H ARVARD UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF MUSIC NEWSLETTER

Vol. 4, No. 2/Summer 2004

Music Building From Sound to Music: North Yard Alex Rehding at the Intersection of History & Theory Cambridge, MA 02138 lex Rehding is interested in how we get from Asound to music—physically, theoretically, 617-495-2791 and culturally. His research, located at the www.music.fas.harvard.edu intersection between history and theory, concentrates on German music and music theory between the 18th and 21st centuries. He is currently working on Writing Sounds, a volume that explores both the macro and micro spectrums of how raw sound becomes art. INSIDEINSIDE Rehding has done a lot of recent work in the macro area, as his last three academic positions 2 2 Faculty News were in interdisciplinary forums: Rehding held 3 research fellowships at Emmanuel College, 3 Rands elected to Academy 4 Cambridge; the Penn Humanities Forum; and 4 Graduate news the Princeton Society of Fellows. He’s now 4 at Harvard looking to take his work with broad cultural 5 Library News: Studio 8 contexts and relate it to detailed technical features of music theory—something, he is happy to note, interested in.” 5 Calendar of Events that is a big part of his first year of teaching. And here’s the crux of Rehding’s research: 6 Alumni News “It’s exhilarating to get back to the core of at one level sound is universal—its physics 6 Undergraduate News what I’m trained in. I’m teaching undergraduate remains the same. But how you make sound into theory where we talk about nuts and bolts of how what we think of as music is heavily influenced music works, and you don’t get that outside of by culture. music departments.” The relationship of sound to music has The nuts and bolts Rehding is dealing with implications in any time period and culture. “Part in his work—pitch, timbre, rhythm—are of the excitement is that I can peek into an area thought of as different entities, yet, says Rehding, of music history that I don’t know about, because they can all be read off the same soundwave. “In it’s such a broadly based problem,” grins Rehding. the soundwave, the clear distinctions that we For the purposes of Writing Sounds, he’s narrowed seem to have in hearing break down. In very slow his focus to 18th–20th century Europe and the frequencies, for example, what we perceive as interactions between scientific and theoretical 7 Interview: Betty Comden pitch in human hearing ends at 20 cycles per ideas on music in that time. Notation is often 8 Moravec Wins Pulitzer second. Simple soundwaves below that we cannot the battleground for these ideas, since in Western hear, but we can of course perceive repeated sonic culture, as a writing-based culture, notation is events as a pulse or rhythm. On one level, rhythm the primary vehicle for communicating sounds. DEPARTMENT CHAIR and pitch are a continuum, but we think of them This means that any information that we Thomas Forrest Kelly as two different things. Although the soundwave consider essential in music must be included in DIRECTOR OF ADMINISTRATION is the basic information we get about sound, it notation—in the hope that it’ll mean by and large Nancy Shafman has actually fairly little to do with how we read the same thing to composers, performers and music and perceive it. Notation is interpretive: listeners. NEWSLETTER EDITOR it appears to follow our sense of hearing, but there Yet there is a lot that falls by the wayside in Lesley Bannatyne are some grey zones, and these are the ones I’m notation. “Take timbre, for instance: for music- [email protected] theoretical purposes, our relatively crude way that these new sounds didn’t constitute a of notating timbre—usually little more than musical system in its own right, but were just F aculty News writing the name of an instrument in front an effect of sloppy or inaccurate of the relevant stave—was quite enough.” performance.” Professor The musical study of timbre didn’t really Take Chinese music, says Rehding. Brinkmannn, come into its own until the 20th century, When it was first brought to Europe in the on the day he while for composers it had already been a mid-18th century, it was in the form of books became an crucial dimension in most of the 19th that Jesuit missionaries wrote about Chinese American citizen, June century: “Nineteenth-century musical culture, and sometimes they included 9, 2004. theorists had no interest in timbre; it was examples of Chinese music. But they notated