Harvard University Department of M usic

MUSICnewsletter Vol. 15, No. 2 Summer 2015 Osnat Netzer on Teaching & Composing

The first time she taught Music 2, Osnat Music Building Netzer approached the Department’s largest North Yard course idealistically. “In a perfect world,” she Harvard University thought, “how would I teach this? It was Cambridge, MA 02138 my chance to invent, to create a new way to teach theory and composition to students 617-495-2791 who have never studied them before.” www.music.fas.harvard.edu Then ealityr hit. Netzer had 100 stu- dents at various skill levels and with many

different interests. “Performers want to INSIDE understand what they’re playing. Some stu- dents want to arrange popular songs, some 2 Faculty News are simply looking to deepen their appreciation of her first full-length opera, The Wondrous Woman music, some aspire to be professional musicians but Within. Woman is a comic opera in two acts with 2 Laurie Anderson have another concentration to fall back on. I have a libretto adapted from the play of the same name 3 Gardiner, Vance George at to accommodate all of them.” by controversial Israeli playwright, Hanoch Levin. She began visiting all of her sections to meet The work will premiere this fall at the Cameri Harvard students and get to know them better. Theatre in Tel Aviv. 4 Talking with the Parker Quartet “I can conceptualize classes with an ideal world Netzer wanted the opera to be an Israeli 6 Graduate Student News in mind, but I needed to know the actual students. opera, and she wanted to write it in Hebrew, so it So what I do now is tailored to what students are made sense to her to base it on a play written by 6 Walden on Musical Experiments looking for; is this relevant to them? How will this Israel’s iconic playwright. “Levin’s early plays were in the Renaissance be helpful in their lives?” brutal and extreme politically; some were censored Now in her second year as Preceptor, Netzer has or banned. Later he found more subtle ways to 7 Early Music in Boston a successful working structure for her course. When write about the state of affairs in Israel, in allegory, 8 Alumni News an unprecedented number of blizzards shut down where politics were disguised as family dynamics. the Harvard campus this past winter, she found an But The Wondrous Woman Within is not that. It’s 8 Chin’s Travels in Nepal innovative way to make up material the students had a funny sexual farce about two suitors, neither of 9 Library News missed. whom has a chance at winning the diva. 10 Calendar of Events “We called them the Snowstorm Sessions. They “If you’re creating an opera from a play, you were spontaneous, really,” she says of the several have to make sure that there’s a reason to add 12 Voces de America Latina short instructional videos she and Head TF William music. Music for Levin’s plays, I think, is essential. O’Hara created at the Derek Bok Center Media I think he knew it, too. The characters are unsym- Literacy and Visualization Lab. The videos covered pathetic on the page. The plays have moments concepts such as tetrachords, sharp keys/flat keys, with incidental music that contrasts with or is “avoiding enharmonic errors,” “character in major completely antithetical to the stage action. Levin and minor modes” and many more—eleven three- knew that music was essential in order to make the to-four-minute mini-lessons in all, meant to help deep criticism bearable and the characters more students catch up and review content they’d missed. believable. I try to employ music in a similar way, “This is one of the great things about Harvard,” only on a more extreme level. she says of the Bok Center’s staff. “There’s a team “For my first opera, I didn’t want to take Department Chair available to help you do your job better. It’s amazing.” something too close to my heart. You have to Carol J. Oja live with opera for years and years, so I’d like to Director of Administration The Wondrous Woman Within be able to be slightly emotionally detached from Nancy Shafman As Netzer completed her second year of teaching at it. I know the outcome will be a little out of my Newsletter Editor Harvard she also finished casting for the premiere of control.” Lesley Bannatyne continued, p. 2 [email protected] Netzer, continued Faculty News Netzer began work on the opera in 2008, composing full-time in Berlin for a year, then Yosvany Terry Joins Faculty Preceptor Richard Beaudoin gave a talk at the six months in Boston. She finished it in 2011 American Consulate in Shanghai, called “What and workshopped the first scene on New York Makes Music Beautiful.” City Opera’s 2012 VOX Festival. A grant for Parker Quartet members Daniel Chong Fringe Opera by the Israel National Lottery and Jessica Bodner welcomed a son this sum- Council for the Arts helped fund a production mer, Cole Franklin Chong. of the opera in Israel. Julia Pevzner will direct In May, Professors Emily Dolan and the 2015 premiere of the fully staged version Alexander Rehding hosted an exploratory at the Cameri, with the Israel Contemporary Yosvany Terry has been appointed Visiting seminar at the Radcliffe Institute entitled Mak- Players serving as the orchestra, Yuval Zorn Senior Lecturer on Music and Director of Jazz ing Sense of Timbre. Twelve music scholars gave conducting. Ensembles for the 2015–16 year. short presentations. Rehding was the Rieman Netzer will travel to Tel Aviv to see some Terry is an internationally acclaimed and Baketel Fellow for Music at the Radclifffe of the staging and vocal rehearsals. “It’s so excit- Cuban musician, American composer, saxo- Institute for Advanced Study this past year. ing—the opera will be premiered at the Cameri phonist, percussionist, bandleader, educa- This past summer ranklinF D. and Flor- Theatre’s second Levin festival. It’s his house tor and cultural bearer of the Afro-Cuban continued, p. 5 theater, and this play premiered there in 1992. tradition. Terry’s latest release, the Grammy If the opera’s good, it will hopefully get another Award-nominated New Throned King (5Pas- production. If it requires some revisions, the sion, 2014), features music based on Arará performances will reveal that need. Every step cantos and rhythms and has been called the of the way I’m happy but cautious.” “musical culmination of his spiritual explora- tion” (All About Jazz). His previous album, Israeli composer, pianist, and singer/songwriter Today’s Opinion (Criss Cross, 2012), was Osnat Netzer received her doctorate from New selected as one of the Top 10 Albums of the England Conservatory. She joined the Music Year by the New York Times. In 2015, Terry Department faculty as Preceptor in 2013. was named a recipient of the prestigious Doris Duke Artist Award. Pianist Jenny Chai discusses and performs music by Marco Stroppa, Debussy and Ligeti in Richard Beau- Laurie Anderson Gives 2015 Elson Lecture doin’s Music 51b.

