Paula Harper, fourth-year graduate student in Historical Musicology, has received the Meyerson Award for Excellence in Core Teaching. The award is given in Music Humanities, Art Humanities, Literature Humanities, and Contemporary Civilization to an outstanding graduate student preceptor in each course.
Congratulations, Paula!
The Center for Ethnomusicology's project to "repatriate" Native American recordings made by collector Laura Boulton in the 1930s and 40s and purchased by Columbia in the 1960s to their source communities has been featured as part of an extensive radio feature on BBC Radio 3 (UK). The feature includes interviews with Columbia ethnomusicologist Prof. Aaron Fox and former Columbia students Kristina Jacobsen (MA, Music, 2006, now Assistant Professor of Music at the University of New Mexico) and Nanobah Becker (MFA, Film, 2008, now a prominent, Sundance-winning Native American filmmaker). The feature runs for about 45 minutes.
Listen to it here. (Flash Player Required)
Taking It All Back Home, Sunday Feature - BBC Radio 3
(Photo: Tagiugmiut Iñupiat Dancers, Barrow Alaska, 2009; Photo by A. Fox)
The Department of Music warmly congratulates Ethnomusicology PhD Alumnus Dr. Timothy Mangin, who has been appointed Assistant Professor of Music at Boston College. Timothy Mangin completed his PhD in Ethnomusicology at Columbia in 2013. Prof. Mangin is an ethnomusicologist and musician researching the intersection of popular music, race, ethnicity, religion, and cosmopolitanism in West Africa and the African Diaspora. He has received fellowships from the Columbia University’s Center for Comparative Literature and Society, St. Lawrence University’s Department of Music, Mellon Foundation, the Foreign Language Areas Studies Program and a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Research Abroad Program. He taught at Columbia University, New York University, St. Lawrence University, and the City University of New York. An improvisational flutist, Tim founded St. Lawrence University’s Jazz and Improv Ensemble and also studies mbira and is a member of Capoeira Brasil. His writings have appeared in the edited volumes Begegnungen: The World Meets Jazz and Uptown Conversations: The New Jazz Studies as well as reviews in The Yearbook for Traditional Music and Ethnomusicology On-Line. Tim is working on a book examining indigenous cosmopolitanism through the intersection of the Senegalese urban dance music called mbalax and the practice of black, Wolof (the dominant ethnic group), gendered, and Muslim identities. He is also exploring blackness in Senegalese hip hop and the dynamics of improvisation in New York City’s underground hip hop and jazz scene. The Digital Humanities is a key part of Tim’s pedagogy and research that began when he worked at Columbia’s Institute for Research in African American Studies on the Malcolm X Project, under the direction Manning Marable, and further developed with students at The City College of New York. Dr. Mangin's Columbia PhD dissertation, on Senegalese mbalax, was advised by Prof. George Lewis.
The Department of Music warmly congratulates PhD alumna Dr. Lauren Flood, who has been appointed as a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in the Humanities at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Lauren Flood earned the Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology from Columbia in 2015. She researches sound technologies and experimental instrument building practices in the contexts of the do-it-yourself ethos, maker culture, and popular and experimental music scenes. She held a Whiting Fellowship for her dissertation, “Building and Becoming: DIY Music Technology in New York and Berlin,” with fieldwork supported by the Berlin Program for Advanced German and European Studies and the National Science Foundation. Lauren’s work is situated at the nexus of music, anthropology, sound studies, and science and technology studies. She engages with dialogs on critical organology, creativity and knowledge production, histories and aesthetics of sound and recording practices, vernacular technologies and everydayness, ethics and labor in the music industry, alternative methods in science and technology education, and the contemporary sense of self as mediated through the arts.
At Columbia, she has been a teaching fellow in Music Humanities and Asian Music Humanities, the graduate assistant for the Center for Ethnomusicology, an editorial board member and reviews editor for Current Musicology, and on the organizing committee of the Columbia Music Scholarship Conference. She has presented her work at annual meetings of the Society for Ethnomusicology, the American Anthropological Association, the Society for the Social Studies of Science, and the EMP Pop Conference.
