SAM 2010 Part II

Phil has offered some very sane, well-phrased, and constructive criticisms of Thursday's seminar, and I certainly hope TPTB will take note. Let's see...where were we? Ah, yes, Friday afternoon.

One issue, but not necessarily problem, is that those of us blogging SAM2010 tend to go to the same sessions, but perhaps next year, we can recruit more bloggers to participate or do guest blogging spots, thereby "covering" a wider range of papers/events.

Like Drew, I attended the Cold War Anxieties session during the late morning of Friday. Phil's paper was, as expected, fantastic, and started churning a whole lot of thoughts in my mind. Even just listening to the snippet of Bernstein's "Age of Anxiety" got me thinking about de-volution in musical codas, and how much the end of the Epilogue seems like the reverse experience of Stravinsky's Firebird with its 'born from the ashes' finale. Phil talked about how it avoids "triumphalism," but I felt it used some of the same techniques inherent in "triumphant" endings, but to push it toward anxiety, rather than triumph. I can't wait to get home and spend some more time with the work. And that is what a good paper should do. We start the Cold War unit in my 'War and Music in the US' class on Tuesday, so Phil's paper and the others gave me a lot of food for thought. Jennifer Delapp-Birkett offered some revelations from the FBI files on Copland which are immediately relevant to my own research, so there is a contact I need to make. Keith Hatschek's paper on Dave Brubeck's 1958 State Dept.-sponsored tour was fascinating for interpolated questions of race, Cold War politics, and musical style. I also appreciated Leann Wood's paper on the Cold War reception of the film The Music Man, and found myself amused at the questions of martiality and regimented music that can be appropriated by either side .

My afternoon was spent at the Canadian Museum of Civilization. We had a great tour, including an excellent demonstration of hoop dancing (see photo). Our guide was one of the people who was instrumental in the development of the First Peoples exhibit and so we received very good insights into the questions of curation that come up when you have to negotiate anthropology and archaeology. Rather than pigeonhole each tribe or group into their own little museum slots, the approach at the Museum is more reflective of the cultural dialogue between groups, and between the past and present. He cited intermarriage and trade culture as two reasons to approach it this way. A very impressive museum in a fascinating building.

The evening ended at Drew and Phil's no-host blogger reception at the Armada Lounge. When we finally gained access to the Armada Lounge (which sits atop The Brig), we were pleased to welcome a large contingent from the SAM Student Dinner.

TODAY (Saturday)

I started my morning off with Rebecca Bennett's (Northwestern) paper, "Virgil Thomson and Theodor Adorno: An Unlikely Team Fights an "Appreciation Racket" and thought about the resonance of their criticism in today's climate (specifically the hullabaloo over WGBH/WCRB in Boston--the link is to just one of many related articles from the Boston Musical Intelligencer). Then I jumped over to hear David Paul's (UCSB) great paper, "Does the Cradle Still Rock? Recreating an Infamous Premiere on Film," which investigated, among other things, the political resonance of three screenplays for film versions of Blitzstein's Cradle Will Rock (Lardner, Welles, and Tim Robbins). Lastly, I caught my former graduate colleague Revell Carr's (UNC Greensboro) fascinating paper on Charles Derby's California Hula Tour in 1862. I had to banish images of grass skirts and coconut shells as Rev showed a photo of hula dancers in 1862 who looked like a cross between Gibson Girls and Hawaiian aboriginals. It was amusing to see Victorian sensibilities inform something that has been popularly linked with the erotic in the modern day (however erroneously).

I'm looking forward to this afternoon's panel on Composer-Fellowships at the American Academy in Rome, with presentations by Judith Tick, Carol Oja, and Martin Brody.

Pseudo-live-blogging Society for American Music 2010 (Ottawa)

One of the great joys of these conferences is the opportunity to see friends and colleagues. Dinner last night with Phil , and sitting on a panel (of sorts) yesterday with Drew, made me realize I very much miss blogging. So, in an attempt to re-energize my own blogging endeavors, I'm going to offer a few summaries of various happenings here at SAM in BEAUTIFUL Ottawa.

Like Drew, I'd like to chat with the participants in the other "seminar" format session: "Nineteenth-Century American Music Studies." Our seminar session, "The Art of Association" was an interesting experiment with lots of room for improvement, but also a lot of future potential. Drew has summarized the logistics and the participants over at amusicology, so I won't repeat here, but it was a pleasure to be a guinea pig as SAM looks toward shaking things up a bit in the conference world. ;-)

Day 2 (Today) has been exciting, having heard two great papers thus far:

• Maureen DeMaio (UC Santa Barbara), "The Decline of Anti-Semitic Antimodernism: Daniel Gregory Mason and American Responses to Nazism in the 1930s
• Elissa Harbert (Northwestern), "Italian Musicians in the Early United States, 1780-1830"

Maureen is ABD at my graduate alma mater and presented a recasting of Mason as affected by both the rise of Nazism in Europe and his friend Ossip Gabrilovich/witsch. In 1938, he reflects on his "ill-considered" words in earlier articles and works, assuming some responsibility for Gabrilovich's "deep-seated and almost voiceless" despair.

