Harvard University Department of M usic

MUSICnewsletter Vol. 21, No. 2 Summer 2021

From Adaptation to Innovation The Harvard Choruses Sing On

Harvard University This spring, the Department of Music Harvard Glee Club 3 Oxford Street embarked on an Cambridge, MA 02138 extraordinary world 617-495-2791 tour, learning from choral experts in music.fas.harvard.edu Russia, South Africa, Italy, and China— and all from the comfort of their INSIDE own homes. The Glee Club’s tour is an 2 Conferencing Through the annual tradition that Apocalypse Professor Andrew Collegium performs the Messiah (with the Harvard Baroque Chamber Orchestra) 3 Faculty News Clark, Director of 4 Around Campus Choral Activities, transformed to fit the performed together in virtual concerts. possibilities of our current moment. As Clark Students would record themselves singing 5 Fall Events: Laurie Anderson, says, “The idea was to bring the world to our their part to a guide track consisting of Parker Quartet, Barwicks Zoom rehearsal space.” the accompaniment with a click track or a 6 Alumni News When the pandemic forced the entire video of Clark conducting with the score 8 Graduate Student News Harvard community (and academia in beneath. Part of what made the concerts general) online last year, professors had possible was the expertise provided by the 9 Espionage and Music in 17th- to make the most radical changes to their Harvard Media Production Center, where Century Venice and England pedagogies, and students had to adjust audio and video engineers synched, edited, 10 Library News; Staff News their learning strategies. Performance-based and mastered sometimes over a thousand 11 Undergraduate Student News classes were hit especially hard. Zoom can separate recordings to create a composite readily accommodate a seminar, but the lag performance. inherent in the platform makes live group The choirsperformed repertoire this performance nearly impossible. year that engaged with the current political Clark responded to this challenge by moment in unexpected ways. This fall, the working with students and the teaching Radcliffe Choral Society rehearsed A Sense staff over the summer to develop strategies of Decency, a new piece by former Harvard to overcome these technical difficulties: “We Preceptor Katherine Pukinskis that set wanted to keep learning, and we wanted to famous dissents by Justice Ruth Bader Miranda Cuckson and Conor Hanick keep making music, and we wanted to keep Ginsburg, a piece that became especially in the first Fromm Players at Harvard these communities intact, and we felt like poignant when Justice Ginsburg passed away. concert of 2021 if we could learn and sing and be together, In January, the Harvard-Radcliffe then we were providing a service for ourselves Collegium Musicum performed selections that could keep us fortified during a really from Handel’s Messiah (with the Harvard Department Chair difficult time.” Baroque Chamber Orchestra), shining a Ingrid T. Monson The teamcame up with alternatives to critical light onto the canonical work by Director of Administration large-group rehearsal. The pianist played engaging with recent scholarship on Handel’s Nancy Shafman the accompaniment, and students sang financial ties to the Atlantic slave trade and Newsletter Editor over it, muting themselves. The choirs the Messiah’s anti-Judaic elements. Grace Edgar continued [email protected] In the spring, Collegium worked Conferencing Throughthe Apocalypse: with Lonnie Norwood, a gospel singer, GMF 2021 Goes Online conductor, and educator, to learn the foundations of gospel performance practice. They also studied the work of R. Nathaniel Dett (1882–1943), a Black professor and composer who spent a year at Harvard as a special student. Although he won the prestigious Francis Boott Prize for “Don’t Be Weary, Traveler,” there is no record of the piece being performed at Harvard, and Collegium rectified this omission this semester. Over the course of the year, the choirs shifted strat- egies from Conference co-chairs Siriana Lundgren and Cana McGhee accommo- dating the “There’s all this jargon in the news about walk up to a scholar after their paper for limitations 2020 and apocalypse, but acknowledging a brief chat, but Zoom proved to have of Zoom to that world endings happen all the time some unexpected benefits. Presenters did taking ad- in the world of a community, and what not have to spend money to attend the vantage of can come after that is sometimes a really conference, and live captioning made the new oppor- good space for rebuilding,” says Siriana event more accessible. The committee tunities. As Andrew Clark Lundgren, co-chair of the 2021 Harvard was also able to organize a roundtable Clark says, Graduate Music Forum Conference, discussion completely unlimited by “We’ve evolved from adaptation and accom- which took place on February 19th and geography, which included keynote modation towards innovation.” The Glee 20th. The yearly tradition of hosting speaker Jessica Schwartz (UCLA), Christa Club’s virtual world tour is one obvious a small graduate student conference Bentley (Oklahoma City University), example, but there are other changes as became an unprecedented challenge for Jessica Bisset Perea (UC Davis), Lei Liang well. In terms of pedagogy, many of the co-chairs Lundgren and Cana McGhee (UC San Diego), and Michael Veal (Yale rehearsals were small-group affairs resem- and committee members Chris Benham, University). bling masterclasses, with students getting Sharri Hall, and Rachel Rosenman, who The conference created an environment far more individual attention. And broadly, had to plan the very first virtual conference to process the upheavals of our current the choirs are even more committed to in GMF history. era, with people presenting papers and working toward equity and racial justice. They landedon the timely topic “To contributing compositions involving topics Plans for next year remain uncertain. Begin Again: Music, Apocalypse, and Social like Black Lives Matter, environmental Unfortunately, in-person rehearsals will Change,” which drew papers on world- catastrophes, Afrofuturism, and the HIV/ likely be one of the last opportunities to changing events, from the pandemic to AIDS epidemic. But, crucially, it also return, due to the comparatively greater climate change. As McGhee remembers, provided a way to imagine pathways risk of spreading COVID-19 through “We had a music and racial justice topic, through these situations. As Lundgren says, singing. But given the essential role the we had a music and technology topic “we also wanted to offer a little bit of space choirs play as supportive communities for to talk about the ways that performers for hope.” students and the ingenuity with which are negotiating online spaces, but this The future of academic conferences Clark and the students have overcome apocalypse topic really seemed like it could remains uncertain, but, as Lundgren and obstacles thus far, it is clear the Harvard capture all of those things.” McGhee note, the hope is that we might Choirs have a bright future. The planning committee met weekly normalize remote attendance to decrease in marathon Zoom sessions to plan the the carbon footprint and the financial You can view the Harvard Choruses’ work conference, all of which would also take burden of traveling. In other words, the this year by visiting: place on Zoom. Some in-person conference pandemic might spur academia into https://www.singatharvard.com/live- experiences could not make the transition rebuilding the conference to be more stream-archive to the online format, like the ability to accessible and equitable.