ostracized as a category because it was them in Western score form because it was considered too sensuous— think of Berlioz’s rich “The essential problem is that there is sound, orchestral colors. Particularly and there is music— how are they connected? German theorists felt that with his compositions the abstract form of all they had. music came under threat. At the same time, “Music theorists, especially in France, 19th-century physicists were very interested in read about Chinese music and felt the need acoustics, and they developed sophisticated to incorporate it into their theoretical systems. Professor Emeritus ways of analyzing timbres. They created Because the examples looked so similar to was guest speaker at the annual banquet of theories and experimented with scientific Western music, it was mostly regarded as a the Harvard Glee Club. Brinkmann spoke applications, such as transferring Fourier’s kindred but simpler form of music. But the about the area of arts between form and analysis of heat to the study of complex way in which Chinese music came to feature freedom, and emphasized the formative soundwaves.” in more general theories of music varied power that the performing arts display in As a consequence, there was a strange drastically. Some saw it as an older, more particular. In music examples, works by disconnect: natural scientists actually had primitive stage of music outside of their own Franz Schubert were cited—in particular his much more sophisticated techniques for cultural context. Others focused on the waltzes and vocal ensemble pieces—some of dealing with the timbral effects found in universality of musical systems. Only few, which the Glee Club had performed in their musical compositions than did musical above all Rousseau, questioned the veracity last concert. thinkers. of notation itself: how can we know what the To celebrate Reinhold Brinkmann’s The larger cultural context of music was music we read on paper sounded like in seventieth birthday, the department th changing dramatically as well. In the late 19 China?” of musicology at the Humboldt University century the record was invented, and with it “The essential problem is this: there is in Berlin held a one-day a new form of writing down sounds came sound and there is music, but how are they colloquium on “Musical Analysis and into existence: a writing system that didn’t are connected in a specific time and place in Contextualization of Cultural rely on conventional notation but could give history?” History.” The colloquium took place on a much more direct representation of the June 25 in Berlin and was opened soundwave in the form of the record groove. Before Rehding can fully embark on with a concert by Stefan Litwin. Speakers Some music theorists responded to the new his Writing Sounds project, he is finishing included former students of Professor technology with horror. Monumentality in Nineteenth-Century Ger- Brinkmann, notably Professor Anne C. “The gramophone questioned the man Music for Press. Shreffler from Harvard University, Bettina universality of music, which had been the Recent publications include Hugo Riemann Schergaut, and Jan Philipp Sprick, who cornerstone of 19th-century European and the Birth of Modern Musical Thought were both visiting scholars at Harvard in musical thought, and showed that there were (2003) and the edited volume Music Theory previous years. in fact all sorts of music. The diatonic scale, and Natural Order from the Renaissance to the and our notational system based on it, was Early Twentieth Century (2001). Assistant Professor ELLIOTT GYGER completed not the be-all and end-all. Of course, non- studio recordings with the Seraphim Singers Western musicians had visited Europe SAVE THE DATE! in June for a CD of his choral music to be th throughout the 19 century, for instance at THE DEPARTMENT OF MUSIC WILL HOST A released on the Arsis label. His Song of Songs the world exhibitions in Paris, and CONFERENCE, THE CENTURY OF BACH AND setting, “The voice of my beloved,” was elsewhere. But these musical performances MOZART, IN HONOR OF CHRISTOPH WOLFF, performed for the first time by Blue Heron were usually dismissed outright by Western SEPTEMBER 22-25, 2005. Renaissance Choir in July. si doux, for six musicians. They were used to thinking, ‘just DETAILS: www.music.fas.harvard.edu/ instruments, was featured at the send them to conservatory, then we’ll talk’; conferences.html Festival of Contemporary Music in August.