When asked how she introduces herself, Laurie mother witnessed: ducks, their feet frozen to the Anderson says that she references whatever she’s icy surface of a pond. At performances in Italy, working on at that moment. “Right now,” she one older man came to every performance she told a group of graduate and undergraduate had, she said, and told spectators that she and students, “I’m a filmmaker.” her grandmother were once frozen to a pond. Anderson spent a day on campus as the “Close enough,” Anderson thought. Department’s Louis C. Elson Lecturer. She met She showed images of her invented instru- with students informally, and later gave the an- ments, including the tape bow for which she’s nual Elson Lecture to a packed Paine Hall. best known, and some of her installations, such “Hearing is the last sense to go,” she told as her table with built-in holes where a sound the crowd. “Tibetan monks believe this; the installation could be heard through the audi- subtitle to the Tibetan Book of the Dead is Great ence’s elbows. Liberation Through Hearing. After the heart Anderson’s never been shy about push- stops and the eyes go dark, the hammers in your ing through assumptions, or the barriers that ears are still going. Tibetan monks yell into your separate one artform from another. ears when you die—mostly instructions: there “I’m always interested in discarding as- are two lights. Go toward the faraway light.” sumptions,” she told students in an informal Anderson’s new film project works with the meeting. They’re usually so sad: You have to do I’m not so worried about new, or experi- Tibetan Book of the Dead, and dogs. During her this in a certain way? WOAH. Says who. We mental. I work in the oldest artform in the Elson lecture she showed images of her work-in- all have the freedom to discard assumptions. I world. I’m a storyteller. There’s nothing new progress as well as images of past projects and became an artist because I wanted to be free. about that. I love good stories, and I love performances, such as one of herself performing “People may tell you to get back into your trying to make them. on the violin in the mid-1970s, wearing ice discipline—that you don’t know enough to do —Laurie Anderson skates and standing on blocks of ice. The piece the other thing. You do know enough. That’s was inspired by something she and her grand- what instincts are for.”

2 Sir John Eliot Gardiner at Harvard

Vincent J. Panetta, Jr. (A.B. 1972, PhD 1991) and Eunice Johnson Panetta ’90 generously established The Christoph Wolff Fund for Music to support, among other things, an annual residency by a noted musicologist, composer, theorist, or performer. Conductor John Eliot Gardiner was the inaugural Christoph Wolff Distin- guished Visiting Scholar in the Music Department. Gardiner—an English conductor, early music expert, and Bach biographer— came to campus to participate in a series of events February 2–8, which included an open rehearsal with Harvard choral groups in Memorial Church (where he rehearsed the choirs in several Bach motets), and an informal rehearsal with the Harvard Radcliffe Orchestra and pianist Robert Levin in Sanders Theatre, where “What is classical music? Sounds dead to me. Why not call it music. Don’t they discussed aspects of the Mozart Piano Concerto K. 491. On think it should be hidebound or labeled. See it as accessible to everyone, February 4, he visited with a group of young conductors. not exclusive to the elite or upper middle class.”—JEG “There’s nothing more stupid than a conductor on his own,” Gardiner told a dozen students in Dr. Andrew Clark’s choral conducting class. “Music is collaborative.” Monteverdi’s Vespers 1610, a work Gardiner conducted as a student at King’s College, Cambridge, was his first big challenge, he told students. “I’d never done anything like this before. I re- cruited a choir and an orchestra. The choir sung in euphony—this was the style at King’s college—it was like stroking a cat. Singing the Italianate was foreign to them. The orchestra was even harder to recruit. I had to find the only three sackbut players in England. “[The Vespers] was my epiphany; I changed course. I’d been an historian and farmer, but I became a musician. I was 20.” “The students here,” Clark told Gardiner, “do this sort of Vance George leads Holden Choruses thing all the time; they make up their own projects, and through sheer force of will, get it done.” Conductor Vance George led the San Francisco Symphony Chorus to four Gardiner was encouraging. “If you can do your own thing, Grammy awards in the 23 years he served as their conductor. During his visit it’s the best—to bypass conventional routes. I’m an unconven- to Harvard for a residency from Jan. 27–30, George led the Holden Choruses tional conductor, I’m not a pianist. I learn the music by sitting in a rehearsal of three different works by Johannes Brahms. “It’s like working in a chair and reading the score. I don’t listen to recordings, just with something that’s alive, and you start where you find them and build on use my aural training. I really study the score.” that. It’s not unlike cooking...you put [the ingredients] together and fashion Most important to conducting, Gardiner explained to the them into something delicious,” he says. students—music concentrators as well as Middle Eastern and George focused heavily on the emotional aspects of the performance chemistry concentrators, pianists and organists—is connection. during his rehearsal with the Holden Choruses—a pleasant surprise for the It’s what a conductor does. “Your job, without talking, is to con- participants. Radcliffe Choral Society member Nareen N. Manoukian agreed nect the musicians so they understand how their part fits with that George’s focus on emotion and connection was unique. “Someone who the others. A conductor empowers musicians to give it their best; is that accomplished...you’d think there’d be an emphasis on accuracy...but I to be free within context of agreed utopian parameters. Music is was really surprised by his broad approach and his emphasis on connection to not a democratic art.” the music.” Notes on page are literal printed hieroglyphics, Gardiner George has been praised for his distinctive style of conducting and believes—they are not the music. They’re a shorthand, braille, emotional manner of teaching, which accounts for his selection of Brahms’ for release of the imagination. Bach’s handwriting, for example, works for the masterclass. “They are redemptive,” George says. “They have is more expressive than his typeset scores. “Bach shows you how incredible texts and musical expression that reaches deep into the soul it should be—it’s physically expressive. If you play only notes,” and is deeply moving to bring you to your best self. I think great art... Gardiner warned, “you haven’t left the subbasement of what the lead[s] us to experience our best selves—our deepest self. ...I think when piece could be. Music carries responsibility if you have the nerve people leave a concert they are better human beings, and certainly the to direct it.” performers have gone inside that inner being and explored what the com- poser has put down on the page that was deeply moving to him or her.” w —Mac G. Schumer. Excerpted from the Harvard Crimson