Elissa's work with Italian immigrant musicians, including Lorenzo da Ponte, was absolutely fascinating and tied in nicely with some of the issues explored yesterday during the "Art of Association" seminar. The genres with which musicians were involved (opera/oratorio vs. band/dance music) seems to have had some impact on the success of these musicians in the U.S.

I also enjoyed a poster session by Trudi Wright (University of Colorado, Boulder) on the evolution of Pins and Needles from a late Depression production of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union to a Broadway hit.

On tap (intended, anyway) for the rest of today:

• Cold War Anxieties session, with papers by Phil Gentry, Jennifer Delapp-Birkett, Keith Hatschek, and Leanne Wood, chaired by Howard Pollack.
• A tour of the Canadian Museum of Civilization (SAM has this lovely tradition of an afternoon "off" to take in the sights)
• Concert and Presentation of Honorary Membership to composer R. Murray Schafer
• AND, last, but not least, Drew and Phil's no-host blogger reception at the Armada Lounge (careful piano music set to auto-play on website) starting at 9pm.

Checking in with 2009-10

I'm probably not alone in marking my "years" by the academic calendar, rather than the Jan-Dec plan on which the rest of the world seems to run. ;-) That this is/has been the busiest year of my life is not overstating the situation. I've tested my limits, and I'm living to tell the tale.

At the end of Summer 2009, I wrote this post, with a list of everything I needed to prepare for Fall 2009 (and into Spring 2010). I think it is good idea to re-examine that list and see where I'm at for Spring 2010.

Syllabi (Spring 2010)

4.75 / 5

History Proficiency Exam (to write, not take...)

0 / 1

Book Reviews

1 / 2

Conference Papers (EEK!)

0 / 1

Program Notes

3 / 5

Pre-concert Lectures DONE!

1 / 1

Elections to coordinate/tabulate DONE!

1 / 1

Concerts to Review

1 / 9

Competitions to adjudicate

0 / 2

The list above represents the items to which I have commitments/have been accepted. Below I've included some goals for this year.

Conference abstracts to submit

0 / 3

Articles to submit

0 / 2

Book Proposal to outline

0 / 1

HMM. Very telling, indeed.

Bostonians v. WGBH/WCRB

On Tuesday night, I served as a respondent for the forum on the future of Classical Music radio in Boston. Organized by the Boston Musical Intelligencer, the forum saw an audience of roughly 400 people in Old South Church in Copley Square, some of whom arrived an hour early to “get a good seat.” The main attraction was billed as a panel comprised of broadcast journalist Chris Lydon; the fiery announcer and former general manager of WCRB, Dave MacNeill; music critic emeritus for the Boston Globe, Richard Dyer; and John Voci, general manager of WGBH radio. The gavel-wielder was none other than former Massachusetts Senate president and current president of the University of Massachusetts, William Bulger.

Long before questions were posed from the audience, the room was vibrating with the anger, frustration, and sense of injustice felt by a great many Bostonians who felt their music had been “taken away” by WGBH’s latest business decisions, most notably the cancellation of the Friday afternoon broadcasts of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the move of all classical programming to 99.5 WCRB, recently acquired by WGBH.

My question for Mr. Voci, which received encouraging applause, was in regard to a rumored 75-page document in WGBH’s possession, full of listener comments regarding the recent changes. I asked what percentage of those comments were positive, and to my surprise, Mr. Voci replied that he had not seen it. I was assigned this question by the BMInt and was originally uncomfortable asking a question about a document only rumored to exist. But now I’m glad the question was asked because it opened the door for two more: 1) if the document does exist, why HASN’T Mr. Voci, as general manager, seen it? And 2) if the document doesn’t exist, WHY NOT? As one audience member opined, there needs to be a better feedback mechanism on the WCRB and WGBH websites. Facebook pages, while a crucial and important venue for commentary, are exclusionary to a good portion of GBH/CRB listeners whose internet involvement may be limited and who don’t wish to join Facebook in order to comment. We know that people have written comments on their donation cards and I’d be willing to bet some people have even written…*gasp*…letters! “Listener-supported radio” needs to have…well, listener support. So, it does seem that the comments from said listeners would be the primary resource for assessing that level of support, much more so than the spurious Arbitron ratings.

After asking my question, I sat back and watched and listened. Unlike many of those present, I’m a fairly recent transplant to Boston. I don’t listen to the radio much as I don’t drive very often and I listen to music for a living (class prep, program notes, pre-concert lectures), which leaves very little time to tune in to the radio. But I lived in a place for ten years where Vivaldi and Massenet’s "Meditation from Thaïs" (two of Tuesday night's audience’s favorite signifiers of mediocrity in programming) were popular programming choices for the local classical music radio station. In that city, relative populations aside, it would be hard for me to imagine that 40 people would have shown up to “defend” classical music radio, much less 400. Chris Lydon did attempt to drive home the point that Boston is a “wildly interesting” place, culturally and intellectually, and that “we should demand the best from our public institutions.” And on Tuesday night, those demands were made, with varying levels of eloquence, but almost uniform sincerity. That those demands were not MET on the spot, should come as no surprise. But a gathering of 400 people is hard to ignore.