Prior to her graduate studies, Lauren completed her undergraduate degree at Drexel University, with a major in music industry and a minor in anthropology. While living in Philadelphia, she studied and performed as a guitarist, worked in copyrights and licensing, and assisted with research at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. She also completed field schools in Latin American ethnomusicology and archaeology, maintaining a long-standing interest in Mesoamerica and the modern Mayan region.
Dr. Flood's Columbia PhD dissertation was advised by Prof. Ana Maria Ochoa.
The Department of Music warmly congratulates DMA candidate Christopher Trapani who has been awarded a 2016-17 Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome.
The Rome Prize is "awarded to about thirty emerging artists and scholars who represent the highest standard of excellence and who are in the early or middle stages of their working lives." Mr. Trapani is the second Columbia DMA student to win the Rome Prize in as many years.
Learn more about Mr. Trapani and his music at:
http://christophertrapani.com/
A composer with a genuine international trajectory, Christopher Trapani maintains an active career in the United States, the United Kingdom, and in Continental Europe. Commissions have come from the BBC, the JACK Quartet, and Radio France, and his works have been recently heard at Carnegie Hall, the Southbank Centre, IRCAM, and Wigmore Hall.
Christopher’s music synthesizes disparate influences, weaving both American and European stylistic strands into a personal aesthetic that defies easy classification. Snippets of Delta Blues, Appalachian folk, dance band foxtrots, and Turkish makam can be heard alongside spectral swells and meandering canons. As in Christopher’s hometown of New Orleans, diverse traditions coexist and intermingle, swirled into a rich melting pot. Consonance is a central preoccupation; microtonality and just intonation are often employed. Timbral explorations are also manifold, from experiments with a wide range of mutes and preparations to an unusual instrumentarium, with scorings that call for electric guitar, dulcimer, qanûn, stroh violin, and retuned autoharps. Several of Christopher’s compositions bear the mark of his training in literature, influenced by novelists and poets including Thomas Pynchon, Geoff Dyer, and C. P. Cavafy. Many recent works also incorporate an idiosyncratic use of electronics, expanding the possibilities of color, pitch, and timing beyond the acoustic realm.
Christopher was born in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1980. He holds a Bachelor’s degree from Harvard, where he studied composition with Bernard Rands and poetry under Helen Vendler. He spent most of his twenties overseas: a year in London, working on a Master’s degree at the Royal College of Music with Julian Anderson; a year in Istanbul, studying microtonality in Ottoman music on a Fulbright grant; and seven years in Paris, where he studied with Philippe Leroux and worked at IRCAM, both on the composition cursus and later on a musical research residency.
Christopher is currently based in New York City, where he has worked on a doctorate at Columbia University, studying with Tristan Murail, Georg Friedrich Haas, Fred Lerdahl, and George Lewis.
Christopher is the winner of the 2016 Rome Prize, as well as the 2007 Gaudeamus Prize, the first American in over 30 years to win the international young composers’ award. Other recent honors include an award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters (2015), a nomination for a British Composers Award (2014), and a grant from the French-American Cultural Exchange (FACE) towards a new piece for ICE and Ensemble L’Itinéraire. He has also won the Julius F. Ježek Prize (2013), three Morton Gould Young Composers Awards from ASCAP (2005, 2006, and the Leo Kaplan Award in 2009), and a BMI Student Composer Award (2006). His scores have been performed by ICTUS, Ensemble Modern, the Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, Nieuw Ensemble, Asko Ensemble, Ensemble L’Itinéraire, Ensemble Orchestral Contemporain, Ensemble Mosaik, Talea Ensemble, Argento Ensemble, Wet Ink, Earplay, Yarn/Wire, Atlas Ensemble, pianists Sergey Schepkin and Marilyn Nonken, and the American Composers Orchestra.
tIn March 2011, Christopher was featured in a portrait concert on the Philharmonia Orchestra’s Music of Today series at the Royal Festival Hall in London. His music has also been programmed in international festivals such as the Venice Biennale, Ultraschall Festival in Berlin, Musica Nova Helsinki, and IRCAM’s festival Agora. He has held residencies at Copland House (New York), Récollets (Paris), and Cité Internationale des Arts (Paris), and was a 2013-15 fellow at Akademie Schloss Solitude (Stuttgart).