3 Talking With the Parker Quartet growing sense of trust in us musicians. They also continue to pursue and each other.” cross-disciplinary projects, to explore the This trust, this close rela- connections that can be made even outside tionship, is key to the Quartet, of the music department. and to how they can steward “These are ideas currently in discussion,” the long-term acquisition says Chong. “We also plan to incorporate a of skills specific to chamber guest artist award, an award that gives select music. students the chance to prepare and perform “We’re finding that the a major work from the chamber music rep- students are beginning to ertoire with us on one of our Blodgett series explore listening on a higher concerts. These would include quintets, level, an essential chamber sextets, and octets and other larger chamber music skill that continually ensemble pieces. We want students to be develops,” says Kee-Hyun part of the process and witness what we go “The year has flown by,” says Daniel Chong, Kim, cellist. “It’s part of our mission to show through to present a given work on stage.” violinist of the Parker Quartet.“Before, we students what an incredible experience play- Says Bodner, “This year it felt like us could only envision an institution as our ing chamber music is. To show them what it presenting ourselves, and now it feels more home. Now, we can’t imagine a better fit. We feels like to exchange ideas, listen critically, like, ‘let’s see what else is possible with these think of [our studio in the basement of the and work towards creating a unified concep- residency concerts!’” music building] as our laboratory. It’s our pri- tion of a piece, and to have them experience, “Yes,” adds Kim. “We want performanc- vate space to hone, experiment, and explore ‘Oh, THIS is what it feels like when every- es to be as celebratory as possible and to be as performers. Being a part of this university thing is working together!’” events that the whole school can get behind. feels like we have access to a limitless treasure Having a resident chamber ensemble on We love seeing students at our concerts - the trove of insight and inspiration—from the campus means more than having teachers level of talent amongst the students is already colleagues that we work with, to the students available to coach the department’s Chamber so high, and we see so much potential in all that we interact with, and the wonderful Music course. The Parkers think of them- of them. We know they have it in them to visitors that pass through these hallways. It’s selves as performing ambassadors within the always look for more and to reach for an even definitely brought into our rehearsal room an music department and throughout the Har- higher level.. We want to inspire them.” added layer of stimulating ideas and discus- vard campus. The quartet makes classroom sions as we learn and understand the string visits to other music classes, such as Chaya The Parker Quartet’s 2015–16 public perfor- quartet repertoire.” Czernowin’s or Osnat Netzer’s composition mances in John Knowles Paine Hall will take “Harvard is such a unique place for seminars, Richard Beaudoin’s theory classes, place Friday, October 16th at 8:00pm, Sunday, us to call home,” says Jessica Bodner, viola. and Anne Shreffler’s Beethoven quartet November 22 at 3:00 pm, Saturday, March 5 “Coming from a conservatory where music seminar. They also play house concerts—at at 8:00 pm and Sunday April 17 at 3:00 pm. is the whole world, being here has made me PfoHo, Cabot, Leverett, Mather—which think about music in the context of society Kim thinks of as projects meant to develop as a whole and what music means to many new student audiences: “We see these campus different kinds of students. Additionally, concerts as opportunities to expose students there are so many incredible resources within to chamber music and make connections. the Harvard community. At first, it was It’s a process of integrating ourselves into the overwhelming how many incredible events community.” take place on campus—we wanted to attend Adds Xue, “we’re part of history now,” everything!” recognizing the depth of what has come Chong concurs. “We are constantly reex- before them and the excitement looking amining how we think of music. If someone forward. is learning a Brahms quartet, for example, With one year under their collective belt, we must think of the students’ preparation the Parker is exploring future plans. They beyond the idea of music as performance and have a concert in the works with pieces by Brian Friedland (piano) and fellow bandmates in Dan- search for what this art form has to offer each Harvard faculty composers Tutschku, Czer- iel Henderson’s Jazz Improvisation class. Friedland’s student in a larger sense.” nowin, Iyer, and last year’s Fromm Visiting “Household Items” songs take text from Pirates Booty “We see our chamber music students Professor Michael Pisaro. In addition to popcorn, medicine bottles, elevators, and much more every week,” adds Ying Xue, violinist. “It has helping seniors prepare for their performance and weave jazz compositions around them. “Nantucket Nectars started with two guys, a lender and a peach. been wonderful for us to see students bond- thesis concerts, they would love to collaborate Repeat that and we begin to perceive it as a melody,” ing more and more through playing together. with the Dance Center and work more with Friedland told the class. “If you have the text as a form, Throughout this past year, we could feel their the department’s visiting composers and it frees you up for other aspects.”

