MUS 201 - Exploring Music: Introduction to Music History

In this paper, certain aspects of Varèse's life and work are discussed that have at times, I feel, been overemphasised, distorted, or even omitted, in order to lend greater weight to the depiction of him as a non-European (non-'Old World', non-traditional) and fully American (fully 'New World' radical Modernist, experimentalist) composer. The following article attempts to demonstrate how the past can be felt to resonate in concert with the present and/or future throughout Varèse's oeuvre.

The article features Lou Harrison, an American visionary experimentalist and one of the most influential composers. Information regarding his pioneering works on the syntheses of modernist idioms with classical music, percussion music, and the musical instruments he built in collaboration with William Colvig, are discussed.

American composer Lou Harrison (1917–2003) is perhaps best known for challenging the traditional musical establishment along with his contemporaries and close colleagues.

In recent decades, experimental music has flourished outside of European and American concert halls. The principles of indeterminacy, improvisation, nonmusical sound, and noise, pioneered in concert and on paper by the likes of Henry Cowell, John Cage, and Ornette Coleman, can now be found in all kinds of new places: activist films, rock recordings, and public radio broadcasts, not to mention in avant-garde movements around the world.

The article discusses the archived correspondence between composer John Edmunds, critic Peter Yates, and composer John Cage.

Leonard Bernstein stood at the epicenter of twentieth-century American musical life. His creative gifts knew no boundaries as he moved easily from the podium, to the piano, to television with his nationally celebrated Young People's Concerts, which introduced an entire generation to the joy of classical music.

Leonard Bernstein's gifts for drama and connecting with popular audiences made him a central figure in twentieth century American music.

The Golden Age of American Musical Theatre: 1943-1965 provides synopses, cast and production credits, song titles, and other pertinent information for over 180 musicals from Oklahoma! to On A Clear Day You Can See Forever.

The article presents discussion of the 2009 Broadway revival production of Leonard Bernstein's musical "West Side Story," and its place within the 21st-century musical theater scene.

The Broadway musical has greatly influenced American (and world) culture. Such shows as Oklahoma! and Annie Get Your Gun are as'American as apple pie,'while the long runs of imports like Cats, The Phantom of the Opera, and Les MisZrables have broken records. Broadway has produced such cultural icons as Ethel Merman, Yul Brynner, and Julie Andrews, and composers and lyricists such as Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein, Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim, Andrew Lloyd Webber, and many others have had their melodies sung on its stages.

This new second edition of Enchanted Evenings offers theater lovers an illuminating behind-the-scenes tour of some of America's best loved, most admired, and most enduring musicals.

This article examines Steve Reich's reflections on his early works in the context of Walter Benjamin's thesis in "The Work of Art in the Age of its Technical Reproducibility."

Clapping Music is a minimalist work by Steve Reich based on twelve phased variations of a rhythmic pattern. It has been reimagined as a game-based mobile application, designed with a dual purpose. First, to introduce new audiences to the Minimalist genre through interaction with the piece presented as an engaging game. Second, to use large-scale data collection within the app to address research questions about the factors determining rhythm production performance. The twelve patterns can be differentiated using existing theories of rhythmic complexity.

Because of its minimalist construction, Steve Reich’sClapping Musicprovides an ideal crucible for an examination of the role of expressive timing and expressive timbre in musical performance.

Profiles Steve Reich, a minimalist music composer. Information on the music recording `Proverb'; What distinguished Reich from other composers; Comments from Reich.

More fantasia than rock-star biography, this gloriously over-the-top account of David Bowie's early career up through the "death" of his alter ego Ziggy Stardust refracts his climb to stardom through the lens of his alien imagination.

Critical and public reception of David Bowie’s use of personae have primarily focused on visual signifiers such as his ever-changing hair style, wardrobe, make-up, and body language in performance. However, Bowie also constructed personae through his remarkably supple voice.

Music is not a physical thing, but an event and an action, and since modern urban and posturban 'places' are fragmented, topological and often virtual, the attempt to monumentalize popular music seems misguided. The monumental sense of place is based on concepts of tenure and ownership that are challenged by the fluidity of modern urban life.

Gives an overview of the history of art music from 1975 to the beginning of 2001. Implication of postmodernism in music; Origins of the neo-romanticism movement; Description of modernism in the academy.

The article focuses on American classical composer and his music. Topics discussed include Glass and other composers refusing monopoly in music which led to collapse of musical modernism, his music not being performed in the U.S., his memoir "Words Without Music: A Memoir," his minimalist music inspired by his childhood, his inspiration avant-garde playwright, Samuel Beckett and his music sounding religious after he embraced Buddhism.

The article reviews the musical release "Book of Longing," by Philip Glass, based on the poetry of Leonard Cohen.