From some of the comments I’ve read at various other fora, I gather there was definitely a wide range of expectations for the evening. Laments that the hour and a half event “solved nothing” seem to me to have missed the greater point. Some Bostonians, armed with the heritage of the Boston Tea Party, expected too much (from Mr. Voci, in particular). While I am not interested in defending the actions of WGBH, Mr. Voci behaved exactly in the manner I expected. He is but one person in an organization—he responded to questions with businesslike diplomacy, dutifully took notes, and made no promises. What many of these commenters fail to see is that the evening was not really meant to be about Mr. Voci or any of the other panelists. Nor was it about the reviewers from the Intelligencer who served as respondents. It was in fact about the four hundred people who filled the seats of that church.

There is great cause for concern here because the issues at hand are indicative of a growing trend in dismissing classical music from the cultural scene. Unlike painting, sculpture and many of the visual arts, music is not static art. Classical music radio is a museum of ever-changing and completely temporal exhibits…it should never be satisfied with a limited permanent collection. Unlike the Louvre, which has the luxury of having people come to it in order to see the Mona Lisa, classical music radio must bring its museum to the people. As an FM broadcaster, WGBH has signed on to that mode of transport. Telling people to listen in HD, or to use the internet, or to buy new stereo equipment, is tantamount to blocking off the ramps and stairways to the museum and asking folks to rappel through the skylights. If WGBH had started an internet radio station in addition to current offerings, this would be a completely different situation. But the fact of the matter is that people feel robbed. Bruce Mittman, president of Mittcom, and member of WGBH Coporate Executive Council, used the word “offload” in referring to moving the classical music programming to 99.5, going on to say that the move would “make the station [WGBH] more pure.” (1) If purity is what we are after in the way we establish cultural and artistic legacies, then the situation is more dire than I imagine.

What Tuesday night’s forum DID accomplish, is that WGBH has been put on notice. People ARE listening and watching. I’m an optimist so I’d like to believe that there will be more changes to come that will put this situation back on track, and I’m even willing to wait a bit. I don’t envy WGBH one bit. Arbitrating aesthetics is awfully difficult. There are a great many people whose idea of good classical music IS Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini, Meditation from Thais, etc and they shouldn’t be excluded from this conversation either. I’m sure many who sat in the church would be aghast at my personal idea of “good” classical music (which is why the internet is my listening source of choice). But what WGBH must realize is that IS the task before them. It isn’t just about business decisions…art never is. As a business, WGBH made a decision. How much that decision will compromise the organization’s role as a guardian of culture will be measured in the coming months.

(1) Greater Boston, September 21, 2009

READ/HEAR/SEE MORE (Links included below represent a variety of opinions and do not necessarily reflect those of this blogger :-)):

• Greater Boston (Wednesday, January 6, 2010) segment on Tuesday night's event, including conversation with John Voci, Bettina Norton (Boston Musical Intelligencer), and Richard Dyer
• WGBH/WCRB go the way of WNYC/WQXR (Doc Searls Blog)
• "Dead Blogging the 'GBH Classical Radio Rumpus" (Campaign Outsider)
• Various thoughts by 'Romy the Cat' and friends (Good Sound Club)
  

New Hat!

I've now joined the reviewing "staff" at the Boston Musical Intelligencer. I've long admired their goal "to list every classical music concert in greater Boston." They also "intend to review as many as possible, especially those deemed most important and unjustly neglected by our editors."

I'm not sure what constitutes an "important" classical music concert, but neglected ones are not hard to find. Music criticism is fast becoming a lost art, with budget cuts at major papers. As musicologists, this should be cause for great concern because it is the critics who really end up being the chroniclers of concert life (if such a thing exists). Slonimsky's Lexicon of Musical Invective is a humorous read and supplement to any music history course, but it also provides some invaluable snapshots of reception history, context, and occasionally the music itself (!) I am not advocating invective as a norm, of course (in fact I hope the occasion that warrants it is rare), but when it comes to art and music, in particular, it cannot be separated from the aesthetic viewpoint (errant or otherwise). As a musicologist, it is easy enough to be critical of music on a recording, or by a composer long since dead. But I'd like to encourage my colleagues to get out there---put the book down, go to a concert---keep this tradition alive. Blog about the concerts you go to. Start your version of the Boston Musical Intelligencer in your own city. And really, it all comes down to basic economics ( a course in which I received the worst grade of my college career, incidentally)--supply and DEMAND. It doesn't have to be the BSO, or the LA or NY Phil. I bet you've got a community chorus in your area that worked long and hard on some amazing repertoire and could really use some constructive feedback. It is the subtext of many a choral song: anyone out there? Are you listening?

And speaking of choruses, a shameless plug for my own: Spectrum Singers. 30th Anniversary. 30 years, yes...in Boston. We've got an amazing concert coming up on November 21st. I'd really like for you to be there. Bach Magnificat, Schutz's Deutsches Magnificat, the third and sixth cantatas of Bach's Christmas Oratorio with orchestra members from Emmanuel Music. I've got discounted tickets. Leave a comment and I'll find you!

Fall is a-comin

Five classes. Three institutions.

