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 team came 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 landed on 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