2 Faculty News

Professor of the Practice Claire Chase titled “Embodied Form in Grisey’s Prologue: Celebrating the Career of released four albums of world premieres Variation, Opposition, Tension.” Eileen Southern for her Density 2036 project, which Morton B. Knafel Research Professor commissions a Thomas Kelly taught two courses in the host of new pieces graduate program at the Juilliard school; for the flute in he spoke at two virtual conferences, in honor of Edgard Prague (November) and Salerno (keynote, Varèse’s landmark March); and he gave online lectures for flute composition Johns Hopkins University, the Boston Early Density 21.5 Music Festival, Early Music America, the (1936). She also Harvard Alumni Association, and several performed on private organizations. George Lewis’s Density 2036, parts i and ii William Powell Mason Professor The Recombinant of Music Carol J. Oja appeared in an Trilogy album and Susie Ibarra’s Talking episode of PBS’s American Experience Gong, which also features Alex Peh. centering on the life and career of African Walter Bigelow Rosen Professor American singer Marian Anderson. She of Music Chaya Czernowin was the also published an article on Musicology featured composer of a recent issue of Neue Now on the founding and history of AMS’s Eileen Southern Zeitschrift für Musik. Committee on Cultural Diversity. Franklin D. and Florence Rosenblatt Fanny Peabody Professor of Music Next year, two webinars devoted to the Professor of the Alexander Rehding gave Zoom lectures scholarship and career of Eileen Southern Arts Vijay Iyer at Cornell, Berkeley, Gießen (Germany), will be presented by the Radcliffe Institute, released Uneasy, Stanford, Guaymas (Mexico), UT Austin, so be sure to save the dates! a new trio album and Hamburg (Germany). He is chairing • November 15, 4pm: “Black Women of creative music. an SMT committee to create a new award in the American University: Eileen Pianist Iyer was to promote diversity, inclusion, and Southern’s Story” joined by Linda belonging in music theory pedagogy. • April 4, 4pm: “Black Music in May Han Oh Stanley A. Marks and William H. the American University: Eileen on bass and Marks Assistant Professor at Radcliffe Southern’s Story” Uneasy Tyshawn Sorey Institute Braxton Shelley published his These events are part of a multi- on drums. book Healing for the Soul: Richard Small- faceted project about Southern, who Assistant Professor Yvette Janine wood, the Vamp, was the first African American woman Jackson released Freedom, an album which and the Gospel tenured in Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and includes her radio operas Destination Imagination with Sciences (in 1976). She was author of Freedom and Invisible People. She also Oxford Univer- the landmark book The Music of Black premiered several new compositions. sity Press. He was Americans (first edition, 1971) and editor One, titled Doubt, confronts the issue of also awarded the of the journal The Black Perspective in Music climate change denial in conjunction with Alfred Einstein (1973–1990). A web-based exhibit about the University of Utah’s Activism4Earth Award and Jaap Southern’s career will be opening this fall Project. Another, titled Remembering Kunst Prize for his (see page 10). 1619, was premiered in a concert curated 2019 article “Ana- by Teju Cole. Jackson contributed a piece lyzing Gospel.” Harvard’s Eileen Southern Project is led to the second Fromm Players at Harvard Lecturer on by Christina Linklater (Keeper of the concert of the semester (see page 4). She Music Michael Isham Memorial Library), Carol J. Oja also presented at “Unsung Stories: Women Uy contributed a post based on his research (William Powell Mason Professor), and at Columbia’s Computer Music Center,” a to the Center for Effective Philanthropy, Braxton D. Shelley (Assistant Professor symposium that recovered the history of titled “The Art of Philanthropy, The of Music and Stanley A. Marks and women’s contributions to the CMC. Philanthropy of Art.” This spring, Uy also William H. Marks Assistant Professor at Harvard College Fellow Joseph R. presented at “Unsung Stories” at Columbia the Radcliffe Institute). Jakubowski published an article in Intégral University.

