Category Archives: musicology-ethnomusicology

Early Music Ensemble Invited to Nationally Acclaimed Festival

February 26, 2016all, alumni, brass-percussion, brass-percussion-alumni, choral, composition, composition-alumni, conducting, dma, education, events, faculty news, jazz-alumni, keyboard, keyboard-alumni, MACCM, music-education-alumni, musicology-ethnomusicology, musicology-ethnomusicology-alumni, opera, promusica, string-alumni, string-news, student news, theory-alumni, theory-musicology-ethnomusicology, Uncategorized, voice, voice-alumni, woodwinds, woodwinds-alumnigabrig

BGSU’s Early Music Ensemble, under the direction of Dr. Arne Spohr, has been selected by Early Music America to perform at Early Music America’s Young Performers Festival in Berkeley, CA. This nationally recognized festival will be featuring top university early music ensembles from around the United States, including groups from Indiana University, University of Southern California, Case Western Reserve University, and Brigham Young University Idaho. All performances will take place at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church from June 8th – 10th as part of the Berkeley Music Festival.

Professors Papanikolaou and Merritt presenitng pre-performance talks at Toledo Opera’s production of Porgy and Bess

February 10, 2016alumni, choral, education, events, faculty news, musicology-ethnomusicology, opera, promusica, student news, Uncategorized, voice, voice-alumnigabrig

Eftychia Papanikolaou, Associate Professor of Musicology, and Myra Merritt, Professor of Voice, will present two pre-performance talks at Toledo Opera’s production of George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, Friday, February 12 at 6:30 p.m. and Sunday, February 14 at 1 p.m. in the Grand Lobby of the Valentine Theatre.

For more information please visit:

http://www.toledoopera.org/events/main/porgy-bess/

http://www.toledoopera.org/learn/pre-opera-talks/

Drew Edward Davis of Northwestern University to present lecture on Villancicos

January 19, 2016musicology-ethnomusicologyspergal

THE BGSU MUSICOLOGY AND ETHNOMUSICOLOGY COLLOQUIUM SERIES PRESENTS:

Drew Edward Davies (Northwestern University):

“Africa and Africans in 17th-Century Christmas Villancicos”

Friday, January 22, 3:30-5 PM, College of Musical Arts, 1002

Abstract: Relationships among music, race, and representation count among the most difficult issues facing the interpretation of villancicos from seventeenth-century New Spain, especially those for the Christmas season that tend to rhetorically express concepts of inversion through popularizing tropes drawn from the Spanish theater. Some Christmas villancicos portray stereotyped African personages who travel in groups to Bethlehem to adore the Christ child through dance and song. Such pieces tend to feature rhythms patterns seemingly evocative of popular musics and have been categorized into a subgenre referred to as the negrilla, guineo or villanccio de negro.

For decades, scholars following the Stevenson tradition have interpreted such villancicos as indicative of “ethnological impulses” or retentions of African musical practices. In fact, members of the performance community tend to assume a literal and direct relationship between villancicos de negro and the musical practices of enslaved or free African populations in New Spain, even though such pieces were composed specifically for cathedral ritual. However, this paper argues that villancicos de negro work at the allegorical rather than literal level and derive from contemporaneous European modes of representation, including the theater and visual art. They derive from the theatrical tradition of Lope de Vega, dramatize scenes from contemporaneous religious visual art, and construct simplified, stereotyped ethnic Others in order to underscore the themes of the universal church.

Drew Edward Davies, a music historian specializing in the Spanish world of the sixteenth through early nineteenth centuries, is Associate Professor of Musicology and Director of Graduate Music Studies at Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music, as well as Academic Coordinator of the Seminario de Música en la Nueva España y el México Independiente in Mexico City.

