We are delighted to announce the next Workshop in our Fall schedule:

Sarah Iker, Ph. D. Student in Music History and Theory
“Familiar, Yet Strange: Analyzing Stravinsky’s Neoclassicism”
Wednesday, October 24 @4:30 PM
Logan Center for the Arts, 8th floor seminar room (**NOTE THE VENUE CHANGE**)

ABSTRACT :

The goal of this project is to develop alternate analytical techniques that more adequately capture contemporary listeners’ phenomenal experience of the neoclassical works by Stravinsky. Because this music tends to be “tonal” in some sense, and maintains some clear relationship to “classical” norms, it seems to lend itself well to analytical approaches that highlight both how this music works (harmonically and rhythmically) in similar yet different ways to the classical music it references.

Because many listener responses (both contemporary and current) to this music include words such as “vertigo,” “wrong-note harmonies,” and other such words that indicate that there is something off-kilter or off-putting about this music, this analytical project will attempt to mediate between phenomenal experience and the sense that this music is in some way familiar to most enculturated listeners who are aware of the neoclassical references. This project presents new work in the sense that most analytical approaches to the music of these composers tend to (perhaps too neatly) redefine tonality in order to produce convincing Schenkerian sketches, or deconstruct the work in terms of its set-theoretic properties, thus focusing on subsuming unfamiliar elements in tonal hierarchies, or destabilizing the familiar by focusing on nontraditional pitch-collections. By contrast, this project will, through analytical vignettes and careful mediation of phenomenological and historical concerns, attempt to present a more nuanced understanding of this music’s familiar yet off-putting tonal and rhythmic elements.

We ask that all attendees read the pre-circulated paper (available here), and listen to the first and second movements of Stravinsky’s Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments (recordings here).

Refreshments will be served at 4:15.

We look forward to an engaging conversation!

Marcy & Dan

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Those needing additional assistance to attend or participate in this event should contact one of the student coordinators, Marcy Pierson (mcpierson@uchicago.edu) or Dan Wang (dyw@uchicago.edu).

If you require the password for the pre-circulated material, or if you would like to be added to the listhost, please contact Marcy or Dan. Alternatively, you may add yourself to the listhost here.