2 The Graduate Student Council of the American Symphony’” has been selected for Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS) publication in Best of the Black Music Research at Harvard University named Morton B. Journal. Knafel Professor THOMAS FORREST KELLY one of threeD recipientsA VID of the sixth annualLE EverettWINThis past1933-2003 spring Assistant Professor ALEX Mendelsohn Excellence in Mentoring Awards. REHDING rediscovered his crew roots and The Award was established to honor Harvard rowed for Leverett House. He gave a keynote faculty members for their efforts in address at the Harvard Graduate Students’ supporting, encouraging and promoting their conference “Music and its Media” in March, graduate students’ research, education, and presented a seminar as part of the “Music professional and personal development, and and its Audiences” series. career plans. G. Gordon Watts Professor KAY KAUFMAN Dwight P. Robinson, Jr. Professor ROBERT SHELEMAY was elected fellow of the American LEVIN performed the Carter Double Concerto Academy for Jewish Research. The academy with Ya-Fei Chuang at Paine Hall in March. represents the oldest organization of Judaic He also did research in Berlin and Cracow, scholars in North America. Poland, in conjunction with his sabbatical project—a new completion of the Mozart C- As Founder and Director of the Young minor Mass, K.427, commissioned by Musicians’ Program at the Carnegie Hall for a premiere January 15, Music Festival, Senior Preceptor JOHN 2005. The completion will be published by STEWART continued his coaching of young Carus-Verlag. composition students; their performance received special notice in the Portland Fanny Peabody Research Professor LEWIS Oregonian as an event which “typifies the LOCKWOOD accepted an honorary doctor of Festival.” Guest composer this year was fine arts degree from Wake Forest University colleague Bernard Rands, for whom the in Winston-Salem, North Carolina in May. centerpiece of the Festival was a concert in Secretary of State Colin Powell delivered the his honor, preceded by an on-stage commencement address. interview with the composer, conducted by Stewart. In addition, William Powell Mason Professor CAROL J. OJA Stewart’s Seven D. H. Lawrence Songs, took part in a panel titled “Teaching dedicated to Bernard Rands on his 70th Controversial Aspects of American Music” at birthday, was premiered. the Society of American Music conference in ; contributions to that panel were published in the online journal Echo. Her From top: Science lab construction as seen from Colin McPhee: Composer in Two Worlds has the front of the Mason Building; Christoph Wolff's recently been issued in paperback by the Bach core class; Henry Mollicone, Bernard Rands, University of Illinois Press, and her article and John Stewart at the Ernest Bloch Music Festi- th “‘New Music’ and the ‘New Negro’: The val concert in honor of Rands’ 70 birthday. Background of William Grant Still’s Afro-