For further information contact Dr. Arne Spohr (aspohr@bgsu.edu)

BGSU makes strong presence at the 2016 New Music Gathering

December 10, 2015all, alumni, composition, dma, events, faculty news, musicology-ethnomusicology, musicology-ethnomusicology-alumni, New Music, promusica, student news, theory-musicology-ethnomusicology, Uncategorizedgabrig

Bowling Green State University will be well represented at the 2016 New Music Gathering held at the Peabody Conservatory. The following list includes those from BGSU performing and lecturing during this highly acclaimed new music conference:

Alumnus Ryan Muncy, part of panels: “Commissioning New Music”, and “New Music and Community Building”
Faculty member Ryan Ebright, part of panel: “New Music(ology) Gathering: Scholarly Perspectives on American New Music Since 1960”
Current DMA student Aaron Hynds: performance, 60 minute lecture/demo/question workshop
Current DMA student Hillary LaBonte: panel, “The Church of New Music: Places of Worship and the New Music Community”
Alumnae Viola Yip and Ellery Trafford: performance, “Instrumentalists Using the Voice”

BGSU students, faculty, and alumnae will participate in this interdisciplinary event taking place January 6-9, 2016.

From the mission statement of New Music Gathering:

“Even in a culture that thrives on connectivity, the ancient idea of simply being in the same place at the same time to exchange ideas continues to be the most effective, and New Music Gathering fills that need.

Following the conference model, the event will be three days of performances, presentations, and discussions, but as it is to be run not by an organization but by four working musicians – Lainie Fefferman, Daniel Felsenfeld, Mary Kouyoumdjian, and Matt Marks – it should be a way to “skip the middleman” and focus on the needs and desires of the community directly.

As it is to be based in a different city annually, aside from bringing together those who write, perform and promote “contemporary classical” music to meet, talk, and develop collaborative relationships, the Gathering will also focus on the dedicated population in that specific region.”

Fromm Music Foundation at Harvard selects Mikel Kuehn for 2015 Composer Commissions

December 1, 2015all, alumni, composition, composition-alumni, dma, education, events, faculty news, music-education-alumni, musicology-ethnomusicology, musicology-ethnomusicology-alumni, New Music, promusica, theory-musicology-ethnomusicology, Uncategorizedgabrig

The Board of Directors of the Fromm Music Foundation at Harvard University is pleased to announce the names of fourteen composers selected to receive 2015 Fromm commissions. These commissions represent one of the principal ways that the Fromm Music Foundation seeks to strengthen composition and to bring contemporary concert music closer to the public. In addition to the commissioning fee, a subsidy is available for the ensemble performing the premiere of the commissioned work.

Among the fourteen recipients is local composer Mikel Kuehn, a resident of Sylvania, Ohio, and faculty at Bowling Green State University.

Founded by the patron of contemporary music, the late Paul Fromm, the Fromm Foundation is now in its sixtieth year, having been located at Harvard University for the past forty. Since the 1950s, it has commissioned well over 300 new compositions and their performances, and has sponsored hundreds of new music concerts and concert series.

Toledo Symphony Orchestra featured in BGSU’s composer reading session

October 30, 2015all, alumni, brass-percussion, brass-percussion-alumni, choral, composition, composition-alumni, conducting, dma, education, events, faculty news, jazz, jazz-alumni, keyboard, keyboard-alumni, MACCM, music-education-alumni, musicology-ethnomusicology, musicology-ethnomusicology-alumni, New Music, opera, promusica, string-alumni, string-news, student news, theory-alumni, theory-musicology-ethnomusicology, Uncategorized, voice, voice-alumni, woodwinds, woodwinds-alumnigabrig

BOWLING GREEN, OH— Orchestral compositions written by Bowling Green State University College of Musical Arts students will be read, rehearsed and recorded by Toledo Symphony Orchestra (TSO) musicians on Tuesday, Nov. 10, from 3:30-6 p.m. in BGSU’s Kobacker Hall. Michael Lewanski, a prominent figure on the international contemporary music scene, will lead the orchestra while acclaimed composer, conductor author and educator Samuel Adler will be present to observe the session and give comments in an evening masterclass.

After a review of the submitted scores, the following works were selected for the session:

– Richard Arndorfer       Aurora
– Andrew Binder           Endleofan
– Emily Custer               Seelenruhe
– Matthew Ramage        Mutability
– Jacob Sandridge           I-77

The TSO will be bringing its largest complement of players to BGSU, 72 musicians in all. “Few academic institutions can offer this kind of professional experience, making this a unique opportunity for BGSU students,” said Christopher Dietz, a faculty member in musicology, composition and theory and organizer of the session.

The event is open to students, faculty and staff of the BGSU College of Musical Arts and invited guests. Members of the public who would like to attend should email faculty liaison Christopher Dietz (cjdietz@bgsu.edu) to be included on the guest list.

Page 1 of 212