Recent and upcoming projects include a commission for the Quatuor Béla and GRAME in Lyon, a new orchestral work for the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, a commission for orchestra and electronics (IRCAM) for the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and Festival Présences 2015, and a new work for Ensemble Modern for the 2015 cresc… Biennial for Modern Music in Frankfurt.
Congratulations to Department Chair Professor Susan Boynton, winner of a 2016 Lenfest Distinguished Faculty Award!
Eight Faculty Members Win 2016 Lenfest Awards Great teachers are an inspiration to their students and admired by their peers. This year’s winners of the Columbia Distinguished Faculty Awards were nominated by department chairs and their fellow faculty members:
http://news.columbia.edu/content/eight-faculty-members-win-2016-lenfest-...
The Department of Music joins fans and musicians the world over in saluting the life and career of Prince Rogers Nelson, known as Prince to millions of adoring fans worldwide, who passed away today. We offer condolences to his friends and family and colleagues.
The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation has awarded 175 Fellowships this year, three of whom are Composition DMA alumni from our very own department:
Edmund Campion (DMA, Composition, 1993)
Anthony Cheung (DMA, Composition, 2010)
Bryan Jacobs (DMA, Composition, 2015)
Congratulations to all three composers on their well-deserved fellowships!
Coming up: the Sound Arts MFA Thesis Show and the Spring Exhibition of Sound Arts MFA First-Years' Works. More information below:
Continuing Effect: Sound Arts MFA Thesis Show
Saturday, April 23–Saturday, May 7, 2016
Closing Reception: May 7, 2016, 5–7 pm
Basilica Hudson Back Gallery
110 S. Front Street
Hudson, NY 12534
Installed in Basilica’s Back Gallery, this special exhibition presents thesis works from the Sound Arts MFA program. Alice Emily Baird, Cameron Fraser, Chatori Shimizu, and Frank Spigner formally and conceptually address concepts relating to reverberation through interactive, responsive, and kinetic sculpture and installation. Continuing Effect is curated by Wave Farm.
http://arts.columbia.edu/events/spring-2016/Continuing_Effect
Spring Exhibition: First-Year Works from the 2016 Columbia University School of the Arts Sound Arts MFA Program
Friday, April 22, 2016, 6-8 pm
Central Booking Offline
21 Ludlow Street New York, NY 10002
April 23–May 2, 2016
Gallery Hours: Thursday – Sunday, 12–6 pm
Please join us for the Opening Reception. Works by Ashley Grier, Dani Dobkin, Geronimo Mercado.
Professor Terence Pender was interviewed by the Columbia Spectator last week: the interview recognizes his prowess and skills as both a musician and an educator. Read the interview here. Congratulations, Dr. Pender!
On April 7, Professor Zosha Di Castri's piece "Near Mute Force," a setting of an adapted text by Rivka Galchen, for two sopranos, viola, piano, and drumset, commissioned by the Women's Musical Club of Toronto, will be premiered in Dannthology, a concert featuring violist Steven Dann taking place in Toronto. Read the Toronto Star's write-up about the upcoming concert here.
Last week, the ASCAP Foundation named Sky Macklay (DMA, Composition) as a recipient of their Morton Gould Young Composer Award. Read the ASCAP Foundation's announcement here. Congratulations, Sky!
Magdalena Stern-Baczewska (faculty & director, Music Performance Program) recently visited Quest University in Squamish BC, upon an invitation from its current faculty member and Columbia graduate, Andrew Haringer (PhD, Historical Musicology, 2012). Baczewska presented a sold-out lecture recital 'Goldberg Variations in Context', an in-class lecture demonstration on Chopin and nationalism, and performed Schubert's Fantasie in F minor with Haringer in his seminar on Romanticism. Three days later Baczewska appeared at University of Connecticut's Jorgensen Center for Performing Arts, in a recital with violinist Solomiya Ivakhiv, featuring Bartok's Roumanian Dances, Beethoven's 'Kreutzer' Sonata, and Sonata in A major by Franck. She is currently preparing for a performance of Toys, a piano work by Peter Susser (faculty & director of undergraduate musicianship).