4 Faculty News continued ence Rosenblatt Professor Vijay Iyer embarked a Time of War. She published “The Original James Edward Ditson Professor Anne on two European tours with his trio, He also Miss Turnstiles: On the Town brought a bold Shreffler gave the keynote, “Precarious directed the International Workshop in Jazz and style of casting to Broadway,” in Humanities: Utopias: Modelling Community in Collab- Creative Music at the Banff Centre in Alberta, The Magazine of the National Endowment for orative Works,” at the University of Chicago Canada. Iyer was recently named Downbeat the Humanities, January/February 2015, among symposium “there is no repetition: mathias others, and completed a second year as Leonard spahlinger at 70.” She also gave a lecture and Bernstein Scholar-in-Residence with the New workshop, “Paradigm Shift or Style Change? York Philharmonic. Oja also served as the Barr Some Thoughts on a Historiography of Com- Laureate Scholar, Conservatory of Music, Uni- positional Style in the 20th and 21st Centuries” versity of Missouri at Kansas City, and as the at the Graduate School for the Arts, Bern, Chair of the the Pulitzer Prize Committee on Switzerland, and spoke at the Tanya Bonakdar Music in 2015. She received the Distinguished Art Gallery in New York City in connection Service Award of SAM in recognition of her with the exhibition by Susan Philipsz, “Part many outstanding contributions as a scholar File Score,” an artwork based on Hanns Eisler's of American music and her exemplary service music and his persecution by the FBI. to the Society. Oxford University Press sponsored Fanny Peabody Professor of Music Alex- a launch of Pro- ander Rehding gave talks at Hong Kong Uni- fessor Kate van versity, University of Pennsylvania, University Orden’s new of Iowa, and the Peacock lecture at Toronto, book at the and spoke at GSAS Alumni Day (with Peter “Voices and Books Magazine’s Jazz Artist & Jazz Group of the Year. McMurray PhD ’14). Rehding won the Selma 1500–1800”con- Morton B. Knafel Professor Thomas F. V. Forkosch Award for “Music-Historical Egyp- ference in New- Kelly lectured at Duke University, the Uni- tomania, 1650–1950,” published in Journal of castle. Materiali- versity of Maryland, and MIT. He gave two the History of Ideas. He also published in Die ties was released in seminars at the Conservatorio San Pietro a MusikTheorie and Istoria nemetskoy literatury. May, 2015. Majella in Naples, and lectured at the Pontificio Professor Kay Kaufman Shelemay re- w Istituto di Musica Sacra in Rome. Kelly was a ceived a fellowship to spend the 2015-16 aca- keynote speaker at the Smithsonian Institu- demic year at the Stanford Humanities Center. tion’s symposium on Early Music in Higher Education and at the national meeting of “Unmasking Jim Crow” Parses Minstrelsy History Chorus America. He taught a seminar in musi- and was viewed as one of the first U.S. cultural cal paleography for the younger monks of the exports, spreading to Australia, France, South monastery of Solesmes, participated in a panel Africa, and even China. Today, however, min- in Symphony Hall in celebration of the 150th strelsy is largely ignored as an embarrassing and anniversary of the Handel and Haydn Society, inconvenient page of American history. and contributed a chapter to their celebratory Last semester, Carol J. Oja and Samuel volume. He served as curator and presenter for J. Parler, PhD candidate in Music, created the three events of the Boston Symphony Or- a seminar entitled Blackface Minstrelsy in chestra’s Insights series in February. With Blue The exhibit, a collaborative project by students, was 19th-Century America to explore the history Heron, Kelly presented a lecture/concert at the curated by Sam Parler, Katie Callam, assistant curator. and legacy of blackface performance. The class Boston Early Music Festival. For HarvardX, he “There have been two ways to look at things created the student-curated exhibit “Unmask- produced a module on liturgical manuscripts like minstrelsy. One way is to say: ‘Let’s forget it ing Jim Crow,” in the Loeb Music Library. in the Houghton Library. He spoke at the and look forward,’ and the other way is to say: The exhibit included images, sheet music, opening of the Allston Education Portal with ‘We will never forget,’” Louis Chude-Sokei said information on songsters, and other artifacts Mayor Martin Walsh and President Faust, at at the Eda Kuhn Loeb Music Library on Jan from the Harvard Theater Collection, which a Harvard Campaign event in Seattle, for the 26. Author of The Last 'Darky': Bert Williams, has one of the most important compilations of Harvard Clubs of Hew Hampshire and Cape Black-on-Black Minstrelsy, and the African Di- 19th-century minstrelsy materials in the world. Cod, and at reunion events for the 50th and aspora. Chude-Sokei was the keynote speaker The exhibit’s opening symposium also featured 60th class reunions. at the opening of the exhibit “Unmasking Jim Rhiannon Giddens, banjoist and vocalist of William Powell Mason Professor Carol Crow: Blackface Minstrelsy in American Pop Grammy award-winning old-time string band J. Oja was named one of ten 2015–16 Walter Culture.” Consisting of comic skits, variety The Carolina Chocolate Drops. Channing Cabot Fellows for her new book, acts, dancing, and music, blackface minstrelsy Bernstein Meets Broadway. Collaborative Art in was hugely popular in 19th-century America —Tianxing V. Lan. Excerpted from The Harvard Crimson, 2.2.15

