Playing and Thinking About Western Chamber Music

Catalog description

In this arts workshop we will read and write about, listen to, and most importantly, play examples of Western (i.e. "classical") chamber music from the Renaissance to the twenty-first century. "We will also talk about the roles that chamber music has played historically and socially, in settings ranging from the palace to the church to the living room to the subway platform. We will ask what it has meant politically and socially, and we will explore what it has meant on the edges of and outside of Western traditions. "Music will include pieces by composers such as Monteverdi, Gabrielli, Mozart, Haydn, Strauss, Ives, and John Cage. Topics for discussion will include thinking about chamber music through the lens of aesthetics, Marxism, feminism, postcolonialism, and postmodernism. Readings will be historical and critical and may include works by Kofi Agawu, Eduard Hanslick, Susan McClary, Theodor Adorno, Joseph Kerman, Lawrence Kramer, Leo Treitler and others. This class will offer a low pressure and supportive environment in which to rehearse and work together on pieces of music using small groups of musicians. The class may also attend a concert or visit instrument or music manuscript collections at area museums.