Accountability as summer ends

Summer is effectively over. The meetings have begun. I'm constructing syllabi. I capped off my summer with a week-long research trip to Pittsburgh (or did I begin my fall?---not sure). At any rate, based on yet another good idea from Phil, I figured blogging my musicological to-do-list might be a good idea for accountability. I don't intend on making updates a regular feature, but this will help me focus on what I need to achieve this year. It is going to be a roller-coaster of a ride this fall term (five classes spread over three institutions), so anything that helps keep me on track is a boon.

Lets Get Started!

Syllabi (Fall '09 only)DONE!

5 / 5

Textbook orders placedDONE!

3 / 3

Book Reviews

0 / 2

Conference Papers

0 / 1

Program Notes

0 / 5

Pre-concert LecturesDONE!

1 / 1

Elections to coordinate/tabulate

0 / 1

The list above represents the items to which I have commitments/have been accepted. Below I've included some goals for this year.

Conference abstracts to submit

0 / 3

Articles to submit

0 / 2

Book Proposal to outline

0 / 1

So, there's nothing left to do except get to it! I'll take this opportunity to wish everyone else happy term-preparation!

NEXT POST: Jenny Lind sighting (in PA!) Rebecca's Jenny Lind Tour Development Post

Monday Inbox

Musical Icons

Yes, I'm going to do it, so let's just get it out of the way, shall we?

I apologize for silence on this blog.

Ok, there. Not so bad. (This is all in reference to the rule that you aren't supposed to apologize for lack of blogging). I'd like to tell you all that it was a Cagean experiment in blogging, but that would be untrue. What is a more likely culprit is much needed downtime from academia. And yes, I include my blogging (and reading of other blogs) in that.

I've been busy reading the messages and posts re: MJ's death, career, wackiness, rage, etc. and I've felt particularly grateful NOT to be famous. I find it sad that death should be the catalyst for a discussion of MJ's music on the blogosphere, Twitter, and the AMS-L. I do think, however, that death seems to give music new life. We listen to it with new ears (to borrow from Proust)...ears that resonate with nostalgia, yet filter out the noise of a very public life. I can't say a whole lot about MJ's music, except that I'm conscious now of how big a part it played in the scenery of my life. There have been several times in the last week or so when I've said, "THAT's Michael Jackson??" in response to hearing a song. I like this sense of uncovering a secret. I'm sorry that I paid his music little mind when he was alive, but perhaps that is a symptom of being trained in listening to the music of DWG (that's "Dead White Guys" for those of you following along at home). Of course, being that I specialize in 20th-21st century music, that claim doesn't really work.

I want to write about icons, actually. It is a word that is tossed around, particularly in regard to Michael Jackson, and I feel it is appropriate. If I was not struck by his music, I was very much taken by his iconic presence. On Friday morning, the day after Michael Jackson passed, I had a rather surreal experience while walking through Boston's South Station. In an almost uniform manner, almost every single person in the station was reading the Metro, which featured a large headline that said something like, "The King of Pop is Dead." I don't recall the actual headline, but I was struck by how this seemed to be a fiction, even though I knew it to be true. It was like walking through an episode of the Twilight Zone, where in a parallel world, Michael Jackson had died, and all the bizarre inhabitants of the world moved their unblinking eyes in tandem across the pages of the Boston Metro, and coordinated the turning of those pages.

Madeleine L'Engle, in a wonderful (though quirky) book entitled Penguins and Golden Calves: Icons and Idols, writes this about icons:

Our need for icons begins in early childhood when we hold on to the favourite little piece of blanket, or the beloved stuffed animal. The blanket is not a blanket, nor is the animal a mere animal; they are icons of all-rightness in a world that early shows itself to be not all right. They are icons of tender love in a society that daily becomes more brutal and violent.

Perhaps L'Engle's description does not exactly jive with our images of "Wacko Jacko," but like the blanket or the stuffed animal, MJ the icon was the "all-rightness", whereas MJ the person was definitely "not all right." Here was an icon who asked us to start with the man in the mirror...the icon could ask, the man could not.

To continue with L'Engle: "An icon is something I can look through and get a wider glimpse of God and God's demands on us..."

In watching the grief of thousands over MJ's death, I believe that this was probably very true for some of his most devoted fans. But the real tragedy of the human icon is that they are indeed looked through--basically a means to an end. For the blanket, it doesn't mean too much, but we might take a moment to examine the cost of using musicians in this way.

---

If you haven't already, I encourage you to take a look at the following posts regarding Michael Jackson:
The Musicological Michael Jackson (Musicology/Matters)
Rage in his Feet (2'23 and cross-posted at Musicology/Matters)
I Want You Back: A Musiceulogical Inquiry (Musicology/Matters)
Michael Jackson (Ryan at amusicology)
and an ongoing compendium here (once again, brought to you by the great bloggers at M/M).

Living Composer Final Project

(Insert obligatory apology for absence from blogging here).

Another semester is almost finished. The final exam in "Music of the Twentieth Century" is tomorrow. Alex Ross' fantastic text (reviewed by me here) helped guide my students through the constant interplay between music and historical events of the 20th-century. It struck me, however, that this was also an opportunity to get them to engage with music of the now. To this end, I assigned a term paper on a living (and in most cases, active) composer (or, in some cases, recently deceased). I gave them a list from which to choose (see below), and they had no other information about the composers on that list except for their birth dates and nationalities. The list provides a fairly wide sampling of styles. I gave them some time to do some "preliminary research" (aka Google) in order to pick a composer. Unfortunately, I did not provide a survey regarding their criteria or process, but all the same, the results were interesting. I've boldfaced the names of the composers who were picked by students (21 in all).