3 Around Campus

The Fromm Players at (Remote) Harvard

“We invite you to undertake an exploratory journey The entire first Fromm Players at Harvard for the mind and the senses and experience the varied Concert is available to stream on the sound worlds of this program,” write violinist Miranda Department’s YouTube channel, and will Cuckson and James Edward Ditson Professor of Music remain so indefinitely: Anne Shreffler, the co-curators of the first virtual https://www.youtube.com/channel/ Fromm Players at Harvard concert. UCOTXRZa17HQkRQW0egdB2kg Under normal circumstances, the Fromm Foundation supports concerts of new music each year, curated by Jackson’s The Coding is available on her Music Department professors. But like everything else, website at http://www.yvettejackson.com/ the pandemic required thinking outside the box, and the Fromm concerts went virtual. Cuckson and Shreffler assembled an exciting program Hanging out on Zoom of pieces by Natasha Barrett and Rebecca Saunders with Laurie Anderson featuring Cuckson with pianist Conor Hanick and the world premieres of two solo violin works written especially for Cuckson by Dongryul Lee and Jeffrey Mumford. The concert was recorded at National Sawdust in New York, the lighting shifting to enhance the changing expressive mood of the performance Last year’s scheduled concert, titled “Black Speculative Musicalities,” had to be cancelled due to the pandemic, but curator Vijay Iyer assembled a similar program, featuring new music by Yvette Janine Jackson, Roscoe Miranda Cuckson Mitchell, and Imani Uzuri. Adopting a different strategy, each composer/performer produced their own video. Jackson’s featured her ensemble, the In the first of her three Charles Eliot Radio Opera Workshop, performing The Coding, which is inspired by Samuel R. Delany’s Norton lectures, composer, avant-garde science-fiction novel Babel-17. Mitchell collaborated with his ensemble, each member artist, violinist, and all-around sound filming themselves. Uzuri created an experimental video for her workThe Haunting of philosopher Laurie Anderson told a Cambridge, which, as she writes in her program note, “interrogates the documented and hilarious story about someone mistaking envisioned lives of enslaved Black people—children and adults, known and unknown, her for actor Loni Anderson. Hundreds of named and unnamed within the Cambridge, MA area.” audience members watched her recount As it becomes safer to hold public events, the return of live performances seems just the memory over Zoom under a Loni around the corner, but the virtual environment of early 2021 meant that the Fromm Anderson filter. concerts were, for the first time in the Foundation’s history, accessible and available to One of the true delights of the anyone around the world. semester was the Mahindra Humanities Center’s lecture series, which this year featured Anderson, whose combination of cheerfulness and creative resoursefulness made her more than equal to the task of taking the lectures online. Her series, which engaged both directly and indirectly with the pandemic, is titled Spending the War Without You: Virtual Backgrounds. In addition to taking full advantage of filters, Anderson walked around mesmorizing virtual spaces, integrated video effects, and performed compositions on her electric violin. Next year’s lectures Yvette Janine Jackson Roscoe Mitchell Imani Uzuri will also take place over Zoom, and you Photo credits: Catherine Koch, Joseph Blough, Petra Richterova can see the dates and times of those on the following page.

