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Courses Taught Arizona State University Lecture Courses:
Graduate Seminars:
Online Courses:
Independent Studies:
University of Notre Dame Lecture Courses:
Graduate Seminars:
Bard
College
Lecture Courses:
Ensemble:
Independent Studies:
Descriptions of Undergraduate Courses Introduction to Experimental Music Beginning with the innovations of such revolutionary figures as Ives, Cowell, Varčse early in the twentieth century, the experimental music tradition in the United States and Europe will be examined. Novel and provocative works involving microtonality, tone clusters, all percussion sounds, noise, indeterminacy, chance, improvisation, tape, electronic and live-electronic means and theatricality are explored. We will also discuss this music's aesthetic, philosophical and political underpinnings. We will visit the electronic music studio and a sound installation. "Free" improvisation and performances of unusual scores allowing the use of a wide range of instruments (possibly prepared or amplified), performance techniques, contact microphones, synthesizers, self-built instruments, and everyday items transformed into sound sources will also be at the center of interest. One of the two required projects will include a realization/performance (or composition) of experimental music. Examples of possible performance projects: Satie's furniture music, Ives's quarter-tone works, Cowell's tone cluster based piano music, Cage's music for prepared piano, indeterminate & chance compositions, graphic scores by Feldman, Brown, and Cardew, event pieces by Fluxus composers, tape and electronic pieces, meditation pieces by Oliveros, phase pieces by Reich, text pieces by Rzewski, "game" pieces by Wolff and Zorn. Perspectives in Twentieth and Twenty-First-Century Music This course elucidates the unfolding of seminal compositional tendencies in European and American music within the last hundred years: impressionism, expressionism, serialism, experimentalism, minimalism, neo-romanticism, pluralism. Representative works, techniques and ideas of pivotal figures such as Debussy, Schönberg, Ives, Stravinsky, Cage, Boulez, Crumb, La Monte Young, Reich, Monk and Oliveros are examined. Light is shed on the historical contexts and aesthetic issues of selected works and musical directions as well as on their relationship with other arts. Students study texts, recordings and scores. Short research projects required. Open to majors and non-majors. Ability to read music is desirable. Ensemble: Live Electronic Performance Techniques of improvisation, live-electronic and unconventional sounds are explored. Performances of experimental scores allowing the use of a wide range of conventional instruments (possibly prepared or amplified), vocal techniques, contact microphones, synthesizers, self-built instruments, and everyday items transformed into sound sources. Music History: From Joseph Haydn to Claude Debussy Survey of the history of musical thought and expression in the late 18th and 19th centuries. The course is intended for music majors, but is not limited to them. Required of all students who intend to major in music. Prerequisite: Theory I for music majors. Twentieth Century Music: History and Theory The course focuses on the theoretical and historical sources and development of music from Debussy to the present. Prerequisite: Approved background. Intended for music majors. The Music of the 18th, 19th and 20th Centuries Survey of the history of musical thought and expression in the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The course is intended for music majors. Requirements: Two research papers, one short class presentation and two examinations. This course focuses on seminal compositional tendencies in European and American music within the last hundred years: impressionism, expressionism, serialism, experimentalism, minimalism, neo-romanticism, pluralism. Representative works, techniques and ideas of pivotal figures such as Debussy, Satie, Mahler, Ives, Schönberg, Babbitt, Messiaen, Boulez, Stravinsky, Cowell, Cage, Crumb, La Monte Young, Reich, Monk, Oliveros and Ashley are studied. Light is shed on the historical contexts and aesthetic issues of selected works and musical directions as well as on their relationship with other arts. Students study scores, recordings and texts. Two research projects are required and one of them has to be presented in class. Two examinations. In this course you will gain an understanding of the historical development of opera, both as a musico-theatrical work and as a cultural practice as we will trace the unfolding of this genre in the 17th century through the present. We will study early Italian opera, opera seria, comic opera, Mozart's operas, romantic and national opera, expressionist and neo-classical opera, Verismo, Zeitoper, experimental approaches including non-narrative opera, multi-media and performance art as well as lighter forms. We will also consider the relationship of opera to other musico-dramatic forms such as cantata, oratorio, melodrama and film. Further you will become acquainted with important aspects of staging and production and with historical and current trends of opera criticism. We will definitely attend one or two opera performances in Phoenix. In this course you will gain a thorough understanding of the music of the 17th and 18th centuries: manifold genres and forms (madrigal, opera, cantata, passion, oratorio, mass, toccata, fugue, chorale compositions, suites, ensemble sonata, orchestral suite and concerto types). We will study works by Gesualdo, Monteverdi, Schütz, Corelli, Couperin, Vivaldi, Rameau, Handel, Bach and other composers from Southern Europe, France, Austria, Germany, Eastern Europe, and England. Women composers and musicians such as Barbara Strozzi and Elizabeth-Claude Jacquet de La Guerre will