Alumnus D. J. Hoek has been appointed Associate University Librarian for Collections Strategies at Northwestern University. After serving over ten years as Head of the Northwestern Music Library, he will now be in charge of all library collections and will align the library’s collection with university priorities and goals. He received Master of Music degrees in both composition and music theory from BGSU in 1996 and a Master of Library Science degree from Indiana University in 1998.
The 2015-16 Klingler ElectroAcoustic Residency (KEAR) congratulates and welcomes its 2015-16 recipients who will work on creative projects in the multi-channel/Ambisonic studio at Bowling Green State University (Ohio USA) during this academic year:
James Andean (Finland) – Fall 2015
Louise Harris (UK) – Spring 2016
The competition received 23 applications from 11 countries including the US, Canada, UK, Argentina, Brazil, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, and Spain. The quality of submissions was very high and the creative and technical ideas inspiring. We thank everyone who proposed so many great projects and wish we could accept them all.
Many thanks to the jury who carefully reviewed all applications:
Adam Basanta – independent sound artist/composer and 2013 KEAR recipient
Manuella Blackburn – Liverpool Hope University, UK
Judith Shatin – University of Virginia, USA
Stay tuned for news about the 2016-17 KEAR opportunity, which will be announced in early 2016. We welcome all applicants who want to explore multi-channel, live performance, and/or Ambisonic projects.
Eftychia Papanikolaou, Associate Professor of Musicology, has been invited to present two pre-performance lectures at Toledo Opera’s production of Giacomo Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, Friday, October 2 at 6:30 p.m. and Sunday, October 4 at 1 p.m.
The allure of the East had captivated opera audiences for the better part of the nineteenth century—tales of the Other constructed through European lens offered boundless opportunities for visual splendor and aural opulence. Written at the dawn of the new century, Madama Butterfly (1904) constitutes Giacomo Puccini’s answer to japonisme, the overwhelming fascination with everything Japanese that thrilled Europeans and Americans alike after 1860.
The opera transports us to the exotic world of nineteenth-century Japan and the ill-fated love between a 15-year-old geisha and an American naval officer. The innocent but passionate Cio-Cio-San (Butterfly) marries the conceited Lieutenant Pinkerton, only to be abandoned when he returns to the US. The stereotypical portrayal of the two protagonists gives us a glimpse into the uneasy historical context that surrounded the encounter between East and West. Puccini’s score, peppered with traditional Japanese music he studied while composing the opera, leaves no doubt about the irresistible power of the music to move, surprise and seduce us. It invites us to leave behind our present-day post-colonial anxieties and rather indulge in the emotional cornucopia and dramatic finesse of one of the composer’s finest creations.
Toledo Opera’s Madama Butterfly is a production of the so-called “Brescia version” of May 1904, the revision that Puccini fashioned three months after the disastrous premiere at La Scala. The opera would undergo several more revisions, until its standard version was established in the Paris production of 1906.
Eftychia Papanikolaou, Ph.D.
Bowling Green State University
For more information please visit ToledoOpera.org.
The editors at Ashgate Publishing have named Dr. Mary Natvig’s 2002 book, Teaching Music History, as the most influential book they had published in the field.
Dr. Emily Freeman Brown, Director of Orchestral Activities, Conducting & Ensembles has recently authored “A Dictionary for the Modern Conductor” published by Rowman & Littlefield.
from the Rowman & Littlefield description
“Titles in Dictionaries for the Modern Musician: A Scarecrow Press Music Series offer both the novice and the advanced artist key information designed to convey the field of study and performance for a major instrument or instrument class, as well as the workings of musicians in areas from conducting to composing. Unlike other encyclopedic works, contributions to this series focus primarily on the knowledge required by the contemporary musical student or performer. Each dictionary covers topics from instrument parts to playing technique, major works to key figures. A must-have for any musician’s personal library! Filling a vital need in the rapidly changing and complex field of conducting, A Dictionary for the Modern Conductor is a concise one-volume reference tool that brings together for the first time information covering a broad array of topics essential for today’s conductor to know.”
BGSU music history professor Arne Spohr has been invited to teach a workshop on Black Musicians in Early Modern Europe (1450-1800) at the 39th International Wolfenbüttel Summer School on Early Modern European Black Studies, an emerging field in the study of European history and culture. It takes place at the Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel, Germany, from 07/26 to 08/08, 2015. Among the international faculty are Kate Lowe (University of London), Rebekka von Mallinckrodt (University of Bremen) and Eve Rosenhaft (University of Liverpool). Students (M.A., Ph.D.) are from institutions such as Princeton Theological Seminary, the University of Copenhagen and the Freie Universität Berlin.
Eftychia Papanikolaou, Associate Professor of Musicology, is one of five scholars invited to participate at an afternoon symposium titled “Beethoven’s Sacred Music in Context,” organized by Professor Markus Rathey of the Institute of Sacred Music at Yale University.
http://ism.yale.edu/event/symposium-beethovens-sacred-music-context
The symposium is presented in conjunction with the Yale Schola Cantorum and Juilliard School of Music’s performances of Beethoven’s Mass in C in New Haven (April 30) and New York (May 2).
http://ism.yale.edu/event/yale-schola-cantorum-beethoven-and-more
