Music and the Coronavirus

Catalog description

Music is a central part of our emotional and social lives, and a rich vehicle for understanding the cultures and societies that bring it into being. The COVID-19 pandemic has transformed all of these contexts, thereby transforming the ways in which we create and experience music. This course will investigate the practical effects of these changes, but also ask: What can we learn about the coronavirus from music? And, what can these changes teach us about music itself? We will investigate the way music has been used as inspiration, solace, resistance, drug, distraction, and source of energy from the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis, as well as the devastating ways the coronavirus has impacted the music industry, from classical orchestras to street musicians. The end of the course may coincide with the end of the crisis, and with any luck we will be able to consider musical responses to Covid’s demise as well as its onset. This course is part of the NYU Big Ideas Series.