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UNC, Library of Congress launch summer music fellowships Three graduate students in musicology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will research the music of composer Samuel Barber during World War II, the National Negro Opera Company and the 1975 musical “Chicago” with new summer fellowships at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.
Musicologist and anthropologist awarded summer NEH fellowships Music professor Annegret Fauser and anthropology professor Lorraine Aragon in UNC’s College of Arts and Sciences have been awarded $6,000 fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) for the summer of 2008.
Announcing the 2008 Kenan Music Scholars! Three instrumentalists and a vocalist have been named the second class of Kenan Music Scholars, receiving full scholarships in music to attend the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
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Fall 2007

by admin-oasis — last modified 2007-05-16 10:09

Music 850: Proseminar in Musicology
The Secessionist Music of Gustav Mahler in the Political Milieu of fin-de-siècle Vienna
Prof. Jon Finson

Perhaps no locale provides such a good case study for the confluence of politics, art, and culture as Vienna at the end of the nineteenth century. We will study the decline of liberalism and the ascendancy of radicalism as they affected the compositions of Gustav Mahler (and to a lesser extent Brahms) amid the increasing disunity of the Hapsburg empire. Readings in McGrath, Schorske, Notley, Hefling, and others will help us focus on the politics, art, and music of the period. Class reports; term paper.

Music 870: Proseminar in Ethnomusicology
Ethnomusicology, Its Methods and Theoretical Perspectives
Prof. David F. Garcia

Since its “official” establishment in the 1950s ethnomusicology in the United States has broadened its scope of research and methods. Once having circumscribed their scope to the folk, traditional, and art music of the non-Western world, ethnomusicologists today continue to adopt and adapt methods and theoretical perspectives from semiotics, critical theory, race theory, postcolonial theory, psychoanalytic criticism, hermeneutics, and gender studies to study an ever-expanding repertory of music.

After an introduction into ethnomusicology’s origins in comparative musicology of the late 19th century, students will focus on the central issues, methods, and works that shaped ethnomusicology in the U.S. from the 1950s through the 1970s. The second-half of the semester will be devoted to ethnomusicological work since the 1980s. In addition to obtaining critical knowledge of ethnomusicology’s most significant works and theoretical approaches, students will gain insight into the advantages and limitations in the field’s key methodological activities, including transcription, fieldwork, and ethnography.

Music 930: Seminar in Music Theory
Schoenberg as Theorist
Prof. Severine Neff

The most crucial fact about Schoenberg as theorist is his own statement: “I am still more of a composer than a theorist.” He is always conscious of the limitations of theory, including his own. Despite a lifelong preoccupation with music theory, virtually all his theoretical works after the Harmonielehre remain torsos, though generations of students and disciples have taken up Schoenberg’s ideas and tried with varying degrees of success to make them whole. This seminar will explore Schoenberg theoretical/analytic writing in three ways. First we will discuss his basic writings on theory, the musical work, and tonality and form. We will analytically focus on two works: the first movement of Schoenberg’s Second String Quartet and the third movement of Brahms’s Fourth Symphony. Next we will take advantage of the manuscripts available on the website of the Arnold Schönberg Center—the largest digital archive devoted to any composer. We will direct our attention to the copious sketchesand drafts for the Scherzo movement of the Second String Quartet and the incomplete oratorio Die Jakobsleiter. Finally we will discuss Schoenberg’s theoretical writings on counterpoint, directing our analytic attention to the fugues in the Suite for String Orchestra and Genesis Prelude, Op. 44.

Music 950: Seminar in Musicology
Music in Twelfth-Century Paris
Prof. Hana Vlhova-Wörner

The twelfth century brought significant changes to both monophonic and polyphonic music. This seminar will follow the development of the new musical language in Paris, the most important cultural center of the time. We will examine these changes as part of broader historical developments: the establishment of the urban society, the foundation of the university studies, the rise of the new intellectual stratum (Abelard); the concept of the Gothic cathedral and its role as a liturgical place (Notre Dame); the changes in Latin poetry and its influence on music; and the phenomenon of the “Renaissance of the 12th century” as whole. Readings will include Wright (on Notre Dame), Fassler (on St Victor), Busse Berger (on orality), Leech-Wilkinson (on the “discovery” of the Notre Dame school by modern scholars) and Swanson (on the Renaissance of the 12th century). We will also compare different transcriptions and interpretations, and we will work with the microfilms of the Paris manuscripts in the Music Library.
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