Check this page regularly – I will update frequently.
Last updated: Monday Nov. 21
EXTRA CREDIT OPPORTUNITIES:
Queens College Year of Turkey Events: extra credit for attending and blogging. For the full “Year of Turkey schedule: click here
Chamber Music Live – free professional concerts in LeFrak Hall. attend and blog for extra credit. Friday mornings. For the schedule click here
Dates I’m still working on:
??Dec 7,8 or 10 – Merce Cunningham Legacy Tour at BAM??
?? “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.” movie??
CLASS MEETINGS AND OUTINGS:
Thur. Sept. 1 – 1 ) Pictures of all students and check of emails. 2) “Count to 10” assignment. 3) blog intro 4) Assign “Snobs” article and reaction (due Sept. 8) 5) Jonathan Foer reaction – optional (due Sept. 8).
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Mon. Sept. 5 – no class (labor day)
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REQUIRED EVENT
*Wed. Sept. 7 – Free hour on the Quad: Collecting reactions to 9/11 – report to the Student Union to collect 9/11 reactions on video.
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Thur. Sept. 8 – Review assignments; view “Count to 10” videos; travel plans for 9/11; spotify; discussion of dates for field trips – Fridays and Saturdays?; my cell phone number 516-850-9536
Discussion of Sunday’s program –
Mozart Requiem: on YouTube:
Here is a link with the text and a translation: click here
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REQUIRED EVENT
*Sun. Sept. 11 – Concert for 9/11 and Japan – Riverside Church, Riverside Drive and
120th St. 7:30 PM (If you cannot attend this event, please try to attend an alternate 9/11 event.
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Mon. Sept. 12 – We WILL have class this day!! – Review of Snob papers; Spotify; 9/11 events/Riverside Church
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Wed. Sept. 14 – special opening for Cone Sisters at the Jewish Museum – This exhibition closes Sept. 25. The group date is Sept. 18. If you cannot attend that date, you will be required to plan your own trip. Click here for a link to the web site
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Thur. Sept. 15- Monica Martin, violinist – preview of Sept. 21 Concert. Violin concerto, Aram Khatchaturian
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REQUIRED EVENT
*Sun. Sept. 18 – 1 PM meet at the Jewish Museum 92nd St. and 5th Ave. (don’t forget your cultural passport) – We will view the Cone Sisters Show (for about an hour and a half). I am told there is a restaurant/cafe at the museum. Take my phone number: 516-850-9536. click the link Click here for the Museum Website.
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Mon. Sept. 19 – NO CLASS
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REQUIRED EVENT:
*Wed. Sept. 21 – 12:15 Queens College Orchestra, Maurice Peress, Director; works include Copland’s Inscape, Khachaturian’s Violin Concerto, Monica Martin, Soloist, and La Mer by Debussy, LCH.
optional event:
*Wed. Sept. 21 – 3:30 – Year of Turkey Concert.Selim Firay violin, Gulimina Mahamuti, piano
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Thurs. Sept. 22 – visit from Dr. Jennifer Oates, Music Librarian: Internet research in the Arts.
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optional event: (you will have to purchase your own ticket)
Sat. Sept. 24 – 8pm, Rose Theater
Jazz royalty begins the 2011-12 JALC season with two NEA Jazz Masters, both stylish veterans who are still finding new ways to swing a big band. A triple threat as a composer, arranger, and player, Jimmy Heath was already a forward-looking musician when he formed his first orchestra in 1947, and has remained so with his current big band. The ageless Jon Hendricks once made the Count Basie Orchestra into an instrument of vocalese and he’s now doing the same with the Andy Farber Orchestra.
Free pre-concert discussion with Jimmy Heath, 7pm.
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assignment:
Mon. Sept. 26 – Haarlem Shuffle – read article in preparation for this class. There will be a short quiz. Jewish Museum reaction paragraph due.
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Thurs. Sept. 29 – no class Rosh Hashanah
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Mon. Oct 3 -no class
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REQUIRED EVENT:
*Tues – Oct. 4 – Frans Hals and Anthony Caro at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We will meet inside next to the information desk at 2:45. Our tour will be led by Prof. Christopher Adkins of the Art History Dept. There are materials to review under “Reading and Materials.”
We had a great time: 
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Thurs. Oct. 6 – class reading of the “Bald Soprano” – with DTD Production Manager Ralph Carhart. Read the Ionesco Article There is also a complete copy of the script, which you should read before attending.Bald Soprano script.