Profiles composer Philip Glass. Contribution made by Glass to the field of music; Influence of Eastern music on his musical works; Reference to his opera "The Photographer: Far From the Truth"; Information on recent musical works of Glass; Views of conservative critics about him; Discussion of his music which has its roots in the period in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

The article features lesbian composer Jennifer Higdon, winner of the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for her Violin Concerto composed for soloist Hilary Hahn.

The article presents a conversation between composers Iva Bittová and Jennifer Higdon. Bittová mentions she never played just violin with an orchestra but she has plans someday. Higdon states that she always reevaluate her works to assure that it works in the way it needs to be. Bittová adds that American musicians tend to enjoy themselves and just play the music as compared to European musicians.

Michael K. Slayton has collected essays, which focus on women who have made significant contributions to American music: Elizabeth Austin, Susan Botti, Gabriela Lena Frank, Jennifer Higdon, Libby Larsen, Tania León, Cindy McTee, Marga Richter, and Judith Shatin.

The article presents an interview with composer Jennifer Higdon. Among the issues she discussed include her experience of scoring for "Cold Mountain," her first opera which will premiere on August 1, 2015 at Santa Fe Opera, and is an adaptation of the 1997 novel of the same name by Charles Frazier, how writing for an opera changed her usual writing habits, and her process of composing for opera centered on her commitment textual clarity and a sense of motion.

The article reviews several contemporary opera in a mini-festival in North Carolina including "Cold Mountain," featuring works by composer Jennifer Higdon, "Silent Night," by Kevin Puts and "Cyrano," by David DiChiera.

The musical leitmotif, having reached a point of particular forcefulness in the music of Richard Wagner, has remained a popular compositional device up to the present day. In this book, Matthew Bribitzer-Stull explores the background and development of the leitmotif, from Wagner to the Hollywood adaptations of The Lord of The Rings and the Harry Potter series.

Few aspects of Berlioz's style are more idiosyncratic than his handling of musical form. This book, the first devoted solely to the topic, explores how his formal strategies are related to the poetic and dramatic sentiments that were his very reason for being. Rodgers draws upon Berlioz's ideas about musical representation and on the ideas that would have influenced him, arguing that the relationship between musical and extra-musical narrative in Berlioz's music is best construed as metaphorical rather than literal -'intimate' but 'indirect' in Berlioz's words.

The article discusses the career of film composer John Williams, who has worked on films including "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and "Memoirs of a Geisha." Williams has been nominated for five Academy Awards for his work, and won five, as well as composing and conducting concerts. W

Presents a study which analyzed the priority of symphonic background music in cinema in the United States. Preferences in writing on film music; How song performances are placed in the sound track.

xamines the evolution of motion picture music in the United States. Changes in the scoring of motion pictures in the late 1960s; Influence of John Williams; Factors influencing the success of soundtrack albums.

The film scores of John Williams (b. 1932) often remind us of works by other concert and film composers, yet the casual assumption that Williams often plagiarizes from familiar works has never been fully evaluated. Examples of the different ways Williams alters source compositions show him to be a clever paraphraser who uses pre-existing material as a creative template to compose new music at a remarkable pace.

Looks at 20 music composers who have written scores for motion pictures. John Barry; Elmer Bernstein; Ennio Morricone; Jerry Goldsmith; John Williams; Carter Burwell; Danny Elfman; James Horner; Thomas Newman; James Newton Howard; Mark Isham; Michael Kamen; Rachel Portman; Basil Poledouris; Marc Shaiman; Hans Zimmer; Others.

Interviews Great Britain-based composer John Tavener. Approach to composition; Metaphysical concepts of his work; Views on the spiritual sustenance provided by Tavener's music; Most popular compositions; Eastern influence on his works; Events to be held at the Royal Festival Hall in England in celebration of Tavener's work.

Profiles British composer Sir John Tavener. Family and academic background of Tavener; Effect of the celebrity status on his work; Influence of Eastern Orthodox spirituality on his music; Parallels of his own musical quest with poet and visionary artist William Blake.

The article presents an obituary for British classical composer John Tavener.

The article explores the musical compositions of Sir John Tavener. It presents the personal history of the composer and the influence of the Eastern Orthodoxy on his musical works, particularly "The Lamb" and "The Tyger," both of which use the text of William Blake's poems of the same titles. It analyzes Tavener's works as text-paintings which feature musical duality, musical icons, and religious symbolisms, which illustrates the relationship between music and spirituality.

Yayoi Uno Everett focuses on four operas that helped shape the careers of the composers Osvaldo Golijov, Kaija Saariaho, John Adams, and Tan Dun, which represent a unique encounter of music and production through what Everett calls' multimodal narrative.'

Looks at the background that enabled composer John Adams to complete his choral commission. Performances; First major choral work of note; Cultural background; Music.

Presents an interview with composer John Adams excerpted from the book `New Voices: American Composers Talk About Their Music,' by Geoff Smith and Nicola Walker Smith. Relationship of Adams' music to the `Fathers of Minimalism'; Three features of musical technique; Integration of technology with orchestral instruments.