Music Theory at Columbia - News & Events

Listening In, Feeding Back

Organizers:
David Novak, Columbia University, Society of Fellows in the Humanities
den12@columbia.edu
Ana Maria Ochoa, Columbia University, Department of Music
ao2110@columbia.edu

Conference and concert are free and open to the public. No registration or tickets necessary. Seating is on a first come, first served basis.

Description:
In recent years, several North American academic disciplines, including history, anthropology, ethnomusicology, and media studies, have devoted significant attention towards practices of listening. The act of listening is undoubtedly an underexplored dimension of modern sensory experience -- and of modernity itself, which is too often characterized by an overdetermined regime of visuality. What can listening offer to emerging interdisciplinary work on perception, performance, aesthetics, social life, and the circulation of sound media? Listening is more than a given function of musical interpretation, which might attend to sound only in its deliberately aesthetic or openly communicative forms. Rather, it is a culturally-situated practice that shapes the particular spatial and material conditions of our perception. Listening influences the social distinctions of daily life, and is inextricably bound to aesthetic and bodily experiences with music and noise. And increasingly, characterizations of listening recognize its diverse practices as productive transcultural relationships, which in themselves constitute the globalization of media. Our experiences with sound are key to broad projects of self-making that rewrite logics of authorship and cultural origin through circulation and new modes of appropriation.  read more »

Young Choristers, 650-1700, a collection of essays coedited by Susan Boynton and Eric Rice (Ph.D. HM 2001) was published by Boydell and Brewer in October. This volume explores the roles of child singers (boys and girls) in the sacred music of western European monasteries and churches. For information on the book see the publisher's website:  http://www.boydell.co.uk/43834138.HTM

Directly following the general meeting, join colleagues for lunch and holiday festivities in room 620 Dodge. Everyone involved with the Music Department is welcome to attend: Students (graduate and undergraduate), Students currently taking classes in the Department, Administrative staff (Music, Music Library), Faculty, Music Associates, Music Performance Program participants. See you there!

Featuring Pradeep Ratnayake (Sitar) with Ben Waltzer (Piano), Jacob Friedman (Piano), Daniel Schley (cello), Doug Berns (Bass Guitar), Alexander Cohen (Drums), Alexander Lewis (Violin). Free and open to the public.

Visiting theory professor L. Poundie Burstein is the recipient of the 2008 Outstanding Publication Award of the Society of Music Theory for his essay “The Off-Tonic Return in Beethoven's Op. 58 and Other Works,” published in the journal Music Analysis. Congratulations to Professor Burstein!

A panel of philosophers considers the ethics of improvised conduct. Arnold Davidson, University of Chicago and University of Pisa, with Bernard Gendron, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee; Lydia Goehr, Columbia University; Eric Lewis, McGill University; Lorenzo Simpson, Stony Brook University. Introduced and Moderated by Carol Rovane, Columbia University

Is It Half Full? Distinguishing Basic Cadence Types
Poundie Burstein, CUNY Graduate Center
Friday, November 14

All Colloquia are 4pm-6pm in 620, Dodge Hall.
Columbia's Music Colloquia are free and open to the public.
Refreshments will be served after the talks.

The Fall 2008 Music Colloquium Series,
Department of Music, Columbia University
is proud to present the following speakers this semester

New Directions in Jazz Studies: A Conversation
Sherrie Tucker, University of Kansas
Jason Stanyek, New York University
Friday, September 26
Co-Sponsored by the Center for Jazz Studies

Is It Half Full? Distinguishing Basic Cadence Types
Poundie Burstein, CUNY Graduate Center
Friday, November 14

The Dynamics of Identity in Fin de Siècle French Music
Jann Pasler, University of California, San Diego
Friday, November 21
Co-Sponsored by the Center for Ethnomusicology

Mimì's Bonnet and Colline's Coat:
Bohemian Nostalgia and Remembrances of Things Past
Arthur Groos, Cornell University
Friday, December 5


Our Spring Series will begin with

Black Music, Ownership, and Value
Ronald Radano, University of Wisconsin, Madison  read more »