4 Fall 2021 Events

Plans for the fall semester are evolving. We are planning to stream most of our events, but we do hope to include in-person options. For the latest information, please check the calendar on our website.

CHARLES ELIOT NORTON LECTURES BARWICK COLLOQUIA LAURIE ANDERSON 10.19, 3:15PM Spending the War Without You: DENISE GILL Denise Gill (Stanford Virtual Backgrounds University) is an ethnomusicologist and sound studies 10.6, 5:00PM: The Road scholar whose work 11.10, 5:00PM: The City focuses on sonic, musical, and listening practices in Turkey and former Ottoman 12.8, 5:00PM: The Birds territories. In her research, Gill is primarily concerned with developing new theories and Streaming as Zoom webinars through methodologies for critical listening. the Mahindra Center 10.26, 3:15PM PARKER QUARTET OKKYUNG LEE Blodgett Artists- Lee is a cellist, in-Residence Concerts composer, and improviser. A native of South Korea, 9.29, 8:00PM Lee has taken a broad array of inspirations— including noise, improvisation, jazz, western 10.15, 8:00PM classical, and the traditional and popular music 11.19, 8:00PM of her homeland—and used them to forge a highly distinctive approach.

Flutist and Harvard 11.16, 3:15PM professor Claire Chase HANNES will perform with the Parker Quartet on September 29th SEIDL Seidl's compositions have been performed internationally at the ultraschall festival Berlin, Märzmusik Berlin, ultima Oslo, ECLAT, warshaw autumn and others. His works include sound installations, music theatre, short films and concert music.

5 Alumni News

Emily Abrams Ansari (PhD 2010) is the rising through the ranks. Since returning Austin Symphony Orchestra, and Yellow incoming Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of from Quaker exile back to his Mayflower Barn. For 2021, Michael Friedmann’s the Society for American Music. She also was roots on Cape Cod, he has released three Fantasy for Solo Violin and Earl Kim’s Where successful, as part of an interdisciplinary CDs, one of which, Metamorphoses on Grief Slumbers are eligible for performance team, in winning a $2.5 million grant Albany Records, was balloted for a Grammy awards from the Doug Davis Composition from the Social Sciences and Humanities and Performance Endowment. At this Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) point, over sixty musicians and seven to fund historical memory research in El orchestras have received endowment Salvador. support. Trevor BaČa’s (PhD 2016) world Alexander Fisher (PhD 2001) premiere of his piece ( H A R M O N Y ) is now the editor of the series Recent was included in New Yorker magazine’s year- Researches in the Music of the Baroque Era, end listing of ten notable performances from A-R Editions (Middleton, WI). of 2020. Scored for narrator and nine Peter Gilbert (PhD 2008) released players, the January 2020 premiere in Los his second CD, titled Burned Into the Angeles’s Zipper Concert Hall happened Orange. only weeks before COVID restricted the Curt Cacioppo presentation of live music throughout the country. nomination. Among his new works is a Ryan Bañagale’s (PhD 2011) co- violin concerto for the Italian virtuoso edited volume Francesco D’Orazio, with whom he has “We Didn’t Start collaborated extensively both as composer the Fire”: Billy and pianist. Joel and Popular William Cheng (PhD 2013) was Music Studies (with promoted to full professor at Dartmouth Joshua S. Duchan) College. was published last Matthew D. Clayton (PhD 2009) fall by Lexington became the Director of the Kardon- Glenda Goodman (PhD 2012) was Books. Northeast Branch of Settlement Music promoted to associate professor at the Aaron School in Philadelphia last September. University of Pennsylvania. Berkowitz (PhD Since 2018, he has served as a lecturer at Rujing Huang (PhD 2019) is leaving 2009)published Princeton University’s Music Department, her Swedish (KTH) post (originally a two- One by One by and he is releasing his sophomore album, year fellowship) to join the University of One: Making a Small Difference Among a Prophetic Dreams, this summer, a jazz Hong Kong as a Presidential Postdoctoral Billion Problems with HarperCollins. album which is a follow up to 2014’s On Fellow (three-year post). She also recently Curt the Move, both of which are released on his gave a talk at Columbia University’s Cacioppo (PhD own record label, Sound Beacon LLC. Department of Music and is co-organizing 1980) retired last John Douglas Davis (PhD 1979) the AI Song Contest 2021, an international June from a forty- started an endowment to support musical competition exploring human-AI co- one-year career in performances and commission new creation. the professoriate compositions in 2018 after thirty-five Joel Kabakov (PhD 1977) is a that began at years of teaching at California State presenter at the Beethoven 250th birthday Harvard, where he University Bakersfield. Since 2018, works conference originally scheduled for joined the music by Fred Lerdahl, Leon Kirchner, Leonard September 2020 but now postponed to faculty in 1979, Bernstein, and Earl Kim have been given April 22nd, 2022, live at the American and continued performance awards. Funding has also Beethoven Society on the campus of from 1983 through been provided to the top award-winning San José State University. His topic is 2020 at Haverford groups to support composers of their “Beethoven as Muse,” which gives him College near Philadelphia. At Harvard choice, either by commission or prize. the opportunity to premiere his Geburtstag he served as Director of Undergraduate These discretionary composer awards have Bagatelle a la Op. 126 for piano. Studies in Music, and at Haverford been given to TEMPO (CSU Northridge), David Kaminsky’s (PhD 2005) second he occupied the Ruth Marshall Magill Parker Quartet (Harvard University), New book, Social Partner Dance: Body, Sound, endowed chair for over two decades after England Conservatory Philharmonia, and Space was published by Routledge