H. Leslie Adams (b. 1932, USA)
Thomas Adès (b. 1971, Great Britain)
Laurie Anderson (b. 1947, USA)
Harrison Birtwistle (b. 1934, Great Britain)
Henry Brant (b. 1913, d. April 26, 2008, USA)
Leo Brouwer (b. 1939, Cuba)
David Cope (b. 1941, USA)
George Crumb (b.1929, USA)
Peter Maxwell Davies (b. 1934, Great Britain)
David Del Tredici (b. 1937, USA)
Pascal Dupasin (b. 1955, France)
Tan Dun (b. 1957, China)
Brian Ferneyhough (b. 1943, Great Britain)
Lukas Foss (b. 1922, d. February 1, 2009, USA)
Kyle Gann (b. 1955, USA)
Osvaldo Golijov (b. 1961, Argentina)
Sofia Gubaidalina (b. 1931, Russian)
John Harbison (b. 1938, USA)
Stephen Hartke (b. 1952, USA)
Aaron Jay Kernis (b. 1960, USA)
Helmut Lachenmann (b. 1935, Germany)
Paul Lansky (b. 1944, USA)
Tania León (b. 1943, Cuba)
Magnus Lindberg (b. 1958, Finland)
James MacMillan (b. 1959, Scotland)
Meredith Monk (b. 1942, USA)
Tristan Murail (b. 1947, France)
Max Neuhaus (b.1939, 3 February 2009, USA)
Per Nørgård (b. 1932, Denmark)
Pauline Oliveros (b. 1932, USA)
Bernard Rands (b. 1934, Great Britain)
Wolfgang Rihm (b. 1952, Germany)
Christopher Rouse (b. 1949, USA)
Frederic Rzewski (b. 1938, USA)
Kaija Saariaho (b. 1952, Finland)
Esa-Pekka Salonen (b. 1958, Finland)
Joseph Schwantner (b. 1943, USA)
Peter Sculthorpe (b. 1929, Australia)
R. Murray Shafer (b. 1933, Canada)
Steven Stucky (b. 1949, USA)
Augusta Read Thomas (b.1964, USA)
Yehudi Wyner (b. 1929, USA)
Chen Yi (b. 1953, China)
John Zorn (b. 1953, USA)

Among other components of the project, I encouraged the students to try and contact their subjects for interviews (phone or e-mail). I was discouraged by the response of some composers (who shall remain nameless). Perhaps an undergraduate term paper isn't an illustrious honor, but it is a chance to engage with the future before becoming the past. I'm well aware that some of these students may have been ill-prepared (e.g. "Hi. I'm writing a paper on you. Tell me about yourself."), but what message does it send to be unwilling to answer a few questions? Art can no longer afford to be so aloof, I think. I don't believe in changing compositional styles to fit trends, but I do believe in engaging with the "outside world" in some meaningful way. Some composers may not care if we listen, but I would hope they'd care enough about their own music to talk about it when asked.

All the same, I think it was a valuable project. For many students, the whole idea of modern composition was a revelation. "Symphonies" and "operas" are the stuff of Mozart. For them, not only are the white guys dead, but so is the entire tradition itself. While I don't think any of them left the class embracing Ferneyhough or Boulez's music, I do think some of them have become more aware of an eternal soundscape, serving as both scenery and props in what they know to be "the present." My hope is that engaging with this music now will make it less "dusty" in fifty, seventy, or a hundred years and that we can finally view composition as a living tradition, be it Du Fay, Bach, Haydn or Golijov.

Shameless Plug: Boston's Spectrum Singers Nov. 22nd!

Tired of the same old holiday concert? Well, this year, come hear Spectrum Singers' Christmas Prelude Celebrating St. Cecilia's Day, this Saturday, November 22nd at 8pm at First Church Congregational in Cambridge. Better yet, come at 7pm to hear an engaging pre-concert lecture by acclaimed musicologist Steven Ledbetter. The concert will feature:

• Benjamin Britten's Hymn to St. Cecilia
• Norman Dello Joio's To Saint Cecilia (performed in memory of the composer)
• Daniel Pinkham's A Song for St. Cecilia's Day
• Herbert Howells' Hymn for St. Cecilia
• as well as works by Ireland, Houkom, and Mathias.
  

Come celebrate music's patron saint and enjoy this unique holiday experience. Tickets: $15/$35/$45. I have discounted tickets available. If you are interested, leave your name and some form of contactable info (e-mail/link) in the comments.

Playlist for Tuesday, 11/18/08

I find, as I get closer to the end of my course, that my lectures are resembling Time-Life Audio Collection infomercials. While that disturbs me at some level, it does make for fun listening. I'm not sure I could come up with an infomercial to encapsulate the following playlist, but feel free to try, if you like.