Composer Rands Elected to American Academy of Arts & Letters

Walter Bigelow Rosen Professor of Music BERNARD RANDS was one of two work , premiered by Paul Sperry, and the composers inducted at the American Academy of Arts and Letters annual Philharmonic, won the 1984 Pulitzer Prize in Music. His Ceremonial in May. Other electees are artists Lee Bontecou and Lester Johnson; large orchestral suite Le Tambourin won the 1986 Kennedy Center writers Isabel Allende, Paula Fox, Jamaica Kincaid, James Tate and Lanford Freidheim Award. Rands has composed for musical theater, orchestra, Wilson; and composer Robert Beaser. The honor of election is considered the instrumental ensembles and vocal pieces, and instrumental solos. highest formal recognition of artistic merit in this country. Rands’ newly commissioned Quartet was premiered by the Through more than a hundred published works and many Ying Quartet at Symphony Space in New York in January, and was recordings, Rands is established as a major figure in contemporary music. His performed by the Ying at John Knowles Paine Concert Hall in April.

3 FACULTY NEWS continued JAMES YANNATOS, Senior Lecturer and John Adams at Harvard Conductor of the HRO, conducted the group —Excerpts taken from a speech given by Anne C. in a four-concert tour of Canada in June. In Shreffler at a reception in honor of Adams during his addition, his Symphony Brevis—Violin visit to campus to receive the GSAS Centennial Medal Concerto (with Joseph Lin ’00) and Bass Concerto (Edwin Barker, soloist) will be John Adams’ Harvard experience was released on Albany Records next year. in some ways that of a typical successful ❖ music concentrator of the kind that Harvard produces from time to time—he conducted Graduate Student News the Bach Society orchestra and put on an at Leverett House, played with the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra and reviewed **See insert, 2004 Report to the Friends of concerts for the Crimson. But in other ways Music for a full listing of accomplishments. his Harvard experience was unusual, and AARON ALLEN, RICHARD GIARUSSO you will probably get some idea of why sim- and KIRI MILLER received Certificates of ply when I say that John graduated with the Distinction for Excellence in Teaching for class of 1969. their work as TFs last fall. During the spring John Adams, with John Stewart at a reception in Adams’ honor. In 1968–69, John’s senior year, David semester, ALLEN, GIARUSSO, JONATHAN Lewin ’54 was a visiting professor in the fall KREGOR, BRIGID COHEN, PETER GILBERT, developing a graduate program), and forming term, Rudolf Kolisch delivered the Elson MARY GREITZER and received them and directing a laptop ensemble. Ueno will lectures, and ’15 was the as well, all scoring 4.5 or higher on CUE be in residence this summer at La Mortella, Charles Eliot Norton Professor of Poetry, evaluations by their students. on Ischia, an island off the coast of . the first Harvard graduate in music to be ELIYAHU SHOOT won the Blodgett JON WILD has been appointed named to that chair. Tillman Merritt was Composition Competition with his string Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Music at Chair, and , Earl Kim, and quartet, Memoriam. It will be premiered by McGill University in Montreal. were on the composition the Ying Quartet during their March 18, 2005 faculty. Teaching fellows included Thomas concert at John Knowles Paine Concert Hall. Music and its Media: Forrest Kelly, Lowell Lindgren, Anne Dhu KEN UENO was appointed Assistant Graduate Student Conference Shapiro, , and Craig Professor at University of , Wright. Dartmouth, an electronic music post in On March 6 an international group of young There was no Science Center, and you which he will be in charge of rebuilding the scholars of music came to the Music Building had to cross a busy street to get from the studio, designing a new curriculum (including to discuss “Music and its Media.” This was Music Building, which consisted at the time the second annual graduate student only of the Paine Building, to Harvard Yard. Left to right: Erik Spangler, Andrew Talle, Stephanie conference hosted by the department’s In April 1969 (one month before John Treloar, Jeannie Guerrero and Richard Whalley at Graduate Music Forum. graduated), University Hall was occupied by GSAS graduation. The papers were organized a small group of students whom President into three panels, entitled Nathan Pusey described as “revolutionaries.” “Transcrip-tions,” “Spaces,” and Their victory was brief, as Pusey had the “Remixes.” Within these broad police forcibly vacate the building the next categories students presented day. research on topics ranging from This was the backdrop to John Adams’s medieval manuscripts to Harvard experience. Perhaps the political contemporary popular music. turbulence going on during John’s forma- Following student present- tive years had something to do with his later ations, Professor Alex Rehding embracing of topics from politics and cur- gave a keynote address entitled Continued on page 6 “On the Record.” Chaired by musicology graduate student Aaron Girard, SEND YOUR NEWS! the conference was supported by the Graduate Music Forum, [email protected] Jesse Rodin, chair, and by Music Building • Harvard University Dudley House. Cambridge, MA 02138 ❖