6 (2020). He has also been promoted to full honor of the centennial of composer professor at the University of California, Earl Kim’s birth, three of which took Merced. place in 2020. On February 2nd, an art Krystal Klingenberg (PhD song recital featured Kim’s Letters Found 2019) started a position as a Curator Near a Suicide, songs on poems by Frank at the Smithsonian National Museum Horne. The concert on February 29th of American History in the division of was dedicated solely to Kim’s music and Cultural and Community Life. featured his 4 Lines from Mallarmé and Lei Liang (PhD 2006) received The fully staged productions of his settings of Goddard Lieberson Fellowship from two of Samuel Beckett’s plays. The two American Academy of Arts and Letters this music theater pieces featured on February year. 29th were Eh Joe and Footfalls. On March Lansing McLoskey’s (PhD Karola Obermüller 1st, a concert entitled “Five Generations” 2001) Sette grima på natta (SATB) was was given and featured Kim’s Rattling On premiered by Borg Vokal at the 2020 her new opera, commissioned by the and music by Kim’s teacher (Schoenberg), Hovlandfestivalen in Oslo, Norway, theater on October 1st. Schoenberg’s teacher (Zemlinsky), Kim’s in October of 2020. Lansing was the Stephanie Probst (PhD 2018) student (Salerni) and Salerni’s student 2020 Barlow Composer-in-Residence accepted a tenure-track position in (Tae Sakamoto). Bridge Records will be at BYU, and Composer-in-Residence at musicology at the University of Music releasing a CD of Salerni’s music this the 2020 Charlotte New Music Festival; and Performing Arts in Vienna in March. summer entitled People, Places, and Pets he will return as Composer-in-Residence Before, she held a Junior-professorship at and featuring the Bowers Fader Duo at CNMF this summer. He was also the University of Cologne, following post- (mezzo and guitar) with guest artists appointed to the Bogliasco Foundation docs at the University of Potsdam and in Miranda Cuckson (violin) and Miles Fellowship Advisory Committee (Italy). the ERC-project “Sound and Materialism Salerni (percussion). Lansing was a Finalist in the 2021 Zodiac in the 19th Century” at the University of Andrew Shenton (PhD 1998) International Composition Competition, Cambridge. In the last months, she had published a co-edited collection (with and received a 2020/21 Fellowship Award articles published in Music Theory Online Joanna Smolko) titled Christian Sacred in Arts & Humanities at the University of and SMT-V, and she now serves as co-chair Music in the Americas. Shenton’s conducting Miami. Though the premiere of hisYou of the Interest Group for the History of appears on a new CD: Voices of Earth and Have a Name and a Place was postponed Music Theory of the SMT. Air, Vol. III: Works for Chorus. due to COVID, it will be premiered in Frederick Reece (PhD 2018) is now Faye-Ellen Silverman (AM) Chicago this fall by Stare At The Sun. The an assistant professor in music history at published three recent compositions with premiere production of his full-length the University of Washington. Seesaw Music, a division of Subito Music chamber opera The Captivity of Hannah Paul Salerni (PhD 1979) produced Corporation: To Duston was likewise postponed, though six concerts at Lehigh University in a Quiet Place for it was recently named a Finalist for a solo vibraphone, 2020 AML (Association for Mormon Singing to Letters) Award. Current projects include My Mother a commission from Network for New (commissioned by Music in Philadelphia for a large work Julie Landsman) for mezzo-soprano and sinfonietta for the for solo horn, 100th anniversary of Jame Joyce’s Ulysses and Intertwining in 2022. Clarinets for two Karola Obermüller (PhD 2010) clarinets. She also was recently awarded the Heidelberger contributed a Photo courtesy of Künstlerinnenpreis (Heidelberg Prize new work called Subito Music Corporation for Female Artists). In connection Singing My Song to with the prize, the Heidelberg Theater Piano Premieres: New Music for Developing commissioned her to write a cello concerto Pianists, Volume 1 published by Subito for Julian Steckel and the Heidelberg Music Corporation. Both Intertwining orchestra, which premiered in February. Clarinets and To a Quiet Place had their She also has released music on two new Dísella Lárusdóttir in Earl Kim's Footfalls world premieres on the Composers CDs, and Theater Heidelberg will premiere in a performance produced by Paul Salerni Concordance concert series.