5 Graduate Student News Walden on Musical Experimentation in the Renaissance

Sivan Cohen-Elias and her husband Rey “It was like a 1500s version of Disneyland. welcomed a daughter, Meshi Elias-Hulme The instruments were more closely connected on March 22nd. to nature, they interacted with weather— Rujing Huang was awarded a fellow- wind, heat, water,” says Daniel Walden, of ship grant by the Asian Cultural Council the complicated musical machines installed and will be traveling to Taiwan to research in the elaborate gardens of Renaissance Italian the revival of Chinese imperial court music. courts. “Some worked with hydraulic pres- Fellowship recipients represent a selection of sure, and they had to divert streams to power young creative forces in the region as well as wheels to keep the instruments working. professionals currently positioned in pivotal They’d only play when nature was moving roles within the cultural landscape of Hong the gears. There really is something to this Kong and China. connection with Disneyland; it’s an artificial Michael Uy was awarded the Mark world made to seem natural.” Tucker Award at SAM for "Staging Catfish Theidea of music and its relationship to Row in the Soviet Union: The Everyman space—to architecture and proportion—has A musical machine at the Villa di Pratolino, one of the Opera Company and Porgy and Bess, 1955- interested Walden since his undergraduate gardens Walden is studying. Image from Salomon de Caus' 1956.” days as a Classics major at Oberlin. “Raisons des forces mouvements” (pub. 1624). “Architecture and music are combined in ancient ideas. There’s a treatise by the 1st- resurgence of interest in new keyboard for- century B.C.E. Greek Vitruvius that talks a mats. Some of the instruments built then lot about music and harmony, about perform- still exist. There are also a few instruments ing in a space that resonates. Architecture was in Europe that are modern recreations. A seen as both mechanical and philosophical.” team in Basel is recreating the arciorgano, Walden theorizes that when Renaissance a microtonal organ. But Vicentino’s famous Italy—specifically the music theorist Nicolo archicembalo, a 31-key harpsichord, has still Vicentino—turned to Greece to develop not been recreated. It would be cool to see its music theory, this facilitated a culture of that.” musical and magical experimentation that Is it possible? Walden’s always been inter- influenced music for a long time. ested in the mechanics of instruments as well “Vicentino was a visionary. He invented as their performance. As an undergraduate at the microtonal keyboard, an impressive Oberlin, he built a clavichord. “I spent a lot Above: Paddy League and colleagues perform Brazilian music on the Science Center Plaza. Below: Katie Cal- example of mechanical ingenuity,” says of time in the shop at Oberlin. It’s good to lam presented a paper, "Performance and the Study of Walden, who wrote his thesis for a MPhil in have first hand contact with an instrument Blackface Minstrelsy in American Higher Education" Musical Studies at Cambridge on keyboards you play all the time. at the conference "Historically Informed Performance that have more than 12 notes per octave. “In “And instrument-building has beautiful in American Higher Education," hosted by the Smith- sonian Chamber Music Society, held at the National Vicentino’s 16th-century treatise (L’antica philosophy. There was an early Italian treatise Museum of American History in Washington, D.C. musica ridotta alla moderna prattica / an- by Fabio Colonna, a friend of Galileo. He Callam presented with assistance from banjo player/ cient music adapted to modern practice), he invented a keyboard instrument that could be scholar Greg Adams. The banjo in the foreground is an talks about the beauty of enharmonic music played by circling the hands around six rows original William E. Boucher, Jr. banjo from the collec- tions at the American History Museum. featuring microtonal intervals even smaller of keys in movements that they saw as relat- than the chromatic half step. He ing to the orbit of spheres. There was a real lamented that musicians no longer interest in what the gestures of the hands at wrote enharmonic music in his time, the keyboard might communicate musically. and so he invented a new instrument “And yes, it’s possible to build Vicen- with microtonal divisions that could tino’s 31-key, totally possible. It would be perform it. so much fun.” “I think it did, and does, have a significant impact on musical dis- Walden completed degrees at Oberlin College course. There’s an interesting geneal- and Conservatory in Classics and Piano Perfor- ogy of this experimentation with in- mance with a minor in Historical Performance. struments in 16th- and 17th-century He has a MPhil in Musical Studies at Cam- Italy, then again in 19th-century bridge, and is pursuing the PhD at Harvard England, where there was a dramatic in Music Theory.

6 Natasha Roule

It’s a side project, but it’s taken on a life of their perspective of what Marlene did. It’s embody music, sound, and emotion, how to its own, says Natasha Roule of her research interesting how many groups spun out from evoke presence on stage. into the early music scene in Boston in the Quadrivium—Live Oak, Voice of the Turtle, Those ideas about feeling oury presence 1960s and 1970s. She’s specifically focusing Alexander’s Feast.” on stage—I want to implement that right now on a group headed by Marlene Montgomery, Marlene and Quadrivium, Roule and in my teaching.” the Quadrivium, and Pomerantz have found, were Although the Quadrivium project is is working to digitize extraordinary in many ways. ancillary to Roule’s dissertation topic—reviv- a multitude of record- “They were seen as als of the operas of Lully from 1687 to pres- ings. Collaborating with anti-establishment. On a ent—both stem from her interest in looking musician, researcher, and spectrum of early music back. And Quadrivium has influenced Roule’s colleague Ian Pomer- groups, Quadrivium would research in interesting ways. “Marlene was antz, she plans to write a be far off to one side and interested in the present moment, in staging book that addresses what Handel and Haydn would and the body as integral to music performance. makes Boston unique in be on the other. People A lot of what she did parallels what people the early music scene. don’t even agree about what who are reviving older music are doing now. “If you google Mar- to call what they did. Some What is the overall experience going to be for lene Montgomery, there’s agreed it was early music, the audience? What will they see, feel, hear?” almost nothing out there. definitely. Others said it Roule and Pomerantz have conducted 15 Yet Marlene helped define many aspects of the was musical pageantry. Quadrivium has lots Quadrivium-related interviews to date, and Boston music scene,” says Roule. “How did to say about what music sounded and looked already have a good oral history of Marlene she do it, and in what ways?” like 40 years ago in this area, at the birth of Montgomery and Quadrivium. Roule is Roule’s project was born when Lisle Kul- the early music scene in Boston.” digitizing LPs and cassette tapes of concerts bach, a member of the Sephardic folk music Since she’s come to Harvard, Roule has with the assistance of Chris Danforth in the group Voice of the Turtle (Pomerantz is the been grappling with this question of why Department’s Ethnolab. She’s working on get- newest member), mentioned the boxes of and how musicians perform older music. ting recordings of rehearsals to digitize as well, Quadrivium postcards, letters, programs, and “I’ve spent enough time in Boston to notice and when the project is finished, Roule plans recordings she’d discovered cleaning out her that not everyone performs the early music to give all the material to Harvard’s library so house. She invited Roule to take a look. aesthetic the same way. So, why do people do that the music and all its supporting materials “I was dumbfounded by what I saw. I things differently? How are groups delineated; can be available to scholars worldwide. brought the papers to Professor Shelemay how do people align themselves with various and she said, ‘This is big. Pursue it.’ So I performance practices? I’m trying to put Qua- Natasha Roule is a doctoral student in historical asked Lisle if I could talk with her about drivium in the giant puzzle that is the list of musicology. Her dissertation is entitled, “Reviv- the group and Marlene, and we talked for performers in Boston’s early music scene.” ing Lully: the Politics of Baroque Opera and the two hours. Through Lisle, I began contact- Montgomery and Quadrivivum didn’t French Historical Narrative.” In addition to ing former members and interviewing them pay much attention to definitions of musical baroque opera, her research interests encompass about their time in the group. Some are now styles, Roule says. “Marlene was interested in troubadour song, histories of the book and of professional musicians, others are amateur American folk music and medieval repertories reading, and modern interpretations of early musicians. Some have gone on to theater, and she brought them together however she music. She is also an active performer of the viola and pantomime. I’ve talked to Revels about thought best. She taught musicians how to da gamba and medieval strings.