There is also a review: TheaterMania.com – Reviews – The Bald Soprano –
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Mon. Oct. 10 – no class Columbus Day
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REQUIRED EVENT:
Tues. Oct. 11 – The Bald Soprano – City Center- 55th St. between 6th and 7th. 7:30 curtain. We will meet outside at 7:00. Don’t be late.
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Thur. Oct. 13 – No Class (Jewish Holiday).
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Mon. Oct. 17 – Don Giovanni: read this: NYTime Don Giovanni article Bald Soprano reaction paper due. (One page paper, handed in.)
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REQUIRED EVENT:
*Tues. Oct. 18 – Jhumpa Lahiri will be giving a reading/talk at Baruch on October 18. Click on the link for more details:
http://www.baruch.cuny.edu/wsas/academics/writer_in_residence/jhumpa_lahiri.htm
here is a link to an interview and an excerpt of her writing: click here
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REQUIRED EVENT:
*Wed. Oct. 19 – School of Music Faculty Concert – 7:30 PM, LeFrak Hall
This concert will feature a piece of mine, the Nocturne from “Three Scenes from the Heartland.” You can here the piece here go to “track 5” in the music player window here
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Thurs. Oct. 20 – No Class (Jewish Holiday)
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Mon. Oct. 24 – We will meet for class at 6:30 – 7:45. And will discuss the opera.
written assignment: Look up these terms and write a definition: libretto; librettist; aria; recitative; ensemble; basso continuo; opera seria, opera comique dramma giocoso.
Here is a link to read all about Don Giovanni: click here (You might need to log into the Music Library to view this site from home.)
Here is the opening of Don Giovanni:
Here is a scene from “Amadeus” that puts Mozart in some context. (I highly recommend the movie).
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Thur. Oct. 27 – Dance Discussion. – There will be a quiz. Read the Dance Glossary in the Class Readings and Materials.
Australian Ballet: click here
Steve McRae: click here
Pontus Lindberg click here
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Mon. Oct. 31 – NO CLASS
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REQUIRED EVENT:
*Tues – Nov. 1 – 8 PM – Fall for Dance – City Center, West 55 St. between 6th and 7th Avenues.
The Australian Ballet, Gemini, Glen Tetley
Steven McRae, Principal Dancer of The Royal Ballet, London, Something Different, Steven McRae
Pontus Lidberg Dance, Faune, Pontus Lidberg
Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, THREE TO MAX, Ohad Naharin
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Thur. Nov. 3 – Don Giovanni – watching the DVD in class, discussing the article: click here
Here is the review from the NY Times: Mariusz Kwiecien in ‘Don Giovanni’ at the Met – Review – NYTimes.com
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Mon. Nov 7 – No Class – we will meet at Lincoln Center at 7:00 for the 7:30 performance of Don Giovanni at the Metropolitan Opera.
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Thur. Nov. 10 – discussion of Don Giovanni, plans for upcoming classes.
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Fri. Nov. 11 Macaulay Photo Event (for taking the photos) and the event at Macaulay (the ‘show’) is December 4.
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Mon. Nov. 14 – Occupy Wall Street events and discussion. Discussion of recent blog postings. See detailed assignment and instructions on the blog.
Link to the Juilliard School Calendar: click here
Suor Angelica, by Giacomo Puccini. Summary: click here
We will have a visit from Francesca Lunghi, who will be singing in this weekend’s production.
Here is one of the arias from the opera: Senza Mamma
Here is a link to Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci which we referred to in a recent class. It is worth following the Youtube clips to see this whole opera.
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Required Event: (see blog for detailed assignment)
Thur. Nov. 17 – no class – Occupy Wall Street.
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Extra Credit event:
Friday Nov. 18 or Saturday Nov. 19 at 7:30 PM: Opera Performance in LeFrak Hall: Suor Angelica, by Puccini. Go to the opera and blog about it.
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Strongly recommended: (extra credit for a blog post/response)
Mon. Nov. 21 – 12:15 in LeFrak Hall: QC Percussion Ensemble – World Music Program. Prof. Michael Lipsey, Director
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Mon. Nov. 21 – Occupy Wall Street Assignment is due. Preparation/discussion for DeKooning visit. Read Article Has Money Ruined Art New York
Discussion: what is the received language of each art form: Dance, Music, Painting? How does each of the examples we have observed exhibit, extend or replace this language?
I’d also like to explore and discuss Aaron Young’s art work: click here
See also this video:
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Tues Nov. 22 – follows a Thursday Sched./
a) Visit from QC Student Piano Quintet. The Music of Dick Hyman. We’ll also have a performance from a LEAD SHEET of the jazz standard: Blue Bossa
Here is an example of his solo playing (note the use of “stride” piano in the bridge of the song.)
