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.

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.

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!

Columbia Music Scholarship Conference (CMSC) 2016

The eleventh annual Columbia Music Scholarship Conference (CMSC) will be held at Columbia University on Saturday, February 27, 2016.

CMSC is a conference organized and staffed by the graduate students of the Department of Music at Columbia University.

Keynote Speaker
Professor Alexander Rehding (Harvard University)

"Piano, Monochord, Siren: Studying Music 1999 – 1518 – 1834"

Full details at the conference website!

Professor Ellie Hisama's 1993 paper "Postcolonialism on the make: the music of John Mellencamp, David Bowie and John Zorn" has been quoted in two recent articles on David Bowie (following Bowie's death on January 10 of this year):

"For Bowie, the Thin White Duke, inspiration was black" (Economic Times)

Ruth Tam, "How David Bowie's 'China Girl' used racism to fight racism" (Washington Post)

Please mark your calendars for the Columbia Composers 2015-16 concert season:

Saturday, December 5th, 2015 at 8:00 PM: Electroacoustic works

at Prentis Hall (3rd floor), 632 W. 125th Street

Featuring works by MFA students Danielle Dobkin, Chatori Shimizu, Geronimo Mercado, and Frank Spigner, and DMA students Sam Yulsman, Ryan Pratt, and Martin Heindl, with special guests Carrie Frey (viola), Chris Pitsiokos (saxophone), William Cepeda (conch shell), Dana Malseptic (synthesizer), and Nathan Bellott (saxophone)

Friday, March 11th, 2016 at 8:00 PM: Ekmeles and Yarn/Wire

at the DiMenna Center for Classical Music, 450 W 37th St

Featuring works by Christopher Trapani, Yair Klartag, Martin Heindl, Matthew Ricketts, Ashkan Behzadi, Bill Doughery, and Shih-Wei Lo

Saturday, April 2nd, 2016 at 8:00 PM: Mivos Quartet and Loadbang

at Symphony Space, 2537 Broadway

Featuring works by Tyshawn Sorey, Mary Kouyoumdjian, Paul Clift, John Rot, Stylianos Dimou, Onur Yildirim, and Sam Yulsman

Saturday, April 30th, 2016 at 8:00 PM: Wet Ink (Large Ensemble and Band)

at St. Peter's Church, 346 W 20th St

Featuring works by David Bird, Sky Macklay, Ryan Pratt, Taylor Brook, Roberto Toscano, Alec Hall, and Nina C. Young

More information about the Columbia Composers' concerts can be found on their website.

The Department warmly congratulates Prof. Ana Maria Ochoa (Ethnomusicology), whose new book Aurality: Listening and Knowledge in Nineteenth Century Colombia (Duke University Press, 2014) has been co-awarded the prestigious Alan Merriam Prize from the Society for Ethnomusicology.

The Merriam Prize recognizes "the most distinguished, published English-language monograph in the field of ethnomusicology" of the prior two year period.

Columbia Sounds: A New Concert Series at Columbia Global Centers | Paris

At Columbia Global Centers | Paris, the Department of Music offers a new concert series featuring Department faculty, students, and alumni. Held at Reid Hall (4, rue de Chevreuse, 75006 Paris), the performances will be free of charge.

Columbiana, on February 15, 2016, at 7 pm, will present the cellist Anssi Karttunen and the violinist Marina Chiche. The program includes music of Edmund Campion, Tan Dun, Fred Lerdahl, Bryan Jacobs, Taylor Brook, Zosha Di Castri, Yoshiaki Onishi, Pablo Ortiz, Nina C. Young, Magnus Lindberg, Kaija Saariaho, and Henri Dutilleux. Karttunen, widely praised as the most distinguished cellist performing new music today, has collaborated extensively with Columbia composers of several generations. After the concert, Karttunen will join Nina C. Young (Columbia DMA student and Fellow of the American Academy in Rome) in a conversation about the Creative Dialogue project that gave rise to several of the works on the program.

Ensemble Pamplemousse: This is the Uplifting Part, on March 15, 2016, at 7 pm, will feature the composer/performer collective Ensemble Pamplemousse in a program of experimental new music by the collective’s members, including prominent Columbia DMA alumni Natacha Diels and Bryan Jacobs. Diels, now Assistant Professor of Composition at UC San Diego, founded the Ensemble in New York in 2003. Each of the Pamplemousse members specializes in a unique aspect of composition, from micro-detailed instrumental writing to experimental theatre with electronics to electro-mechanical musical robotics. Their performances combine weirdness and beauty with pop culture and classical virtuosity. After the concert, the musicians will discuss their work in conversation with Susan Boynton (Chair, Department of Music and organizer of the series).

Event Sponsors: Columbia Global Centers | Europe; Department of Music, Columbia University; Office of Global Programs, Columbia University; Alice M. Ditson Fund