Latest Blog Posts
Using science to measure expressivity
A fascinating video about how musicians communicate expressivity, discussed here on the website “brainpickings.” The interplay between music and emotion, which we explored on Monday with 7 must-read books on the subject, is undeniable. But if most of us ordinary people are so powerfully affected by music, we can only imagine what that experience must […]
In the middle of the music
International award winning University of Maryland:
Congrats to University of Maryland & Houston
Two American University Choirs did very well in the 2011 Florilege Vocal de Tours Competition last week: The University of Maryland and the University of Houston. Maryland was directed by Edward Maclary who also won the prestigious "Prix du Chef de choeur" – an award given to a conductor for his expert direction […]
Crowd-sourcing a google doc – collaboration at conferences
This is a great idea for taking notes at conferences or for students in your classes: using one google document with multiple editors. I just read about this on the Chronicle for Higher Education Website, but I’ve advocated it for a couple of years: Just minutes before my lightning talk, I created a relatively simple […]
Bach in New York
I was in New York City over Memorial Day and stumbled upon a terrific concert of Bach cantatas by Julian Wachner and the Trinity Choir from Trinity Wall Street church. What a concert! They were superb – excellent singing, crisp diction, outstanding orchestra. They are putting on a series called Bach @ One […]
Iranian choral sighting
Following up on my earlier post about Arabic choral music, ChoralNet user John Neal points me to the Tehran Vocal Ensemble: Of course, they perform primarily in Farsi and English, not Arabic. John points to the mixed genders of the ensemble; maybe Iranian culture isn’t as oppressive as news media makes it seem? They’ve […]
ACDA Moves Into Strategic Planning
Important administrative audits inside institutional life are always in danger of becoming the victim of benign neglect, and discussions about what some would call “administrivia” can become the object of clichés or relegated to the cynical domain of “buzzwords.” In my academic life, corporate-speak that spilled over into academic-speak, often attempted innovation, but also created […]
Looking forward to hearing Beethoven’s 10th symphony
The Chronicle of Higher Education reports on a challenge to the 1994 Mickey Mouse protection act which extended copyright terms and retroactively re-copyrighted some works which had passed into public domain: The dispute that led to Golan v. Holder dates to 1994, when Congress passed a law that moved vast amounts of material from the public domain […]
Memorial Day — Dona nobis pacem
For Memorial Day, an excerpt of Vaughan Williams' setting of Wildred Owen Walt Whitman's poetry, sung by the Atlanta Symphony chorus, conducted by Robert Shaw: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zfHiloldtg
Arabic choral sighting?
Periodically we get requests on ChoralNet’s forums by well-meaning directors who want to be inclusive of a variety of traditions and include some Arabic music in their programs. The usual answer is that there really isn’t any choral music in Arabic. There has never been any significant tradition of choral music in Arabic-speaking countries, and […]