Fascinating Rhythm (Gershwin)--- Ella Fitzgerald
Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man (Kern)--- Helen Morgan
You Send Me--Sam Cooke
Under the Boardwalk--- The Drifters
Hound Dog--- Elvis Presley
In the Ghetto--- Elvis Presley
Can't Help Falling In Love--- Elvis Presley
It Wasn't God Who Made Honky-Tonk Angels--- Kitty Wells
It's Mighty Dark To Travel--- Bill Monroe
Talk About Jesus (Dorsey) --- Marion Williams
Precious Lord (Dorsey)--- B.B. King
Take My Hand, Precious Lord (Dorsey)---Mahalia Jackson
Mercedes Benz--- Janis Joplin
Summertime (Gershwin)--- Janis Joplin
Summertime (Gershwin)--- Willie Nelson

AMS/SMT 2008: Nashville, TN

Alright, I guess it is my turn for not-so-much-live blogging from AMS. Now that I've made my public service announcement, recovered from two hours on the tarmac at Washington-Dulles, and have caught up on some sleep, I can offer a few thoughts and highlights.

Like Drew, I got there early (Wednesday), but alas, unlike Drew, did not meet with Rich Crawford. I ventured out to the streets of Nashville for dinner, alone and in conference attire, then turned right back around and ate at the hotel. Having been raised in Los Angeles, I've learned to trust my instincts. Something about being alone, sans cowboy boots and jeans, made me feel rather conspicuous. I will give the hotel restaurant props for their excellent hospitality.

Thursday morning I waited not-so-patiently for the registration desk to open so that I could obtain my name tag and bag, absolute necessities to complete my conference ensemble. I spoke with Al Hipkins who was really on top of things (enough so to suggest that we probably didn't need room for 100 people for the Haydn Society Meeting and I should let him know...). Then after text messaging my roommate (who was in Memphis enjoying the Civil Rights Museum), I plopped myself down in a chair at Starbucks and tried to look busy. I read through my program and programmed all the sessions I wanted to/had-the-best-of-intentions to attend into my PDA/superphone, and ordered another latte.

Thursday Afternoon
I ran into W. Dean Sutcfliffe and asked if he would announce (at the Haydn Session) that the time and place for the Haydn Society meeting were incorrect in the program. I went to the Haydn session at 2, made myself useful by helping pass out handouts (I had to do something secretarial), and settled in. I enjoyed all the papers, especially Elaine Sisman's. I mused upon how many opportunities one has to look at anatomical drawings in a musicology session (Sarah Day O'Connell's paper) and thoroughly enjoyed Peter Hoyt's offerings of English prints of clerics with windmills on their heads (yes, still in the Haydn session). I did wish to clone myself so that I could have been in the Messiaen session at the same time.

I joyfully greeted my roommate (safely arrived from Memphis) and we headed to the opening reception which resembled a swap meet with drinks. I scored a drink ticket from my wonderful chair, and proceeded to chat with my grad school cohorts. It was a strange feeling as four of us are now "Drs." and we all have some sort of employment.

Friday morning I missed the Convent Music session (sorry!) to go hear Michael Cuthbert and Giovanni Zanovello both give extraordinary papers at the "Discovering Repertories of Italian Sacred Music." My presence at a Med/Ren session did earn me the anticipated remark about my presence at a Med/Ren session, but I didn't mind this time. I did feel it was unfair to have Giovanni's paper on musical repertories of the Santissima Annunziata convent at the same time as the other "convent" session, but decided that unlike me, most people probably do not attend those sessions because of a strange fascination with nuns.

I hopped over to the Instrumental Eccentricities session to see my former grad school colleague Ed Johnson give a very fine paper on "The Death and Second Life of the Harpsichord." In addition, Ed also gets the award for best conference handout (this needs to be added to the awards handed out at the business meeting).

Things I missed with a high degree of guilt and/or dismay:

• Drew's paper (at least I missed it for another American music topic, but still...)

• Samantha Bassler's presentation (Scholars with Disabilities)

• More of a chance to chat with Elissa

• "From Broadway to the Concert Stage" session

• "Sacred or Profane? Popular Music and Religion in the United States" session

• The recognition of Ryan's Howard Mayer Brown Fellowship (GO RYAN!)---I did go to the business meeting but left right after all the AMS-50 presentations. I'm still digesting the triumphal fanfare that opened the meeting.

• "Political Polarities in the '30s" session (met the fate of many a Sunday session for me)

• Not seeing the 10-15 people to whom I said, "Let's catch up in Nashville!" HAH! Right.
  

Other Highlights:

• Coffee with Steve Fisher

• A successful Haydn Society of North America business meeting

• Late evenings at the bar with friends and colleagues

• People-watching in the lobby/bar

• A chance to celebrate Bill Prizer's birthday and Festschrift!!

• An extravagant and glorious birthday dinner with my undergrad mentor and his wife, and my dear friend/roomie

• A self-guided tour of Ryman Auditorium (the REAL Grand Ol' Opry)
  

• Fisk Jubilee Singers concert (fantastic!)

• The Norton reception and chatting with Steve Hoge

I will save my letter to United Airlines regarding my Washington-Dulles experience for another post.

Some things are too important...

As most of you know (those of you who read my blog regularly, anyway) I occasionally write about things other than music or musicology. I wanted to write an AMS wrap-up post. I wanted to bask in Obama's victory. But instead, I think I need to post this. I hope you will watch it if you haven't seen it already.