Left to right: salad-making as part of Caitlin Schmidt’s Friday Lunch Talk on “Giant Salads and Chocolate Cellos,” about the 1960s musical avant-garde. Fernando Viesca, our building Manager for 14 years, retired in June and received a warm send-off at the annual Department picnic. Musician Ralph Peterson brought his band to Professor Ingrid Monson’s “Jazz, Freedom, Culture” course.

7 Alumni News nal Neurology) and David Trippett (PhD ’10) joined the wrote a chapter on Faculty of Music at Cambridge. Trippett the cognitive neuro- was an undergraduate at King’s College and The SAM Cambridge University Press Award science of improvisa- later a research fellow at Christ's College, went to Emily Abrams Ansari (PhD ’10) tion for The Oxford and comes to Cambridge as the Principal for “The Virtue of American Power and the Handbook of Critical Investigator of a major, five-year research Power of American Virtue: Exceptionalist Improvisation Studies. project funded by the European Research Tropes in Early Cold War Musical Nation- Elizabeth Council. The grant links sound, technology alism.” Davide Ceriani (PhD ’11) received Craft (PhD ’14) and 19-century intellectual history. the Adrienne Fried Block Fellowship for and her husband wel- “Defining Italian Cultural Identity in New Anna Watson Craft comed Anna Watson Job News York City through Opera: The Years of Mass Craft on March 1st. Glenda Goodman (PhD ’12) was appoint- Migration (1879-1924)” Craft’s dissertation received the sole honorable ed to a tenure-track position at the University Aaron Berkowitz (PhD ’09) com- mention from the Immigration and Ethnic of Pennsylvania. Jonathan Kregor (PhD pleted his residency in neurology at Brigham History Society. ’07) has received tenure at the University and Women’s/Massachusetts General Hos- Yuga Cohler (AB ’11) was recently of Cincinatti. Lei Liang (PhD ’06) was pitals and was appointed to the neurology appointed Music Director of the Young Mu- promoted to Professor of Music and elected faculty of Brigham and Women’s Hospital sicians Foundation Debut Orchestra in Los Acting Chair of the Music Department of the and Harvard Medical School. He was also Angeles. He was one of the nine conductors University of California, San Diego. Peter named a Health and Policy Advisor to NGO awarded a Career Assistance Award from the McMurray (PhD Nov. ’14) received a post- Partners In Health, collaborating on the U.S. Solti Foundation. Yuga is also maintaining doctoral fellowship at the Harvard Society development of programs for neurologic an active career as a software engineer, working of Fellows. Meredith Schweig (PhD ’13) care and education in Haiti and Malawi. He full-time for Google. accepted a tenure-track position at Emory published 14 articles in 2014 (one of which Sasha Siem’s (PhD ’11) debut album Most University. was highlighted by an editorial in the jour- of the Boys was released in March. Chin’s Travels in Nepal

Calvin Chin ’14 received an undergraduate Paine drum, not the other way around. Fellowship to study ritual Buddhist music in Kath- Traditionally, apprenticeship is only open mandu. He was in Nepal from July-December to males belonging to the tol (and thus the same 2014. caste). The training is done indoors in a specially designated house, and in secret, such that none I focused on the Buddhist and Hindu ritual of the information transferred is picked up by music played by the Newars, who are the unintended audiences. In Ikachhen-tol, the re- indigenous people of the Kathmandu Valley. cent modernization of the country and evolving Specifically, I observed, recorded, notated, and views have lifted many of these restrictions in the learned the dapha (devotional) music repertoire Anup Ratna Shakya’s khin, passed down from his grand- last 20 years. My teacher, Anup Ratna Shakya, of the khin—a Newar double-headed drum—in father. The painted figure in the middle is Naasadhyo, helped to convince his gurus to open up musical Ikachhen-tole, a neighborhood in the city of flanked by Nandi and Bhindi (they are something like apprenticeship to anyone in the tol, regardless of Patan, directly south of Kathmandu. bodyguards/assistants) caste, gender, and evidently, nationality. Buddhist and Hindu beliefs and practices prove adroitness, and sacrificing a buffalo and dis- Religious and traditional music has been seamlessly coexist within Newar society, and as tributing specific parts of the head to apprentices fading away in a modern society that values such, the religious music of the Newars is based in order of skill.) entertainment over tradition, ritual, and wor- in stories of and devotion to gods and figures According to my teacher, the right side of the ship. The forms are rarely written down, and from both Buddhist and Hindu traditions. drum represents the god Naasadhyo, and the left is knowledge of them dies off with the older gurus. Newar society in the Kathmandu Valley has Mahaankaal (Bhairav, also a form of Shiva). Each Recent civil war, political revolution, and natural historically, and to some extent still is today, been sound that is produced on the drum is assigned a disaster make the preservation of old ritual music organized and divided by tol (neighborhood) syllable, or a bol. During apprenticeship, emphasis even more difficult. It is all the more impres- and caste. For the tol in which I did my research, is placed on learning and memorizing the bols for sive that some communities have managed to learning the khin takes about one-and-a-half the music before ever setting hands on the instru- preserve their traditions for so long. As Nepal years, consisting of daily prayers to Naasadhyo, ment. The bols themselves carry the meaning and rebuilds itself after the recent earthquakes in instruction from a guru, and various rituals. significance behind the music—the drum is used 2015, I hope that the work that I've done will (Examples of musical apprenticeship rituals only to express those bols with sound. Thus, it is help in some small way to call attention to the from other tol/ caste traditions include stealing urged that the bols (whether spoken in the mind country's rich heritage. a chicken to be used as an offering in order to or out loud) should lead the hands in playing the —Calvin Chin [report is excerpted and edited]