Hearing is Believing
Musicianship and ear training at Columbia are the focus of a newly-mounted exhibition in the Music & Arts Library. On display are original student and faculty work, as well as textbooks, training manuals, and compositions from around the world that are used to enhance and inspire the musical imagination. Curated by Professor Peter M. Susser, DMA, Director of Undergraduate Musicianship at Columbia University, the exhibit will be on display in the Library through graduation 2016.
Courtney Bryan (DMA Composition 2014) will be participating in a number of performances this spring. More detailed information below -- if you're in the area, check these concerts out!
Friday, March 25, 10:30am/11:45am
Relation: A Performance Residency by Vijay Iyer
I. "Songs of Laughing, Smiling, and Crying" for solo piano and recorded sound
II. Courtney Bryan and Brandee Younger, originals and music of Alice Coltrane
The MET Breuer Lobby Gallery of The Metropolitan Museum of New York
http://www.metmuseum.org/events/programs/met-live-arts/vijay-iyer-met-br...
Friday, March 25, 7:30pm
Counterpoint: Classical Music and Nina Simone
Courtney Bryan and Eun Lee
Online concert and discussion
Fundraiser for #SingHerName concert, see link:
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/singhername#/
https://www.facebook.com/events/1564305780564073/
Thursday, March 31, 8:00pm event (with 7:00pm reception)
HER (in honor of): a performance and discussion
Paul Robeson Center for the Arts
102 Witherspoon Street
Princeton, NJ 08542
HER (in honor of): a performance and discussion, co-sponsored by the Arts Council of Princeton, Princeton University Department of African American Studies and Princeton University Department of Music, will include a live performance byHER (in honor of) -- vocalist Sarah Elizabeth Charles, harpist Brandee Younger, pianist Courtney Bryan, bassist Mimi Jones, and drummer Kimberly Thompson -- and a discussion with the musicians on the history of women in jazz and related contemporary issues, to be moderated by journalist, Rajul Punjabi.
http://artscouncilofprinceton.org/
Thursday, April 7 and Friday, April 8 at 7:30pm/9:00pm
(Courtney will perform April 8 at 9:00pm, "A Presence" for solo piano and recorded sound)
Fromm Players at Harvard University
Creative Music Convergences, curated by Vijay Iyer
John Knowles Paine Concert Hall, Department of Music
Harvard University, Cambridge MA
FREE and OPEN TO ALL! No tickets required. First come, first seated.
http://frommfoundation.fas.harvard.edu/fromm-players-at-harvard
Last week, Professor Georg Friedrich Haas' work was performed by JACK Quartet and the Talea Ensemble in an event for the Austrian Cultural Forum. The two concerts were part of an event entitled "American Immersion," held at the Bohemian National Hall in New York City. The concert garnered multiple glowing reviews by MusicalAmerica's Daniel Stephen Johnson (whose review can be read here) and the New York Times' Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim (whose review can be read here). Congratulations, Professor Haas!
Image: Soprano Tony Arnold with Talea Ensemble; copyright Richard Termine, NYT.
University Provost John Coatsworth and Professor Walter Frisch, who is teaching Music Humanities in Paris this semester, were among the guests at a reception on March 4 at the Musée d'Orsay for Columbia trustees, and for faculty, alumni, and staff of the Global Center at Reid Hall.
Daniel Lazour, a recent graduate of Columbia College who finished his degree in music this past December, is among the recipients of the Richard Rodgers Award for Musical Theater, administered by the Academy of Arts and Letters, for the musical We Live in Cairo, which he wrote with his brother, Patrick Lazour. We Live in Cairo "tells the story of six student revolutionaries coming of age in today's Middle East, who confront the past in their search for freedom. Young men and women, armed with laptops and cameras, guitars and spray paint cans, inspire millions to take to the streets of Cairo to overthrow their president, Egypt's Hosni Mubarak."
For more information, please see Playbill's announcement: http://www.playbill.com/article/hadestown-a-modern-day-twist-on-the-orph... Congratulations, Daniel!