4 Library News Studio Eight Opens at Story Street vents In a suite of studios and offices formerly E Mark your calendars for a new season of occupied by NPR, Music Department concerts! David Ackerman and All begin at 8:00 p.m. in Robert Dennis go about the work of John Knowles Paine Concert Hall. audio transfer and preservation. Due to BLODGETT CHAMBER MUSIC CONCERTS the huge, three-year The Ying Quartet construction project October 29; March 18; April 15 within a stone’s throw of the Loeb Music BLODGETT VISITING ARTISTS Library, Ackerman November 16 at 7pm: Koo Nimo and Dennis will have November 19: Ghanaian Highlife Music the run of these studios for the duration. December 10: Music of Sir Robert Dennis, Curator of Recordings Collections, works with Music Department faculty to provide digitization on demand FROMM PLAYERS AT HARVARD of audio materials for course reserves, classroom instruction, and lectures. Ackerman, HCL audio engineer, is currently the only person March 4 & 5: Multiple Voices at Harvard preserving the university’s audio treasures. Recently Ackerman took aluminum disc recordings from HARVARD GROUP FOR NEW MUSIC the Peabody Museum—tribal materials from new Guinea—and October 21; December 11 turned them into digital files so that they could be used by the Harvard February 12; April 9; May 1 & 21 University Libraries. Now he’s depositing a collection (donated by Laura Boulton) of Byzantine Chant, Ethiopian music, and Coptic www.music.fas.harvard.edu/calendar.html materials into the Digital Repository Service, or DRS. “It’s more than Concert Line: 617-496-6013 copying,” he says. “It’s preservation.” There are several steps, involving repair and restoration, media transfer, and organizing, formatting and depositing materials. S taff News The splices on an acetate tape from the 1950s, Ackerman explains, often bleed adhesive that may cause adjacent layers of tape to stick to one another. He must repair these first, by hand, before he can transfer Communications Coordinator LESLEY BANNATYNE the sound information to a different media and enter it into DRS. edited and wrote the introduction to A Halloween Reader. Poems, Ackerman also works with metadata—the original detail Stories and Plays from Halloweens Past (Pelican Publishing information about how the sound transfer took place (its settings, for Company, 2004). example)—and Assistant to the Chair MARY GERBI currently sings with deposits that The Secession, the Wellesley Hills Congregational information along Church, and the new Renaissance octet, Cut Circle (which is with the digital directed by musicology graduate student JESSE RODIN). object. He’s also NANCY SHAFMAN was appointed Director of helped build an Administration for the Music Department. infrastructure for Technical Studio Manager EAN WHITE’s Interstices, a DRS by writing a meditation on the Big Dig, was played as part of the Composers computer program in Red Sneakers concert featuring composers and filmmakers at that can manage the Paine Hall in May. It then went on to a three-month installation information in the corporate lobby of Digitas—on the eighteenth floor of associated with the the Prudential tower. Interstices was composed of processed sound process of and video entirely acquired from Big Dig construction sites. preservation. White also published a translation of an essay in Scylla and Charybdis in Love: The Challenges Facing Contemporary Taiwanese Artists.

5 Alumni News Undergraduate News