7 Graduate Student News

Ganavya Doraiswamy was awarded Tulsa Race Massacre and Beyond,” sponsored by the John Hope Franklin Center for both a Civitella Ranieri Fellowship and a Reconciliation. Schreter also co-composed Jonah and the Prophet with Anthony Russell, Camargo Foundation Fellowship, both of a piece commissioned by the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. which are residential programs supporting Davindar Singh has been awarded American Institute of Indian Studies Summer international artists. and Academic Year Language Fellowships and Fulbright-IIE and Social Science Research Sarah Koval was awarded a Frederick Council-Mellon fellowships for field research. He also performed as part of Yvette Janine Sheldon Travel- Jackson’s Radio Opera Workshop at the second Fromm Players at Harvard concert (see ing Fellowship page 4). to support ar- Rajna Swaminathan chival research premiered Apertures, in England. a performance film Alana commissioned by Chamber Mailes pub- Music America’s New lished an article Jazz Works Program with in Early Music Sarah Koval support from the Harvard History titled “‘Much to Deliver in Your Music Department, Honour’s Ear’: Angelo Notari’s Work in featuring performances by Intelligence, 1616–1623.” You can read Swaminathan, Ganavya more about her research on page 9. Doraiswamy, Miles Composer, pianist, and vocalist Okazaki, Utsav Lal, Samora Pinderhughes premiered Grief, Stephan Crump, Adam a collection of revolutionary songs that O ’ Farrill, and Anna addresses issues of racial inequality and Webber.

Stills from Swaminathan's Apertures

Julio ZúÑiga and music theory alumnus Daniel Walden released a digital mural through the Fonema Con- sort titled Parallel Peaks featuring video footage and found sounds in their respective quarantine homes in Costa Rica and Italy. You can view the mural at https://www.fonema- consort.com/our-digital-mural/parallel-peaks-sunday.

Still from Pinderhughes's Grief the carceral state. The project was commissioned by Chamber Music America and New Music USA, filmed for theVoices of Hope Festival, and hosted online by Carnegie Hall Presents. Uri Schreter recently spoke about the representation of anti-Black violence in the Yiddish press during the early 1920s at a national symposium titled “The Future of Tulsa’s Images of Monferrato by Bruno Accornero and Zúñiga’s sketch of a termite Past: The Centennial of the Uri Schreter colony from Parallel Peaks

