations, and many contemporaneous reviews as well as other primary sources. All in all, it brings to the present a riveting scena worthy of the most celebrated opera composer of the first half of the nineteenth century.

See the publisher’s web

Authors’ interview about La Veuve

Anna Tonna’s performace of La Veuve

TABLE OF CONTENTS — SUMARIO

List of Illustrations | Lista de ilustraciones
Acknowledgments | Agradecimientos

I. The Story and Context of Rossini’s La Veuve andalouse |  La historia y el contexto de «La Veuve andalouse» de Rossini

· Some Preliminary Remarks | Algunas consideraciones preliminares

· Frontera de Valldemosa, Rossini’s Spanish Friend and La Veuve’s Dedicatee |  Frontera de Valldemosa, el amigo español de Rossini y dedicatario de «La Veuve»

· The Musical Patronage of Isabel de Borbón and La Veuve |  El patronazgo musical de Isabel de Borbón y «La Veuve»

· Documents in Contemporaneous Sources | Documentos en fuentes coetáneas

II. La Veuve andalouse

· Facsimile | Facsímil

· Music Edition | Edición musical

· Notes to the Edition | Notas a la edición

III. Performing La Veuve | La Interpretación de «La Veuve»

· Some Thoughts on the Performance of La Veuve andalouse by Anna Tonna | Reflexiones sobre la interpretación de «La Veuve andalouse» por Anna Tonna

· IPA Transcription by Anna Tonna | Transcripción IPA por Anna Tonna
Literal Translation from the French Text to Facilitate the Comprehension of the Lyrics

· Song Texts | Textos de la canción

· Original versions in French, Spanish, Italian, English and German |  Versiones originales en francés, español, italiano, inglés y alemán

Appendixes | Apéndices

i. Cast of Characters | Galería de personajes

ii. Chronology | Cronología

Bibliography and Discography | Bibliografía i discografía

The authors:

Antoni Pizà has taught at The City University of New York for over twenty-five years, where he also directs The Foundation for Iberian Music. Pizà has authored or co-edited twenty volumes, the latest being Celebrating Flamenco’s Tangled Roots: The Body Questions (Cambridge Scholars, 2022) and The Way of the Moderns: Six Perspectives on Modernism in Music (Brepols, 2022).

María Luisa Martínez holds a degree in Music History and Sciences (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 2005) and a PhD with International Mention in Musicology (Universidad de Jaén, 2016). Since 2015 she has been researcher at The Foundation for Iberian Music at The Graduate Center, City University of New York (CUNY). Her latest publications include La biblioteca musical particular de la infanta Isabel de Borbón (Fondo Infanta). Critical edition and catalog (SEdEM, 2019).

In addition to Gioachino Rossini: «La Veuve andalouse», as a research team with María Luisa Martínez, they have published a critical edition of Tomás Bretón: Quinteto en sol mayor para piano y cuerda (ICCMU, 2022).

 

Global Xenakis Centenary Symposium: Available Online

We are delighted to announce the Global Xenakis Centenary Symposium, a hybrid event hosted by the Brook Center’s Xenakis Project of the Americas that took place on 30 September 2022 from 9:30 am to 7:00 pm EDT, is now available for viewing online.

Program details and speaker biographies.

The event took place online and in the Kelly Skylight Room of the Graduate Center of The City University of New York (365 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10016). 

View the event here.

The entire 41-hour Global Xenakis Marathon (including the above event) is also now available for viewing here.

 

K. Meira Goldberg at the Flamenco Bienal

Our flamenco distinguised resident scholar K. Meira Goldberg presented “Tumulte noir y jaleo de Jerez. Ecos de Harlem jazz en la Sevilla flamenca” at the XXII Bienal de Flamenco (Sevilla, 2022).

Photo by Michael Penland

As the organizers explain, the Concurso del 22 was not an isolated event. Throughout the 1920’s, events, lectures, meetings, conferences and competitions were held worldwide. They aimed to represent the institutionalisation of vernacular music as an artistic field. The Tango in Argentina, Samba in Brazil, Blues in the United States, Son Cubano in Cuba, Rebetiko in Greece, Folk Music in India, Czardas / Klezmer Music in Central Europe, and Arab Folk Music in Egypt, North African countries and the Middle East, amongst many others, conducted similar interventions through which academic culture, high culture and culture of the elite highlighted folk music, its different vernacular variants and the uniqueness of new genres such as jazz and flamenco.Of course, it was not a random event. It was linked with phenomena such as the creation of the first recording industry (in this case, the emergence of the radio and cinema), and with the commencement of cultural decolonisation around the world. This also included the emancipation of new political subjects, national independence processes, the formation of democratic systems, and, as seen in Spain, a process of political regeneration which would culminate with the proclamation of the Republic in 1931.


We intend to establish a frame of cultural comparisons, and to contrast the uniqueness, differences and repetition that is present across all these events to further understand the artistic interventions that were formed in the 1922 competition. Therefore, it is not a matter of continuing to repeat the inaccurate assessments of the ethnographic or musicological errors of Falla or Lorca in their approach to the event, nor of continuing to uncritically celebrate the formula for highlighting flamenco music and dance in competitions, festivals, biennials and deformed mirrors of el Concurso del 22, which remain hegemonic when it comes to highlighting the value of flamenco. It is clear how Borges makes the same paternalistic mistakes as Federico García Lorca when highlighting primitivism, spontaneity and the popularism of the tango and flamenco respectively, but also how his patronage served to honour the ways of making these types of music and dances, and became a spokesperson for cultural matters, when even his disquisitions were considered almost miscreant.