RIAD ABDEL-GAWAD (PhD ’95) was a finalist for the 2004 Swan Prize for Orchestral Works. **See insert, 2004 Report to the Friends of Music for the second Mediterranean Composer’s for a full listing of accomplishments. Competition in Lamia, Greece, supported ANDREW TALLE (PhD November ’03) spent Two grants were by the Mediterranean Music Center there. this year as a Lecturer teaching Music 1 at awarded to music He performed there as a soloist in his work Harvard; beginning in 2004–05 he will concentrators by the Longa Nahawand, for solo kamanjah (violin) teach music history at the Peabody Office for the Arts this and small orchestra. Abdel-Gawad has Conservatory and Johns Hopkins past spring: the first for accepted the Whittlesey Visiting University. WILLIAM ARONSON’s Professorship position at the American ’04 Video-Opera, a University of Beirut, and went to Lebanon RICHARD WHALLEY (PhD ’04) starts a new video featuring in August with his wife, Meadow Saleh. position as Lecturer in Composition at original compositions; University of in September. and the second to JOHN BLACKLOW (AB ’87) ANTHONY CHEUNG ’04 pianist, was chosen as a to support VI-5: An “Rising Star” of 2003–04 Evening of Student Opera Premieres performed ADAMS, continued from page 2 by Carnegie Hall and the by the Harvard-Radcliffe Contemporary European concert Hall rent events in his works, Music Ensemble. Cheung was also named Organization, resulting in from the two Nixon recipient of the Louis Sudler Prize in the Arts, concert appearances in in China and The Death of which honors the sum of a student’s artistic many prominent venues Klinghoffer to the musical activities at Harvard. including Amsterdam’s about the Second prize in this year’s Visiting Concertgebouw, Cologne’s earthquake, I was looking Committee Prize for Undergraduate Book Philharmonie, Salzburg’s at the ceiling and then I saw Collecting went to ADRIEN FINLAY ’04 for an Mozarteum, Vienna’s the sky or his 9/11 memo- essay and bibliography that explores Konzerthaus, and London’s rial piece, On the Transmi- materials about opera. Wigmore Hall and BBC gration of Souls. The Harvard College chapter of Phi John Blacklow radio, as well as a concert During his years at Beta Kappa inducted music concentrator in New York presented by Carnegie Hall on Harvard, John devoted himself intensely JEFFREY ADAM GROSSMAN in a ceremony the “Distinctive Debuts” series in April, to composition, and in September of his before Literary Exercises on June 8. 2004. These concerts were in collaboration senior year, he “submitted a proposal to Three music concentrators received with violinist Jennifer Frautschi. In 2002, write a composition as a senior honors the- summer community service fellowships last Blacklow was appointed Assistant Professor sis.” This was the first time the depart- year from Harvard College Clubs: LARA of at the University of Notre Dame. ment was to approve such a request. That HIRNER ’04–’05 for her work with Love’M writing a creative senior thesis was a novel Sheltering, where she developed an BRIAN HULSE (PhD ’99) was appointed idea—and one with which not everyone educational summer program for the Assistant Professor and Director of Theory was entirely comfortable—can be seen in children of the shelter. CARSON COOMAN ’04 and Composition at the Ferguson Center the department’s requiring that John pro- worked in Fairport High School instructing for the Arts, Christopher Newsport vide the title of a ‘short essay on a relevant students in contemporary classical music. University in Newport News, Virginia. topic,’ which would accompany the com- MEGAN GOLDSTEIN ’05 worked in the position, thereby ‘showing competence in P asadena JENNIFER BAKER KOTILAINE (PhD ’99) is now writing about music.’” It is a testament to schools to Deputy Administrator of the Faculty of Law the good judgment of the department at develop and at Oxford University’s Law School. that time, and to its chair Tillman Merritt, teach a language that Harvard’s very first senior thesis in arts/literacy LANSING MCLOSKEY (PhD ’02) was composition was approved for an under- curriculum appointed Visiting Professor of Music at graduate who would go on to become one geared towards Wellesley College. He was also of the leading composers in America to- middle school commissioned for a new work by the day. Let John Adams continue to inspire, students. Sequitur ensemble, and composed provoke, and show us that music has no incidental music for Kai Munk’s play Ordet boundaries. Graduates Jim Stopher which ran Off Broadway for a month this ❖ (top) and John spring. His , ver.2.001x was a finalist McMunn (bottom).

