Penn Music Colloquium Series

The Department of Music's main Colloquium Series showcases new research by leading scholars in music and sound studies and composers both in the United States and internationally.  All Music Colloquia takes place in Room 101 of the Lerner Center on Tuesdays at 5:15 PM.

 

Fall 2022

September 13: Cesar Favila, Assistant Professor of Musicology, University of California, Los Angelos

November 1: Alejandra Bronfman, Professor of Latin American, Caribbean & U.S. Latino Studies, SUNY Albany

December 6: Wadada Leo Smith, Trumpeter and Composer

Spring 2023

January 24: Richard Wicksteed, Cinematographer and Director

February 21: Yun Emily Wang, Assistant Professor of Music, Duke University

February 28: Marcos Balter, Professor of Musical Composition, Columbia University

March 14: Huda J. Fakhreddine, Associate Professor of Arabic Language, University of Pennsylvania

April 4: Ioanida Costache, Ethnomusicologist and Mellon Fellow in the Humanities, University of Pennsylvania

Upcoming Events

Schedule TBA. Please check back later.

Past Events



Dr. Ioanida Costache

Hearing Romani-ness: Affect, Subjectivity, and Musical Histories
Apr 4, 2023 at - | Penn Music Building - Lerner 101, 201 S. 34th Street

Dr. Ioanida Costache is an ethnomusicologist and sound studies scholar specializing in Romani artist practices. Her work explores the legacies of Romani historical trauma, and the feminist and de-colonial critiques of the present, inscribed in Romani music, sound, and art.



Huda Fakhreddine

Umm Kulthum and the Arabic Qasidah: Selection, Curation, and Performance
Mar 28, 2023 at - | Penn Music Building - Lerner 101, 201 S. 34th Street

In this lecture, Dr. Huda Fakhreddine will discuss Umm Kulthum, the celebrated Egyptian singer who is one of the most successful re-animators of the Arabic qas̩īda in the twentieth century.



Marcos Balter

Recent Compositions
Feb 28, 2023 at - | Penn Music Building - Lerner 101, 201 S. 34th Street

As part of the 2022-23 Penn Music Colloquium Series, the Penn Music Department presents Marcos Balter, Fritz Reiner Professor of Musical Composition at Columbia University, to discuss his recent works.



Yun Emily Wang

Listening Incommensurably: Sounding “out” and Queer Taiwanese Toronto’s Multiple Sexual Modernities
Feb 21, 2023 at - | Penn Music Building - Lerner 101, 201 S. 34th Street

In this talk, Yun Emily Wang will present her paper that draws on fieldwork from 2013 to 2018 (the pivotal years during which Taiwan became the first Asian country to legalized same-sex marriage) and traces how a group of queer Taiwanese immigrants listen to and for multiple incommensurable sexual modernities in Toronto.



Richard Wicksteed

Making the documentary "SanDance!" in the context of San life in southern Africa today
Jan 24, 2023 at - | Penn Music Building - Lerner 101, 201 S. 34th Street

SanDance! celebrates the ancient dance and musical culture of San/Bushman peoples in southern Africa, focusing on the trance healing dance at the core of San cultural expression. The award-winning film features San dance groups rehearsing in remote areas in the Kalahari in preparation for performance at the annual Kuru Dance Festival in Botswana, and follows them to performance at the festival. Richard will discuss the making of the film itself, and San dance culture, in the context of the historical oppression and ongoing marginalization of San culture across southern Africa.



Wadada Leo Smith

Dec 6, 2022 at - | Penn Music Building - Lerner 101, 201 S. 34th Street

Wadada Leo Smith joins us as part of this year's Penn Music Colloquium Series. Smith will play excerpts and exhibit sections from scores that illustrate what the  “sonic-field” looks and sounds like. This information will demonstrate the why and what conditioned him to focus on composing string quartets for over fifty years.



Alejandra Bronfman

Vibroacústica: Music and Remediated Violence in Puerto Rico
Nov 1, 2022 at - | Penn Music Building - Lerner 101, 201 S. 34th Street