Here is a clip from his comprehensive study of Jazz piano styles:
Here is a famous clip by Art Tatum playing the same song (Tea for Two).
b) Discussion of the Islamic Art Wing at the Met.
click here for interactive feature
c) Discussion of Dekooning: click here
Two events you don’t want to miss:
Wednesday November 23 in Lefrak Auditorium –
Reading and Master Class with Dick Hyman (Mr. Hyman will be present for these two events).
a) A reading of Dick Hyman’s Piano Quintet at 11:00
b ) Master Class for Jazz Piano MA students at 1:30
For those of you who are not familiar with Dick Hyman we put together a short intro of his amazing career::
Early Career: Dick Hyman (born March 8, 1927, New York City) was trained classically by his mother’s brother, the concert pianist Anton Rovinsky, noted for having premiered Charles Ives’s The Celestial Railroad in 1928, “my most important teacher. I learned touch from him and a certain amount of repertoire, especially Beethoven. On my own I pursued Chopin. I loved his ability to take a melody and embellish it in different arbitrary ways, which is exactly what we do in jazz. Chopin would have been a terrific jazz pianist. His waltzes are in my improvising to this day.” Dick’s older brother, Arthur, introduced him to the music of Bix Beiderbecke, Louis Armstrong, Teddy Wilson, and others. His studies at Columbia University were interrupted by Army and Navy service in WWII upon his returned to Columbia, he won an on-air piano competition, earning him 12 free lessons with Teddy Wilson, the great swing-era pianist who a decade earlier had broken the race barrier as a member of the Benny Goodman Trio. A few years later, Hyman himself became Goodman’s pianist.
Studio Musician: Dick went on to a prolific career in New York as a studio musician which is where I came in. For my reconstruction of the concert that launched Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue,” Dick played the “knuckle-buster” role of keyboard virtuoso Zez Confrey … “Kitten on the Keys.” For his studio work Dick won seven Most Valuable Player Awards from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. He acted as music director for such television programs as Benny Goodman’s final appearance (on PBS) and for “In Performance at the White House,” appeared as side-man with Charlie Parker on Ed Sullivan.
Films Composer/Arranger: Woody Allen’s Zelig, The Purple Rose of Cairo, Broadway Danny Rose, Stardust Memories, Hannah and Her Sisters, Radio Days, Bullets Over Broadway, Mighty Aphrodite, Everyone Says “I Love You”, Sweet and Lowdown, The Curse Of The Jade Scorpion, and Melinda and Melinda. Other scores have included Moonstruck, Scott Joplin-King of Ragtime, The Lemon Sisters, The Mask, Billy Bathgate.
Concert and Ballet Composer: Piano Concerto “Ragtime Fantasy,” The Longest Blues in the World, and From Chama to Cumbres by Steam. His most recent Chamber music pieces are “Dances and Diversions” for the Kinor String Quartet, String Quartet #2 premiered by the Shanghai Quartet. For Twyla Tharp Dick composed The Bum’s Rush danced by the American Ballet Theater. He was also the pianist/conductor/arranger in Ms.Tharp’s Eight Jelly Rolls, Baker’s Dozen, and The Bix Pieces.
More: Artistic director “Jazz in July series at New York’s 92nd Street Y” for twenty years, Member of the Jazz Hall of Fame of the Rutgers Institute of Jazz Studies and the New Jersey Jazz Society. He has recorded over 100 albums recorded under his own name and many more in support of other artists.
Books: Professional Chord Changes and Substitutions for 100 Tunes Every Musician Should Know
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Mon. Nov. 28 – Visit from Karen Richardson, Assistant Prof. of History, QC. Discussion of Islamic art and culture. here is her Power Point presentation: Islamic Art
Here are two links you should review before class:
The Met Museum has a lot of information: click here
The NY Times has a good interactive feature: click here
There is also an Islamic Art Exhibition at the Morgan Library: click here and click here
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Required Event
Thur. Dec. 1 -visiting the Gamelan Orchestra – we’ll get a lesson on a short piece for Gamelan. Prof. Michael Lipsey visits.
Here is some background and video supplied by Prof. Lipsey:
I am not sure what the class is all about, but I should explain some things about these videos and some general information about Bali and the Gamelan tradition there.
I think the perception from these videos could be: Bali is a yhird world country where the people run around in loincloths, have bad teeth, and sacrifice their young.some of this is true, some is public relations.