Adventures in Teaching: Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing

I'm always reading about creative pedagogy and drooling over the idealized students to whom these techniques must apply. Yes, of course I'd love to bring in some clay (engaging other senses!) and have the group (group work!) create a life-size replica of their favorite (ownership of ideas!) American composer (visualization of subject matter!). Ok, so I exaggerate--just a little.

But let me tell you that I love my students this semester. I'm not sure they'd be up for "Let's Pretend-to-be-Rodin" but here's what they DID do this past week:

We were discussing the African-American spiritual, and on a whim, I decided I was going to get them to sing...in four-part harmony, no less. Keep in mind, that this is a class of non-majors, most of whom have little to no music background. I wasn't about to take no for an answer. I chose "Go Down Moses" (which their text discusses), because it gave me a chance to do something responsorial (where I would sing, and then they could come in on "Let My People Go.")* So I asked the women, "Who sings soprano? Alto?" As you might expect, they were fairly reticent to claim any voice part, so I divided them up myself (which was easy, since the "soprano" part is in the same range as the alto). The men were likewise reluctant, but it turns out that my class is mostly tenors (where is Paul Robeson when you need him??).

So I played each part separately and had each group sing. What surprised me was the gusto applied by the gentlemen!! It wasn't necessarily completely in tune, but it was...intense! The women were pretty timid, but I had a few voices in there who were unafraid. So, when it came time to put it all together, there was a lovely and sincere quality to their singing. I feel really strongly that they get in touch with this more vernacular music in a visceral way and singing was the best way to that. There was nervous laughter, of course, but I think they enjoyed it (the evaluations will tell, of course).

Of course, my little experiment put us slightly behind in the schedule (sorry, Sousa, you are getting short-changed), but I think it was worth it. For a few of them, it may be the first time they've heard themselves in harmony with other voices. I remember the first time I heard my own voice blend with a chorus of others, and it changed my life. Did singing "Go Down Moses" change their lives? No, probably not. But I hope it gave them some sense, even on a subconscious level, that they can sing. Not all of them could/should charge money for it, but they have the right to make their own music.

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*While I don't think it should ever be necessary to defend singing a sacred song as a demonstration of a musical tradition, I can think of some places I've taught where I could not have done this without some kind of backlash.

On awards, books and the merits of You Tube

First off, I would like to add my congratulations to Alex Ross, for his well-deserved 2008 MacArthur Fellowship. I'm really leaning toward using his book for my non-music majors in next semester's course, Music of the Twentieth Century. If anyone has any other suggestions appropriate for the non-major, I'll be happy to consider them. I find that a lot of the standard textbooks are unsuitable as they get bogged down in musical details that will be meaningless to those without musical background, OR they make blatant (and erroneous) stylistic generalizations about the music of the 20th century. Nope, I'm not naming names.

Earlier this year, Ryan posted about the merits of YouTube as a research/teaching tool, and this resulted in a fascinating discussion. While I took sort of a hard line against the citation of YouTube clips as authoritative sources (since they can be heavily edited), I have found myself calling upon YouTube (in class) a whole lot this semester. We read a chapter in Stephen Marini's Sacred Song in America about the Sacred Harp tradition. Marini is wonderfully descriptive in his writing about the modern tradition, but I have a feeling this particular YouTube clip really helped my students "get it." Somehow, a homemade video of this Sacred Harp convention (they are singing from the Missouri Harmony) seemed appropriate...maybe even more than nuanced documentary footage.

On Journeys and Cacophony

Well, it has begun. Once again we mark our year by due dates, concerts and conferences. I'm in a new place, both literally and figuratively. I'm teaching at a new institution and I'm teaching "Music in the United States" for the first time. My students are smart and ready to go. We packed our suitcases full of "fundamentals" this week, and I assured them we'd be pulling them out again at appropriate places in the journey. We'll make an interesting bunch. I have one student who clearly knows more about the British Invasion than I ever will. Another is a Bob Dylan fan who sees Dylan as a distinctively "American" voice. One student wants to learn about sacred music and jazz. I played a clip of Run DMC and I think they were relatively insulted when I suggested they might not know Run DMC (HEY...I teach students who haven't seen E.T!!).

So, we loaded the bus and determined our windy path through Music in the United States. Well, actually, I guess I'm driving the bus, but I think I'll have a whole lot of back seat drivers. I'm looking forward to it. :-)

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On an additional note, I teach in a very new music building. The classes all have internet/computer access, reasonably good pianos, etc. One thing everyone complains about is the lack of soundproofing (guess someone forgot that detail). However, as I sat in my office yesterday, hearing a trumpet on one side, a harp on the other, and a vocalist across the hall...I thought, yes. THIS is what a music department sounds like. I welcomed the cacophony. I have been at other institutions that have been all too silent.

Oh, and the photograph? Just a shot I took last weekend at a local pond. A little reminder that summer will end...soon.

My two cents...eh, in this market, maybe only one.

I will be the first to admit that there are topics discussed on the AMS-List that interest me less than they probably should. Some topics stimulate such voluminous discussion that I feel more overwhelmed than inspired. But the joy of email is that it can be deleted with one click of a mouse. Gone. Forever.