8 Library News

Linklater Appointed Keeper of Isham Solti Exhibit Wins ACRL Award

Christina Linklater (PhD ’06) has The Association of College and Research Libraries been named Keeper of the Isham Me- (ACRL) Rare Books and Manuscripts Section (RBMS) morial Library and Houghton Music has selected the Eda Kuhn Loeb Music Library as the Cataloger. This is a blended position winner of its electronic exhibition division for “Music, in which Christina will work with both First and Last: Scores from the Sir Georg Solti Archive.” Houghton Library and the Eda Kuhn “This online exhibition had a clean, uncluttered Loeb Music Library. It is intended to design, and it was easy to navigate,” stated David Faulds, meet overlapping needs in the two li- chair of the RBMS Exhibition Awards committee and braries, and provide the opportunity for curator of rare books and literary manuscripts at the a holistic view of musical special collec- University of California-Berkeley. “The ability to access tions at Harvard. At the Eda Kuhn Loeb complete scores is good for scholarship, while the ability Music Library, the primary repository to easily access audio and video enhances the experience for musical materials at Harvard at Loeb for the visitor.” Music Library, the position is Keeper of 2015 Exhibition Awards are funded by an endow- the Isham Memorial Library, a special ment established by Katharine Kyes Leab and Daniel library dedicated to research with primary musical sources. At Houghton, this posi- J. Leab, editors of “American Book Prices Current,” tion catalogs incoming and backlog Special Collections music material, focusing on recognize outstanding printed exhibition catalogs and material in the John Ward Collection. Christina began working at HCL in 2006, guides, and electronic exhibitions, produced by North as a Library Assistant in Loeb Music Library, before moving into the position of American and Caribbean institutions. Music and media RISM Project Cataloger in 2008. In 2010, Christina took a position at Houghton catalog librarian Beth Iseminger acccepted the award on Library as a Project Music Cataloger. behalf of the library at the ALA Annual Conference in San Francisco this past June. My Wars are laid away in Books— As part of National Poetry Month at the Harvard Library, the Loeb Music Library co-produced My Wars are laid away in Books. Emily Dickinson's Music Book: A Prelude to the Civil War. Red Skies Music Ensemble presented the performance at ART’s Oberon Theater in Cambridge in April, combining Emily Dickinson’s own wit, letters, and poetry with live performance of the music she loved and played. The Ensemble guided the audience through the musical engagements, social context and historical events that informed and enlivened Dickinson’s poetic voice, one that was emerging just before the American Civil War. Interwoven with a curated and archive-based illustrated narrative presented by George Boziwick, Chief of the Music Division of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, the program centered on Dickinson’s personal sheet music collection (her “binders’ volume”), Solti receiving his honorary degree from Harvard University, 7 June which is part of the Dickinson Collection in the Houghton Library. Actress Elise 1979. Part of the “Music First and Last” online exhbit. Toscano used Emily Dickinson’s own words to portray Dickinson’s New England spirit as a knowing observer of her inner and outer musical and poetic worlds.

9 Fall 2015 calendar of events

Blodgett Chamber Music Series Louis C. Elson Lecture Tuesday November 17 at 5:15 pm Parker Quartet

Angélique Kidjo Friday October 16 at 8:00 pm Spirit Rising Mozart String Quartet in E-flat Major, K. 428 Szymanowski String Quartet No. 1 Tchaikovsky String Quartet No. 1 in D Major Sunday November 22 at 3:00 pm Beethoven String Quartet No. 11, Op. 95 “Serioso” Kurtág String Quartet, Op. 1 Schumann String Quartet in A Minor, Op. 41, No. 1

Harvard Group for New Music Richard Haynes, Clarinet October 24 at 8 p.m. Barwick Colloquia New works by Harvard composers. Mondays at 4:15 pm Davison Room, Eda Kuhn Loeb Music Library Photo: Louis Jocek September 28: Sumanth Gopinah University of Minnesota “Departing to other spheres”: Psychedelic Science Fiction, Perspectival Embodiment, and the Hermeneutics of Steve Reich’s Four Organs (1970) October 19: Seth Kim-Cohen School of the Art Insitute of Chicago “The Future of No Future: Rock and Roll vs. Modernism” November 9: Jocelynne Guilbault University of California, Berkeley “Labors of Love: Theorizing Work Ethics through Musi- cal Biography” events are free and take place at 8:00 p.m. in john knowles paine concert hall unless otherwise noted. Free passes required for the Angelique Kidjo lecture and for the Parker Quartet concerts and are available two weeks before each concert at the Harvard Box Office. Full listing of 2015–2016 events at www.music.fas.harvard.edu