be considered as well. Light is shed on compositional techniques (recitative, figured bass, fugue, canon, etc.) and styles and performance practice involving the idea of "authenticity," notation, ornamentation, tempo, tuning systems, and Baroque instruments. In this context we will visit the harpsichord studio and tour the ASU Fritts organ. We will explore concepts and phenomena such as musica poetica, the harmony of the spheres, number symbolism and the theory of affections. Further you will gain insight into Baroque aesthetics, culture, literature, poetry, art and architecture. Last not least we will focus on criticism and reception (including provocative arrangements and 20th century revivals) of Baroque music and culture. Students taking this course should have completed MHL 341 and 342 and MTC 327. Course Descriptions of the Graduate Seminars The Avant-Garde and Experimental Music in America Novel and provocative works involving microtonality, tone clusters, all percussion instrumentation, noise, indeterminacy, chance, tape, electronic and live-electronic means, theatricality, spatial and "soundscape" ideas, but also serialism, twelve-tone tonality and tempo modulation are examined. Experimental figures such as Ives, Cowell, Varčse, Partch, Cage, Feldman, Reich, La Monte Young and Ashley on the one hand and more traditionally oriented composers like Riegger, Ruggles, Crawford, Sessions, Babbitt, Perle, Carter on the other hand are the center of interest. In addition aesthetic, philosophical and political implications of these composers' music and ideas will be discussed. In this course you will learn how to listen to movies and how to analyze a film score. We will explore the development of film music in Europe and America, various scoring techniques and musical styles used in representative film genres and films. We will study the music of such seminal figures as Max Steiner, Erich W. Korngold, Alfred Newman, Franz Waxman, Bernhard Herrmann, Scott Bradley, Leonard Rosenman, Louis and Bebe Barron and also of contemporary composers (Enrico Morricone, John Williams, Danny Elfman, etc.). Further many film scores by "classical" composers from Camille Saint-Saëns, Arthur Honegger, George Antheil, Aaron Copland to Philip Glass and John Coriglioano as well as the collaborative projects of Erik Satie/René Clair, Sergei Prokofiev/ Sergei Eisenstein, William Walton/Laurence Olivier, Toru Takemitsu/ Kurosawa & Teshigahara are examined. Light is also shed on aesthetic and political issues of film music. Throughout the centuries ideas of nature had a great impact on compositional concepts and processes. Thus we will examine various relationships of nature and art/music, musical reflections on nature, environment and compositions inspired by mountains, deserts, rivers, insects, birds and whales. The context of music and nature allows us to explore a wide variety of musical concepts from tone painting, program music to experimental approaches - musique concrčte, "soundscape" ideas, and spatial concepts. Beethoven's "Pastoral" Symphony, Schubert's song cycles, nature scenes in Wagner's operas and various works by Gustav Mahler, Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel, Charles Ives, Olivier Messaien, John Cage and George Crumb, but also compositions by figures outside the canon such as Leos Janácek, Frederick Delius, Jean Sibelius, Alan Hovhaness, Toru Takemitsu, and John Luther Adams will be at the center of interest. This class will include a trip to a nearby national park to do a field recording and/or feature an event with composer Richard Lerman (ASU West) who records and processes sounds of the Sonoran desert (rain on saguaro cacti, ants, etc.). In this course we will explore Arnold Schoenberg's American years. Schoenberg escaped the Nazis and emigrated to the U. S. in 1933 never to return to Europe again. We will examine how Schoenberg came to terms with his exile, how the exile affected his aesthetic and compositional style and how he influenced the musical landscapes of America. We will discuss his renewed interest in Judaism and religious works including the Kol nidre. and study political works such as the Ode to Napoleon and A Survivor from Warsaw. You will also gain insight in such great twelve-tone works as his Fourth String Quartet and String Trio. We will examine the far-reaching and manifold reception of dodecaphony in America, which has been surrounded by much controversy and even influenced literary works like Thomas Mann's novel Doctor Faustus. We will cast light on the strong resurgence of tonality in some of Schoenberg's music and look at exclusively tonal works including the Suite in Olden Style and Theme and Variations for wind band. Further the course will elucidate Schoenberg's teaching and his student circle _with figures like John Cage, Lou Harrison, punk rock performer Dika Newlin and film composers Oscar Levant, David Raksin and Leonard Rosenman. Last not least we will also focus on Schoenberg's interactions with American composers (Henry Cowell, George Gershwin), performers, conductors, artists (Charlie Chaplin, Orson Wells), writers (Thomas Mann, Franz Werfel) and scientists (Albert Einstein). Descriptions of Other Graduate Courses John Cage On the occasion of the Cage centennial year, this class will examine John Cage’s music, writings, visual art and multimedia works. The contexts and influence of his oeuvre will be studied as well. Although still misunderstood and controversial in certain circles, Cage stands as a musical giant whose pioneering creativity and impact on twentieth and twenty-first century music is unmatched and this class will offer students a chance to revise existing misconceptions. There will be one research paper, one exam and one journal, reading, listening and screening assignments, class discussions, and creative activities including live-performances.