8 Intrigue and Espionage: Musicians in Seventeenth-Century Venice and England

It all started with a receipt. Musicology Musicking in the early modern period was graduate student Alana Mailes (PhD an integral part of statecraft in general, 2021) was searching through Venetian and so I’m arguing that it’s worthwhile counterintelligence papers in the State to pay attention to music-making within Archives of Venice for information on these larger histories of international English ambassador Henry Wotton when relations, commerce, confessionalism, she stumbled across a surprising find: a and empire. receipt acknowledging a payment of fifty —Alana Mailes Venetian ducats signed by Angelo Notari. Just like that, she realized two Mailes’s journey through the final historical figures—a composer known stages of her PhD rivaled the drama and to musicologists and a spy working intrigue that she writes about. During for the Venetian government familiar the first part of 2020, she was living to historians—were actually one and at the American Academy in Rome, the same. Notari was a singer, lutenist, researching what was supposed to be the and composer from Padua who had second part of her project: musical life immigrated to England and benefited Mailes touring the Castello Aragonese in Ischia within English Catholic communities from the seventeenth-century English fad in Rome. When the pandemic surged for Italian musical styles, but his career statecraft in general, and so I’m arguing in Italy, Mailes was forced to change extended beyond musical matters. His that it’s worthwhile to pay attention to her plans. As Mailes recalls, “I woke up career gave him access to information on music-making within these larger histories one morning and wanted to go and get the goings-on at the Venetian embassy of international relations, commerce, some linens I needed, but was told that I in London, information he traded to the confessionalism, and empire.” couldn’t go anywhere because the whole Venetian government for money. The musician - turned - intelligencer city was locked down.” Mailes made the Notari is a prime example. As Mailes decision overnight to return to the U.S., documents, the information he sold and because she could not complete her to the Venetian authorities influenced archival research in Rome, she had to drop the trial of Antonio Foscarini, the the Roman section from her dissertation. Venetian ambassador to London, and Mailes plans to return to her Roman his secretary, Giulio Muscorno. In what topic in a later project. In the immediate became an embarrassing international future, she is moving again, this time scandal, Foscarini and Muscorno were from Los Angeles to England, for a openly feuding throughout London, even soon - to - be - officially - announced threatening to kill each other. Word of postdoctoral fellowship. their reckless behavior got back to the Venetian State Inquisitors, the highest level of Venetian archival documents counterintelligence, and both men were recalled and arrested. Mailes’s dissertation explores such Notari, a musician who intersections between politics and music- had worked at the embassy making in diplomatic communities in in London, was one of many Venice and England from 1600 to 1660. witnesses the state examined. A major intervention of her project is the The enterprising Notari then way that she positions music not as an offered to sell additional ornamental entertainment but rather as information on some of a crucial aspect of diplomacy. Musicians Foscarini’s private letters had easy access to elite political spaces, that were circulating outside and Venetian musicians in England were the embassy. His tip helped able capitalize on the vogue for Italian investigators realize that music to influence English politicians. Foscarini’s valet was selling his The State Archives of Venice As Mailes says, “Musicking in the early letters, spilling state secrets to modern period was an integral part of the Spanish ambassador. Photos courtesy of Alana Mailes

9 Library News

The Music Library is one of the recipients 19th, 2021. Hindu Court.” For centuries, the women of the inaugural round of the Advancing Sandi-Jo Malmon gave a presentation of Dhrangadhra, in Western India, played a Open Knowledge grants. The project,The titled “Collaborative Music Collections with special role in singing stories of genealogy, Music in ‘The Music of Black Americans’, Borrow Direct” at the Music Collections life, and death. Much (but not all) of this seeks to meet the challenge of making Assessment Summit sponsored by the activity took place within the walls of the music by Black American composers easier University of Toronto, April 21–23, 2021. zenana, an all-women’s palace where many to discover and perform. There is already a Anne Adams contributed to a of Dhrangadhra’s most important oral robust infrastructure for this project: The presentation at the New England Music traditions were upheld. Music of Black Americans, a foundational Library Association meeting on May 7th This exhibit features the sounds of text in American music scholarship. The titled “Beginning the Journey Towards these women’s voices and their location book challenged a Eurocentric academic Inclusive and Anti-Racist Metadata and in the zenana as well as some other parts field to broaden its vision; its author, Description.” of the palace, providing a glimpse into the Eileen Southern (1920–2002), was the Liz Bernt-Morris contributed to a wider collection of Dhrangadhra music first African-American woman tenured in presentation at the same conference titled found in the Archive of World Music of Harvard University’s Faculty of Arts and “Developing a Music Librarianship Course Harvard’s Loeb Music Library. You can Sciences. Centered on Theory and Praxis in Critical see the exhibit at https://storymaps.arcgis. The project will contribute a digital Librarianship, Social Justice, and Diversity com/stories/271ba2ca239d4de49608f269 appendix to that resource, an inventory of Work.” a25e1b39. the musical examples in the book with links Peter Laurence and Christina to library records and digital surrogates. Linklater collaborated with Our hope is that the information in Christine Fernsebner Eslao and Kate the appendix will be widely reusable Mancey on another paper for the by other scholars and teachers and by NEMLA meeting, titled “Boston performers. Rock City: A Linked Data Initiative.” Dr. Jerome Offord, Jr. has joined Joseph Kinzer curated a virtual the Harvard Library as Associate University exhibit, titled “Singing the Story of Librarian (AUL) for Antiracism on April Dhrangadhra: Women’s Voices in a Photos courtesy of Jayasinhji “Bapa” Jhala