The first item we will discus is something call Kecak. Kecak is what they call the monkey chant. It is made up of two sounds “ke” and “cak”(c = ch)
That is what is being “said” in the piece. It is intended to mimic the sound of monkeys. The tradition was present a long time ago and was revived about 20-30 years ago.
As a piece of art, it is kind of ridiculous. The government, in essence, commissioned(demanded, more likely) a renaissance of kecak. It looks cool: shirtless poor people, bad teeth and all, making funny noises. These pieces (kecak) were dead until about 20-30 years ago. The government saw it as a great tourist attraction.
You should understand that Bali (4 million people) is the Hindu bastion among 220 million Muslims. The weird thing is that Bali is the tourist capital of South Asia (Pacific). That brings in a substantial amount of $ to Indonesia (And Indonesia does get attention from the Western world, including a recent visit from Barack Obamaduring the G20 meetings.) But the attention and money that goes into Bali does create problems with relations and the image of other, poorer islands. What the government say, goes…
Now and then there are Bali-friendly government officials, but mostly, not…they only see Bali as a money machine in a growing economy. Kecak is a product of this.
So, here are some facts and interesting notes on these videos:
1-The first vid was not shot in Bali…only a portion of it. You might want to skip to where kecak begins…the rest is not Bali, it is Cambodia.
2-These are newly written pieces…all of them….not pieces from long ago.
3-Monkeys ARE in 3 or 4 areas of the island. You do not really see them walking around towns, except in two places. In Ubud the art capital(where “Eat, Prey, Love” was filmed/supposed to have taken place), monkeys (and gamelan) are ubiquitous. The monkeys hang out in the Monkey Forest, but come out into the streets to get food from tourists. I lived right next door to it. The first morning I went for a swim while a monkey watched me from the fence about 10 feet away.
4-There is really no need to have kecak in the towns, so it is not found so much on the island. You only see at the expensive hotels. Quite frankly, in most of these hotels, Balinese are not welcome. On the other hand, gamelan is always heard…all over the island. It is like a soccer club…everyone plays
This clip is from a famous movie/doc called Baraka.
The next video is long, so you might just want to play a part of it.
It was taken at Ulawatu. This is a temple and a nature preserve/ huge tourist attraction on the bottom tip of the island. Monkeys are all over the place. You buy little baskets of food for them. In the evening they have performances.
Usually there is no dance in kecak.
By the way, Balinese never play music without their shirts…no way. They are very modest, minus the person “showering” in the streets naked(…but you are not supposed to notice them…it is like they feel they are invisible).
As a matter of fact, Pak can not stand that we do not have jackets for our uniforms. He thinks it is too informal.
This video (Baraka) is famous. For some reason, the filmmaker starts talking to the monkeys in the beginning(Calls them “monkey boy”…do not know why, it is weird)
The parts are kind of improvised. Everyone in Bali just kind of knows where to do their syncopations, but it is an ensemble conversation that is similar to the “kotekans”, or interlocking parts of the larger gamelan group. This I can explain when I come in. We are doing a parade version of kecak called belaganjur. We replace the voice with cymbals.
For gamelan-Here is the Nat Geo doc on Bali
There is a part with Pak in it…at the university under the direction of I Made Bandam
The school is now called STSI, not ASTI
at 42:35 there is a little dance/music part. Also talks about the school-kind of interesting and related to what we do at QC. Pak is in the video at exactly at 45′. He is left of center
By the way, the 70’s porno mustaches are not very prevalent anymore….:-)
I would only watch the 3 or 4 minutes of this video
One last video
This is the group Cudamani(Again shirtless) In this case the “C” is pronounced as a “s”. These are like the All-Stars on the island.
They are very, very good. This is from a gig in California.
This piece is one that I know:
Taruna Jaya – it is similar to a legong(coming of age dance). The dancer is a girl, but dancing as a boy in this part. That is very common. Depending on the stance the dancer takes, there is a female, male, and in-between posture.
You do not need the whole thing-it is 10 minutes…watch as long as you need
Gamelan links: video #1
Required event:
Sunday Dec. 4 – Meet at the DeKooning show at MoMA – We will meet at MoMA at 2:30. You have permission to go to the Macaulay event earlier, so that you can leave in time to get to the museum.
Here is a link to some information about Dekooning and the show at MoMA: click here
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Required Event:
Mon. Dec. 5 – 12:15 – Gamelan Concert in LeFrak Hall
NO CLASS MEETING THIS DAY
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Thur. Dec. 8 – Review/Discussion
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Mon. Dec. 12 –
