Music

This course discusses the organization and planning of musical activities, considering aspects such as spaces, institutions, public, financing, and copyright. 

There is hardly any musical style, genre, or context which has not been significantly affected by the pervasive digitalization of recent decades. From digital audio workstations to computer-generated music, from laptop performances to fan remixes, from cloud computing to commercial distribution channels – digital technology has profoundly changed the ways in which music is produced, performed, disseminated, and consumed. This course examines the nature of these shifts and samples salient and productive intersections of music and technology. Through specific case studies, the course tackles the following questions: How have digital technologies enabled unprecedented modes of making, using and perceiving music? In what ways has digital mediatization shaped our experiences with musical content and style? And how do we reconcile the long-established connections between music, performance and liveness in an era when the paradigm of reproduction seems to be omnipresent? In the first five sessions the course considers the impact of digital technologies on the production of music. After an introducing outline of basic shifts in music and musicianship caused by digitalization and the computer, the course looks at concrete musical examples in order to understand the influence of digital technologies both on the creative process of music making and on the aesthetic reflection on it. The second half of the course starts with exemplary examinations of digital music technologies in music-related genres and domains, such as film, video games, or sound art. At the end of the semester the course extends the scope and considers cultural issues that are entailed by digital possibilities of sharing, disseminating, and consuming music. In particular, we discuss the intertwining of digitization and commodification as well as its impact on the experience of music in everyday life.

In this course, students develop a deeper understanding of the diverse ways in which European imperialism and colonialism changed musical culture in South and Southeast Asia through a detailed, comparative examination of changing contexts for music making in the Indian Ocean region c. 1750–1950. Students focus mainly on British imperialism and colonialism in the Indian subcontinent and the Malayworld; and transition and interplay between cultures, over time, and geographically across the Indian Ocean. Topics may include but are not restricted to different approaches to music and empire; postcolonial and paracolonial; Orientalism and race; circulation; musical knowledge; sound and affect; religion; gender and sexuality; sovereignty and decolonization. 

This class reviews various styles of vocal works. Singing is a core component of the course. 

Embracing voice, music, theatre, poem and visual arts, opera can be considered as a “total” art form. It is endlessly reinvented by a changing society, which it also contributes to shape. Sometimes forbearing political events (some uprisings started in opera houses), often used as propaganda by the rulers of the time (from Louis XIV to Hitler and many others), opera entertains a unique relationship with the political power. During the Age of Enlightenment, opera became at times a vector of subtle social criticism and political utopia. Today, contemporary issues such as the #metoo movement can find their ways into opera staging, not without controversy. This course proposes a cross-thematic journey into opera, power, and politics (history, sociology, and philosophy are also called upon when relevant) from Monteverdi to Mozart, Verdi, Wagner, John Adams and many others, confronting musical works with the dynamics of power. The course examines various video extracts from operas as a basis for discussion and to foster the development of a personal critical perspective on the complex relationship between opera and power.