Occasionally, however, when I can invest the time, I do like the check in with the list, which is why it is so disappointing when I see the list used as a forum for self-promotion and ad hominem attacks. And by self-promotion, I do NOT mean calling our attention to your new book on a musicological subject.

I rarely participate in the discussions because I don't care to get into debates that amount to "my Ph.D. is bigger than your Ph.D." (not a direct quote, thank goodness). Yes, yes...I know...part of it is just academia. But I don't have to like it. If, at the end of the day I don't gain notoriety and acceptance from the entire musicological community, but I still have a little bit of healthy idealism intact, I'd say I've stayed true to myself, my students, and my profession.

Hello, again...Hello.

Well, I've been on quite a vacation, but believe me, the only vacation I have had has been in the virtual realm. My friends with whom I communicate via e-mail must think I've gone AWOL. I won't make any promises about the frequency of my posting, but let's just say I'm hoping to be more present, at least in my reading of wonderful musicological blogs. I devoted some time today to "catching up" with the blogging community, and discovered I missed this wonderful post by Phil Ford over at Dial M. I have watched my own writing develop, and can gladly say that I no longer feel it necessary to include the word "polemic" in every single piece of academic writing I produce. I'd like to think I use it with more discretion now. Writing, much like teaching, can always be better. Part of the "fun" is the revision process (although it is rarely fun in the moment) because you catch those entire paragraphs that probably made sense to your sleep-deprived brain at the time, but now read like a sermon in Swahili. Thank goodness for peer-reviewers and editors.

Before I tell you what has kept me from engaging with the blogosphere this summer, I have two bits of inconsequential but fun news to share.

First, I received my wonderful t-shirt from Soho The Dog. I'm wearing it proudly today as I'll be meeting with a musicologist colleague later. I prefer to think of it as "edgy coolness" rather than nerdiness.

And, this came in yesterday's mail. One down, one to go!

So what has Rebecca been up to? For the first summer in a long time, I have not left the state of my residence (and now that I live in Massachusetts, we will not be counting day trips to New Hampshire or Rhode Island). I did, however, receive a flurry of house guests all in the span of three weeks: friends, parents, and in-laws. I took a course in Marketing for Performing Arts Organizations. I've been organizing conferences, sitting on boards, doing some preliminary house-hunting, and trying to enjoy the summer offerings of Massachusetts.

Musicologically speaking, I'm working on several projects. One involves the Pittsburgh Symphony, but that is on hold until my dear friends move to Pittsburgh in a few weeks. M has just accepted a professorship at U Pitt (in physics), and he and his wife have bought a house...with plenty of room for guests. So, you see my strategy---free accommodations should never be rejected.

Secondly, it appears I'll be teaching a class entitled "Music in the United States" this fall. So, I'm going through the gratifying/frustrating process of constructing a syllabus. It is a general course for non-majors, and cross-registered with American Studies. I'll be using Richard Crawford's America's Musical Life, which I think will suit my class quite well. Of course I'm struggling with distribution and how much time to spend on the potpourri of musical styles I'll need to cover. I'm considering some overarching themes ( "Music and Religion," "Music and War," for example) to guide the course structure, rather than a strict chronological approach. I'd love to be able to talk about William Billings and William Schuman (New England Triptych) in the same class. Why does this feel so risky to me? (Not a rhetorical question---I'd like to hear your thoughts!)

It is my hope that my connections between ye olde American musicke and modernity will lend some kind of resonance to the subject matter. I don't think these students are taking this particular course so that they can recite some sort of canonized development of music in the United States. The timeline aspect is important, yes, but I think it is secondary to understanding the major interactions between society, culture, politics and music. Isn't that why I'm a musicologist in the first place? So, I'm going to continue to pull from the past and pull from the present, and hopefully the class will come to appreciate music history as part of a greater work in progress.

Vacation Shots only a Musicologist Will Appreciate

When visiting the Grand Canyon two years ago, I was surprised to come upon this statue:
Not a great photo, I know. For those of you who may not be able to recognize "The Swedish Nightingale," that is Jenny Lind, the Swedish opera singer who toured the United States with PT Barnum in the 19th century. Now, Jenny gets her due--there is a Jenny Lind, California (an unincorporated community in Calaveras County); she is honored during a Barnum festival in Bridgeport, Connecticut, etc. But I wasn't expecting her to turn up at the Grand Canyon (her tour was on the East Coast), nor was I expecting to see this:
This past weekend, on our way back down to Boston from Cape Cod, we made an obligatory stop to see a lighthouse (The Highland Light in Truro, MA). Off in the distance, I see this mini-turret in the shrubbery. That is the Jenny Lind Tower. Well, of course, it is! Originally from the Fitchburg Train Depot, it was moved to this bizarre location in 1927. Legend has it that Jenny Lind sang on top of the tower to calm the angry crowd unable to get in to see her actual concert. Now immortalized in the fields next to a national lighthouse, golf course, and air force base, the tower is supposedly off-limits (due to the air force base). However, according to this site one can hike to the tower without getting shot (on my to-do list for our next visit).

I'm thinking a Jenny Lind Tour might be in order...any takers?