Music since 1900 This course focuses on seminal compositional tendencies in European and American music within the last hundred years: impressionism, expressionism, serialism, experimentalism, minimalism, neo-romanticism, pluralism. Representative works, techniques and ideas of pivotal figures such as Debussy, Satie, Mahler, Ives, Schönberg, Babbitt, Messiaen, Boulez, Stravinsky, Cowell, Cage, Crumb, La Monte Young, Reich, Monk, Oliveros and Ashley are studied. Light is shed on the historical contexts and aesthetic issues of selected works and musical directions as well as on their relationship with other arts. Students study scores, recordings and texts. Two research projects are required and one of them has to be presented in class. Two examinations. The Music of the Baroque Era In this course you will gain a thorough understanding of the music of the 17th and 18th centuries: manifold genres and forms (madrigal, opera, cantata, passion, oratorio, mass, toccata, fugue, chorale compositions, suites, ensemble sonata, orchestral suite and concerto types). We will study works by Gesualdo, Monteverdi, Schütz, Corelli, Couperin, Vivaldi, Rameau, Handel, Bach and other composers from Southern Europe, France, Austria, Germany, Eastern Europe, and England. Women composers and musicians such as Barbara Strozzi and Elizabeth-Claude Jacquet de La Guerre will be considered as well. Light is shed on compositional techniques (recitative, figured bass, fugue, canon, etc.) and styles and performance practice involving the idea of "authenticity," notation, ornamentation, tempo, tuning systems, and Baroque instruments. In this context we will visit the harpsichord studio and tour the ASU Fritts organ. We will explore concepts and phenomena such as musica poetica, the harmony of the spheres, number symbolism and the theory of affections. Further you will gain insight into Baroque aesthetics, culture, literature, poetry, art and architecture. Last not least we will focus on criticism and reception (including provocative arrangements and 20th century revivals) of Baroque music and culture. Students taking this course should have completed MHL 341 and 342 and MTC 327. The History of Opera In this course you will gain an understanding of the historical development of opera, both as a musico-theatrical work and as a cultural practice as we will trace the unfolding of this genre in the 17th century through the present. We will study early Italian opera, opera seria, comic opera, Mozart's operas, romantic and national opera, expressionist and neo-classical opera, Verismo, Zeitoper, experimental approaches including non-narrative opera, multi-media and performance art as well as lighter forms. We will also consider the relationship of opera to other musico-dramatic forms such as cantata, oratorio, melodrama and film. Further you will become acquainted with important aspects of staging and production and with historical and current trends of opera criticism. We will definitely attend one or two opera performances in Phoenix. Experimental Music Beginning with the innovations of such revolutionary figures as Ives, Cowell, Varčse early in the twentieth century, the experimental music tradition in the United States and Europe will be examined. Novel and provocative works involving microtonality, tone clusters, all percussion sounds, noise, indeterminacy, chance, improvisation, tape, electronic and live-electronic means, theatricality, spatial and "soundscape" ideas are explored. We will also discuss this music's aesthetic, philosophical and political underpinnings. We will visit the electronic music studio and possibly a sound installation. "Free" improvisation and performances of unusual scores allowing the use of a wide range of instruments (possibly prepared or amplified), performance techniques, contact microphones, synthesizers, self-built instruments, and everyday items transformed into sound sources will also be at the center of interest. One of the two required projects will include a realization/performance (or composition) of experimental music. Examples of possible performance projects: Satie's furniture music, Ives's quarter-tone works, Cowell's tone cluster based piano music, Cage's music for prepared piano, indeterminate & chance compositions, graphic scores by Feldman, Brown, and Cardew, event pieces by Fluxus composers, tape and electronic pieces, meditation pieces by Oliveros, phase pieces by Reich, text pieces by Rzewski, "game" pieces by Wolff and Zorn. European Refugee Composers in America,1933-1950 In this course we will examine the flight of composers from Europe to America in the wake of Adolph Hitler's rise to power. Through the study of accounts offered by exiles themselves, of musical works produced in exile and of writings by historians of the period we will cast light on the experiences and reactions of these composers. We will explore how they came to terms with their exile, how the exile affected their aesthetic and compositional styles and how they influenced the musical landscapes of America. We will focus on refugee composers living on the West Coast such as Erich W. Korngold, Miklós Rózsa, Dimitri Tiomkin, Franz Waxman and Hanns Eisler who primarily worked for the Hollywood film industry. And we will discuss figures including Arnold Schoenberg, Igor Stravinsky, Ernst Krenek and Ernst Toch, who were affiliated with academia in California. Light is also shed on composers who settled on the East Coast and in other parts of the United States such as Béla Bartók, Paul Hindemith, Stefan Wolpe and Kurt Weill (whose career on Broadway will receive special attention). Last not least you will gain insight into larger contexts: the interaction of these musicians with other artists and intellectuals in and outside exile communities in Los Angeles, New York and at Black Mountain College, and the culture and politics in America in the 1930s and 1940s. |