Contextual Studies Blog
Music Theorist in Residence: Suzannah Clark
On the 25th and 26th of March 2019 I attended a two-day gathering at the Conservatory of Amsterdam, organized by The Dutch-Flemish Society of Music Theory (www.dfsmt.net) in cooperation with The Conservatory of Amsterdam, the University of Amsterdam and KU Leuven University. Special guest was Suzannah Clark of Harvard University. She is well known for her magnificent book Analyzing Schubert (info).
What is a great musician?
In The remains of the day by Kazuo Ishiguro, the butler, Mr. Stevens, reflects upon a fundamental question.
"But let me return to the question that is of genuine interest, this question we so enjoyed debating when our evenings were not spoiled by chatter from those who lacked any fundamental understanding of the profession; that is to say, the question "What is a great butler?"
We can easily replace "great butler" for "great musician" or "musical performance" and then we have questions that can be debated in a similar manner for many many evenings.
Prelude (episode 000)
LET KNOWLEDGE GROW FROM MORE TO MORE
Yes, I am going to start a contextual blog in which I hope to share a lot of interesting material I stumble upon when preparing my lessons and doing research.
I think it can be a nice way to share: you get easy access to relevant sources with a minimum of effort.
Episode 001 will be about a conference I attended last summer in Utrecht. Topics can vary of course. Feel free to make suggestions, and I'll see what I can do.
Summer 2018 I attended a conference of the Koninklijke Vereniging voor Nederlandse Muziekgeschiedenis (KVNM) in Utrecht. It was their 150th anniversary and so they had a good excuse to come up with a special program: Editing the Past was the part I attended. Don't forget to check their anniversary website.
The theme was: The interaction between editors and performers in the world of new digital possibilities.
Editing music in the past, present and future. A lot of information about how ICT opens up new posibilities, indeed "to boldly go where no musician has gone before..." not only in the realm of editing, by the way.