10 Undergraduate News

Stella Chen ’15 Named Inaugural Levin Prize Winner; Chase Morrin ’15 Wins Sudler

The Office for the Arts and the Council on Buddy Baker and was selected to participate the Arts at Harvard are pleased to announce in the Jazz Composers’ Orchestra Workshop the recipients of the annual undergraduate Institute (JCOI) through the Center of Jazz arts prizes for 2015. Studies, Columbia University and American Stella Chen ’15 is the recipient of the Composers Orchestra. Chase also won the first Robert Levin Prize In Musical Perfor- national 2012 Yamaha Young Performing mance. This prize has been established to Artist (YYPA) competition for jazz piano. recognize an extraordinarily gifted under- A 2013 Artist Development Fellowship re- graduate musician, preferably of the senior cipient, he was selected to participate in the class. The award honors Robert Levin ’68, Banff (Canada) International Workshop in Professor Emeritus and former Dwight P. Jazz and Creative Music. He plans to pursue Robinson Jr. Professor of the Department a career as a pianist and composer. of Music at Harvard University. A resident of Kirkland House enrolled in the Harvard/New England Conservatory Li Wins Silver at Tchaikovsky five-year A.B/M.M. program concentrating Competition in Psychology, Stella Chen is a violinist and concertmaster of the Harvard-Radcliffe Or- Sophomore George Li ’17 was awarded the awards for composition, arrangement and chestra and the Dunster House Opera and is silver medal in the XVth International Tchai- leading his own school groups; three National a co-president of the Brattle Street Chamber kovsky Competition. Held every four years Foundation for Advancement in the Arts Players. In 2013, Chen received an Artist in Moscow and St. Petersburg, the Tchai- (YoungArts) awards in jazz composition, Development Fellowship to participate in the kovsky Competition showcases competitors jazz piano, and classical composition; the Perlman Music Program, the Ravinia Steans in piano, violin, voice, and cello from 16 Jazz Education Network (JEN) Composer Music Institute, and the Mozarteum Inter- to 32 years of age. This year’s competition, Showcase award; and the Monterey Jazz national Summer Academy in Salzburg. This commemorating the 175th anniversary of Festival’s Gerald Wilson award for his big May she performed Mendelssohn’s Violin Tchaikovsky’s birth, attracted a total of 623 band composition “Mumphis,” which was Concerto with the Bach Society Orchestra. applicants from 45 countries. performed at the 2011 Monterey Jazz Festival After graduation, she hopes to pursue a career Li studies under Wha Kyung Byun by the Next Generation Jazz Orchestra, for as a performer and teacher of music. and Russell Sherman in the Harvard/New which Chase was selected as the pianist for Chase Morrin ’15, received the Louis England Conservatory joint degree program. their west-coast tour. He has studied with Sudler Prize in the Arts. The prize recognizes He was the winner of the 2014 Concours Vijay Iyer, Fred Hersch, Jason Moran, Ed outstanding artistic talent and achievement International Grand Prix Animato in Paris, Simone, and Bruce Brubaker, and composes in the composition or performance of music, third-prize winner in the 2015 U.S. Chopin for the NEC Jazz Composers’ Workshop drama, dance, or the visual arts. It honors Competition, winner of the 2012 Gilmore Orchestra (JCWO). During the summer of the sum of a student's artistic activities at Young Artist Award (its youngest recipient), 2012, Morrin participated in the ASCAP/ Harvard. winner of the inaugural Cooper Competition NYU Film Scoring workshop in memory of A resident of Quincy House enrolled at the age of 14 (including a full four-year in the Harvard/New England Conservatory scholarship to Oberlin Conservatory), and joint five-year A.B/M.M. program concen- first-prize winner in the Young Concert trating in Computer Science with a second- Artists International audition in 2010. He ary in Neurobiology, Morrin was awarded is currently a Gilmore Young Artist and is this prize in recognition of his exceptional on the roster of the Young Concert Artists. work as a composer and jazz pianist. Mor- In 2011, at the age of 15, George performed rin has earned multiple national and state at the White House at a State dinner for awards, which include the ASCAP Jimmy President Obama and German Chancellor Van Huesen award as a promising composer; Angela Merkel. [excerpted from The Boston the ASCAP Plus Award for composition Musical Intelligencer] recognition; four ASCAP Young Jazz Com- poser awards; nine DownBeat Magazine

11 Harvard University Department of Music Non-Profit Org. Music Building U.S. Postage Harvard University PAID Cambridge, MA 02138 Boston, MA Permit No. 1636

Fromm Players’ Voces de America Latina

Spain. Some made their careers in the United States or Europe. Others had significant artistic experiences abroad, then returned home. Together they formed a multigenerational, multinational Latina/o network that extends beyond stylistic boundaries. Cuban composer Leo Brouwer wrote the film score for Like Water for Chocolate; his Parabola, inspired by the art- ist Paul Klee, was performed on Saturday’s concert. Fellow Cuban composer, Grammy-nominated Tania León, who famously collaborates with artists outside her genre—such as writers Margaret Atwood and Derek Wolcott, or theater director Julie Taymor—had pieces on both Friday’s and Sat- urday’s program, and was the Eileen Southern Distinguished Visitor in the Harvard Music Department this spring. Alejandro Madrid conducted a pre-concert public interview of composer and 2015 Fromm Also on the “Voces” programs were works by five Mexican Players concerts co-curator Tania León, sponsored by the Office of the Arts. composers—Julio Estrada, Marisol Jimenez, Gabriela Ortiz, Hilda Paredes, and Carlos Iturralde—and Brazilian composers On April 17 and 18 the Fromm Players at Harvard presented “Vo- Marcos Balter and Felipe Lara. From Argentina, Pulitzer prize- ces de America Latina,” performed by the International Contemporary winning Mario Davidovsky’s Divertimento for 8, Ambiguous Ensembel (ICE), and conducted by Steven Schick. Curated by Carol J. Symmetries had its Boston premiere. Oja and Tania León, Voces de America Latina was a window on today’s The rommF Players at Harvard, a professional ensemble vibrant new music scene in the Americas. The two-evening program dedicated to the performance of contemporary music, play works included four works never heard before in Boston, and one US Premiere. organized around a strong theme that adds something unique Composers hailed from Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, Mexico, and to new music in Boston.

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