Staff News

Friends and alums of the Music Department with the Boston Area Gleaners. She The past month know what a critical role the staff members received a Master’s in Creative Writing I’ve spent early play in keeping things running smoothly and Literature from Harvard’s Extension mornings at Mt. and creating a lively sense of community, Studies last spring, and her thesis received Auburn Cemetery from navigating administrative issues to the 2020 ALM Humanities Award. Most looking for making every Halloween unforgettable. importantly, she is awaiting the arrival of migrating warblers. Several staff members have retired in her first granddaughter, in October. I’ve been sewing and recent years, and we caught up with their Kaye Denny: “Since leaving the crafting and going adventures here! music department, to Kaye Denny’s Lesley Bannatyne is working on a I have been avoiding garden for catnip collection of short stories, many of which COVID, fighting Karen Rynne for my beloved cat have been published rabbits in my garden, Lucia!” individually (there drinking beer midday Charles are several listed with other retirees, Stillman retired in on her website, reading Trollope (not March and is busy iskullhalloween. really), missing live getting his new com). She also music, missing live routines in place. volunteers on the music, missing live He’ll be following Rose Kennedy music. (I did drive to Kaye Denny through on his Greenway, at Miami—don’t ask.)” passion of traveling Project Soup, and Karen Rynne: “I am working part the world once the Lesley Bannatyne on local farms time for FAS Education Support Services. Charles Stillman world has reopened.

10 Undergraduate News

Recordist Martin Bernstein ’21 and manager for Death Do Us Part on the Loeb The Harvard-Radcliffe pianist Tony Yang ’21 both won the Mainstage in 2019. Orchestra Goes to Jupiter Robert Levin Prize in Musical Performance. Bernstein is president of the Harvard This semester, the Harvard-Radcliffe Baroque Chamber Orchestra and the Orchestra, under the direction of Harvard Early Music Society, and Yang Federico Cortese, has released two has performed with the Bach Society video performances. Like the choruses, Orchestra. the orchestra needed to transform into a Joint music and social anthropology virtual ensemble to meet the challenges concentrator Joy Nesbitt ’21 won the of the moment. The first performance is Louis Sudler Prize in recognition of her a poignant video essay of the “Masks” artistic career at Harvard. She directed movement from Prokofiev’s Romeo and four theatrical productions including Benjamin Wenzelberg Juliet, a movement that took on a new three performed remotely in the past year. Benjamin P. Wenzelberg ’21 recently significance during the pandemic. Nesbitt is also an accomplisted performer, music directed a virtual and interdisciplinary The second, just released in April, is the and she released her album, Atlas Rising, operatic pastiche with Harvard College famous hymn section from the “Jupiter, the in 2021. Opera, after conducting Die Zauberflöte Bringer of Jollity” movement from Gustav (2020) and Cendrillon (2019) with the Holst’s The Planets. You can find both company. As a countertenor, he won an performances on their YouTube channel Encouragement Award in the New England at https://www.youtube.com/channel/ Region after being named a Winner of the UCRoZ2UYzsU1oriqDdwYQbaA. Boston District of the 2021 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. In February 2020, the Hyogo PAC Orchestra presented the Japan premiere of his orchestral composition in Beethoven 250th Birthday Celebration concerts, and he is Atlas Rising currently composing the music and libretto of a new opera commissioned by Lowell Nivi Ravi ’21, a joint concentrator in House Opera at Harvard, which had a music and neuroscience, was selected as a public virtual reading in collaboration with recipient of the Alex G. Booth Traveling the Office for the Arts during ARTS FIRST The HRO in space Fellowship. Next spring, she will be 2021, and will premiere in Spring 2022. traveling to Europe, South Africa, and Wenzelberg also recently won the Hugh India to study the history of opera, opera F. MacColl Prize in Composition for his Send us your news! in postcolonial societies, and modern piece An Hour of Forever, a version of which differences in stagings across varied you can hear at https://www.youtube.com/ cultural contexts. Her advisor for the watch?v=Pt583QAwPaw. Have a new book, project is Professor Carolyn Abbate. Ravi conference presentation, is also the recipient of the Louise Donovan Award in recognition of her leadership of concert, baby, or journal the Harvard-Radcliffe Collegium Musicum publication? We’d love to and the Harvard College Opera. hear about it. We welcome Harry Sage ’22, a joint concentrator with music and classical language and news at any time, as well as literatures won the Radcliffe Doris Cohen photos and links of interest to Levi Prize in recognition of excellence in the field of musical theater. Sage our community of has composed works performed by the musicians and scholars. Harvard Glee Club and Harvard Pops Orchestra and has performed in the pit Send to [email protected] orchestras in many Harvard productions. Sage served as both arranger and orchestra Nivi Ravi

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Life finds a way! Retirement cannot save Thomas Forrest Kelly from a birthday ambush by two dinosaurs who may or may not be beloved former staff members Lesley Bannatyne and Kaye Denny.

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