6 Broadway Betty Comden “We’d find a situation that needed music, decide what form—get together with Lenny [Bernstein], and think about music and lyrics at the same time.”

Marx, Fred Astaire, and John F. Kennedy. Tony You hope everybody gets along and has the awards, a Kennedy Center Lifetime same idea of how it’s going.” Achievement Medal, a Grammy. A signed Do you have to know someone to get Picasso, an original Chagall, a Matisse. Her anywhere in this business? piano. “It was always about knowing people. Some The students pack around Comden’s dining people stand out because what they have to room table, asking her about training, creative offer is outstanding.” process, collaboration, especially with her Did she ever experience prejudice being a longtime partner, Adolph Green, who died two woman? years ago. “It was rare. Maybe because I had a male “Adolph and I worked every day for 60 years. partner, maybe because I’d been performing “The light sustains me. The light and the He came at 1:00, and we worked from 1:00 so long that they knew me. There’ve always view,” smiles Betty Comden as she looks from to 5:00. We worked every minute when we been actresses, female opera singers.” her 26th floor apartment across the rooftops were in the middle of a project. The piano was What was her worst experience?. of Lincoln Center towards the Hudson River. in my home, so we worked there. “One New Year’s Eve—we were fired in the Up here in the pink apartment, traffic noise “Song has to come naturally out of what middle of the night after one show.” (“I’m just and the jumble of buildings that are the Upper characters want to say to each other and has trying to discourage you,” she winks.) West Side are muted. Comden—Tony- and to further the story. We’d find a situation that Her happiest moment? Grammy-award winning Broadway lyricist— needed music, decide what form—get together “Hearing Judy [Holliday] sing ‘The Party’s is hosting Professor Carol Oja’s undergraduate with Lenny, and think about music and lyrics Over.’” Judy didn’t have a style—she did what seminar in musical theater for lunch and an at the same time.” she did so artfully you didn’t think of it as a interview. The students have come prepared Lenny is . performance. When she did Born Yesterday with questions and are eager to talk. “There’s no one in the world like Lenny and (1946) I went to see the performance again Along with Adolph Green, Betty Comden there won’t be again ever I think,” muses and again, and it moved me immediately.” wrote lyrics for “Just in Time,” “The Party’s Comden. “He had a classical background.” Is she working on anything now? Over,” “New York, New York,” and Wonderful Comden’s interests, too, were originally Comden helped cast the Wonderful Town Town (1953), now playing in a revival a few classical. She spent many weekends as a girl revival, and she’s writing a book about her blocks down the street at the Hirschfeld attending productions staged by the collaboration with Green. Theater. She was a member of the Revuers, a Metropolitan Opera at the Academy of Music The visit ended with students Michael nightclub act which also included Judy in Brooklyn in the late 1920s and 1930s: “I Mitnick, Pedro Kaawaloa, and Susan Merenda Holliday, and she collaborated with Green on loved La Bohème. I don’t care what anyone (accompanied by Ben Green) singing a the screenplay for Singin’ in the Rain (1952), says. And I loved Wagner—for about two combination of their own tunes, a song with the lyrics for Peter Pan (1954), book and lyrics years I sang the leitmotifs around the house.” lyrics by Comden and Green, and another by for On The Town (1944), and acted on stage What does she think of musical theater now? Fats Waller. and in films and television. “If Steve [Sondheim] is writing, it’s a “I can’t believe I’m playing on Betty Comden is 85 now and happy the class has wonderful place.” Comden’s piano,” said Mitnick. “I wonder if come to her home. She’s comfortable here, How is it different now? she’ll autograph one of the books we read for surrounded by her things. They’re amazing “It doesn’t start off any differently. Someone the class!” things: signed photographs from Groucho thinks it up and then everyone contributes. Of course she would, and did. And in turn, Prof. Oja gave Comden a Harvard sweatshirt on behalf of the class, in gratitude for their visit. It’s not just the light through her windows and the view that keeps her going. It’s the theater, the music, the city, her art, friends, photos, memories, and a chance to connect with young people. It all sustains her.

The visit with Ms. Comden was made possible through the Blodgett Distinguished Artist Jason Fitzgerald ’04, Susan Merenda ’07 and Katherine O’Gara with Ms. Comden and Professor Carol Oja. program.

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Moravec Wins Pulitzer aul Moravec (A.B. music National Endowment for the Arts, a Fellowship, composition’80) won a Camargo Foundation Residency Fellowship, a P the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Fellowship and Charles Ives Fellowship from the American Academy music for his piece, Tempest of Arts & Letters as well as many commissions. Fantasy. Says Moravec, “The Harvard Music Department taught me Moravec, 46, has been to study and create music in the comprehensive context of general hailed as one of the New human understanding. My experience effectively balanced specialized Tonalists, composers processing training with general education throughout the university, ultimately the leavings of serialism and making me a better composer than I might otherwise have been had I minimalism into a more gone elsewhere, particularly a conservatory. accessible and melodious idiom. “I remember with special gratitude (now at began as one of a Columbia), my first and best teacher of composition and theory. Also set of piano variations named for Jim Marvin, under whom I worked as the Collegium Musicum’s the composer’s friends. The 30- Assistant Conductor. Jim generously gave me the opportunity to minute work has five harmonically and thematically related movements premiere one of my first real compositions, Pater Noster, with the HRCM that the composer calls “a musical meditation” on his favorite in my senior year, a hugely encouraging event for me. Working with Shakespeare play. him and the HRCM on the monumental Monteverdi Vespers changed Moravec is the composer of over seventy published orchestral, the way that I think about music. And El Forbes gave me my first chamber, choral, and lyric compositions as well as several film scores teaching job as his undergraduate T.A. for a core curriculum course in and electro-acoustic pieces. His music has earned numerous the history and literature of the choral tradition. I have been happily distinctions, including the Rome Prize Fellowship from the American teaching ever since, currently heading the music department at Adelphi Academy in Rome, a Fellowship in Music Composition from the University in Garden City, New York.”

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