Lecture/Demo

D.M.A. in Composition candidate Laura Steenberge defends her dissertation, Writing on the Wind: Composing Nature and the Supernatural.

Stefano Aresi will lead this workshop devoted to the vocal performance of music by Nicola Porpora (1686–1768), the Neapolitan composer of Baroque operas and voice instructor known for teaching the castrato Farinelli.

Stefano Aresi has a Doctoral degree in Musicology from University of Pavia.

This CSA Weekly Lecture will be presented by Dr. Mitch Numark, Associate Professor in the Department of History at California State University, Sacramento.

Sound is about much more than the ears. We hear with our brains, for it is our brains that make sense of sound. Making sense of sound is accomplished by a vast distributed and integrated system of cognition, sensation, and reward — and in this system, the brain-to-ear connections are just as pervasive and important as the ear-to-brain connections. Consequently, our life in sound shapes us deeply — as a musician or a speaker of two languages on the one hand, or as an aging adult or an individual with a language disorder on the other.

Schoenberg’s 1913 Scandal Concert at Vienna’s Musikverein earned its name when a fight broke out and the concert had to be stopped, resulting in multiple arrests. The audience complained that the music was more noise than music and therefore unfit for a concert hall; Schoenberg and his circle argued that it was illegal for an audience to make that kind of noise in a concert hall. This paper considers a notorious scandal concert within the context of the burgeoning anti-noise movement in Central Europe.

Samuel Zygmuntowicz's talk, The Strad3D Project, highlights a September 2006 meeting of leading scientists and violinmakers – along with three great Cremonese violins – for the first-ever 3D laser vibration scans of violins, plus CT scans and analysis.

Legendary Latin music pianist / arranger Oscar Hernández will be giving a free noontime talk, “The Essence of Latin Music," sharing his insights into the idiom and his career, followed by a Q&A session. Lunch will be provided at noon (RSVP is required).

Jayson Beaster-Jones is an ethnomusicologist whose work focuses upon the music industry of India.

John Bischoff will present a prepared slideshow outlining his musical history and approach to electronic music, followed by a discussion of recent pieces, both solo and for computer network band. At the conclusion of his talk, he will perform a set of solo works that incorporate a custom analog circuit of his own design. As he activates the circuit, the resulting sounds are analyzed in real-time and used to inform an extended computer-synthesis response.