Musical Informance

The information age has pushed music performance into the era of music informance, in which information and performance are combined in an integrated way. The types of presentation formats and analytical information found in public music theory are ideal for music informance, and present-day explorations of informance on the Internet have a history of noted musical informants including Leonard Bernstein and Glenn Gould. In order to continue to be relevant and to thrive in our connected world, live and recorded music scenarios need to develop ever more innovative ways to enhance music performance with information effectively presented in music informance.

«Kaddisch» par Ravel dans les miroirs hermeneutiques. Un miroir sonore infini de l’hebraïque «alas»

"We are proposing to situate Maurice Ravel in a refined poetic aesthetic. Our desire is to offer an original philosophical and musicological perspective on Kaddisch, because, personally, this composition determines us to reflect on what is “beyond” Being. We note that there is a particular Hebraic stylistic continuity at the time, and in this sense we also remember Joseph Achron, on the distinguished Hebrew Melody, op. 33. More than that, Yehudi Menuhin devoted himself playing both the composition of Achron and this special composition by Maurice Ravel on the violin. Maurice Ravel composed a part for the liturgical ceremony entitled Kaddish, and critics claim that he did not introduce this song as a novelty, because the composition already existed in the Hebrew tradition. However, behind that, we try to defend Ravel by observing what are the aesthetic-compositional novelties introduced in this beautiful song. Being a mystical song of a man who mourns death but, at the same time, weeps on infinite love, Kaddisch still let us to find various interpretations, whether it is a liturgical text or sheet music. Advancing with the observations along this paper, in the final part of the paper, we made a comparison between Maurice Ravel and Leonard Bernstein’s perspective on Kaddisch. Keywords: “Kaddisch (Kaddish)”; Maurice Ravel; Leonard Bernstein; Alexander Veprik; Yehudi Menuhin; violin’s aesthetic; metaphysical sadness; sacredness; mournfulness; mourning; the Hebrew-ʻalasʼ; the Portuguese ʻalémʼ. "

Ask the Experts

From the end of World War II through the U.S. Bicentennial, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Ford Foundation granted close to $300 million (approximately $2.3 billion in 2017 dollars) in the field of music alone. In deciding what to fund, these three grantmaking institutions decided to “ask the experts,” adopting seemingly objective, scientific models of peer review and specialist evaluation. They recruited music composers at elite institutions, professors from prestigious universities, and leaders of performing arts organizations. Among the most influential expert-consultants were Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland, Lukas Foss, and Milton Babbitt. The significance was twofold: not only were male, Western art composers put in charge of directing large and unprecedented channels of public and private funds, but also, in doing so, they determined and defined what was meant by artistic excellence. They decided the fate of their peers and shaped the direction of music making in this country. By asking the experts, the grantmaking institutions produced a concentrated and interconnected field of artists and musicians. Officers and directors utilized ostensibly objective financial tools like matching grants and endowments in an attempt to diversify and stabilize applicants’ sources of funding, as well as the number of applicants they funded. Such economics-based strategies, however, relied more on personal connections among the wealthy and elite, rather than local community citizens. Ultimately, this history demonstrates how “expertise” served as an exclusionary form of cultural and social capital that prevented racial minorities and nondominant groups from fully participating.

Small-Screen Singalongs

As the television industry struggled to establish its identity in the late 1940s, it looked across town to Broadway and Tin Pan Alley and embraced the deep-rooted, highly lucrative, popular musical and its music as sources of inspiration. It turned to the familiar sounds of Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Rodgers and Hammerstein, and Leonard Bernstein—music which fueled Broadway ticket sales and the recording industry. Focusing specifically on commercial television’s first decade, 1944–1955, this chapter explores how network programming sought to absorb both the sweeping popularity and cultural legitimacy of the musical genre and Broadway stage in pursuit of much-needed viewers and a more established cultural image or cachet. Further, it explores how visuals were transported from Broadway houses to small screens and how the first glimpses of Broadway on television would emerge as the medium set the stage for decades of small-screen singalongs.

The Power of Gaze in Music. Leonard Bernstein’s Conducting Eyes

The paper argues for the importance and richness of gaze communication during orchestra and choir conduction, and presents three studies on this issue. First, an interview with five choir and orchestra conductors reveals that they are not so deeply aware of the potentialities of gaze to convey indications in music performance. A conductor who was utterly conscious of the importance of gaze communication, however, is Leonard Bernstein, who conducted a performance of Haydn’s Symphony No. 88 using his face and gaze only. Therefore, a fragment of this performance is analyzed in an observational study, where a qualitative analysis singles out the items of gaze exploited by Bernstein and their corresponding meanings. Finally, a perception study is presented in which three of these items are submitted to expert, non-expert, and amateur participants. The results show that while the signal for “start” is fairly recognized, the other two, “pay attention” and “crescendo and accelerando” are more difficult to interpret. Furthermore, significant differences in gaze item recognition emerge among participants: experts not only recognize them more, but they also take advantage of viewing the items with audio-visual vs. video-only presentation, while non-experts do not take advantage of audio in their recognition.

Switched-On Bach and Undesired Fame (1968–1969)

This chapter traces the development and release of Carlos’s first album, Switched-On Bach. Her friendship with producer Rachel Elkind was crucial for the album’s inception. Elkind took the album to Columbia Records and secured the contract. Switched-On Bach was an overnight smash, and everyone from Leonard Bernstein to Hugh Downs wanted to interview Carlos about the Moog synthesizer. Because she had transitioned to female by the time Switched-On Bach was topping the charts, Carlos rarely appeared in public to promote the album. Fearful that she and her music would be ridiculed, she stayed in hiding to protect her safety and her career.

Wendy Carlos

This book is the first full-length biography to be written about the American composer and electronic musician Wendy Carlos (b. 1939). With her debut album, Switched-On Bach, Carlos brought the sound of the Moog synthesizer to a generation of listeners. She not only blazed new trails in electronic music for decades but also intersected with many aspects of American culture during the second half of the twentieth century and well into the twenty-first. Her story features an eclectic cast of characters, including Arthur Bell, Leonard Bernstein, Allan Kozinn, the Kronos Quartet, Stanley Kubrick, Robert Moog, Ron Nelson, Stevie Wonder, and “Weird Al” Yankovic. Carlos’s identity as a transgender woman has shaped many aspects of her life, her career, how she relates to the public, and how the public has received her and her music. Cultural factors surrounding the treatment of transgender people affected many decisions that Carlos has made over the decades. She remained in hiding for more than a decade after she transitioned to female because she feared for her personal safety and professional reputation. Once she disclosed her transition publicly, many journalists and fans began to focus almost exclusively on her gender instead of on her music. Eventually she retreated again, giving very few interviews and never speaking about her gender on record. The fact that she is transgender is just one dimension of her story, however. This text presents her life as completely as is currently possible and relates her life to many dimensions of American culture.