Composer's Forum is a regular meeting of graduate composers, often along with other members of the Penn composing community, in which recent performances are discussed, musical issues taken up, and visitors occasionally welcomed to present their work or offer master classes. In addition to weekly Forum meetings, students will be paired with a composer for individual lessons in composition. Ph.d. Candidates in Composition in their third year in the program will continue non-credit participation in both forum and lessons.

Seminar in selected compositional problems, with emphasis on written projects. See department website (under course tab) for current term course description: https://music.sas.upenn.edu

This course focuses on theories and models of historical investigation. It explores the historiographies and methodologies of performance studies, opera/dance studies, and theater/drama studies, in their collisions, collusions, and resonances. The term performance signals “a ‘broad spectrum’ or ‘continuum’ of human actions ranging from ritual, play, life performances . . . to the enactment of social, professional, gender, race, and class roles, and on to healing . . . the media, and the internet” (R. Schechner). We will discuss work by (among others) B. Brecht, R. Wagner, A. Artaud, V. Turner, M. Carlson, W.B. Worthen, J. Rancière, J.L. Austin, J. Butler, R. Schneider, E. Fischer-Lichte, H.-T. Lehmann, G. Didi-Huberman, N. André, A. Cavarero, K. Thurman, N. Cook, C. Abbate, D. Levin, and S. McClary, dealing with topics such as agency, performativity, time, materiality, technology and mediation, multimodality, spectatorship, voice, embodiment, dance/movement, the “Baroque,” reconstruction and re-enactment, theatricality, intercultural and postdramatic approaches. Students are expected to elaborate their own critical categories to research performance objects selected not exclusively within the province of opera/dance/theater but also within the range of possibilities investigated by performance studies broadly intended.

This graduate level composition seminar brings active focus to composing for live performers. Class activities and assignments are designed to foster the exploration of what is possible through interpretation and collaboration, as well as how best to anticipate possibilities through notation. Students will study repertoire, both old and new. Course content will vary depending on the instructor. Students may take this course a second time with a different instructor.

In this course, we take drumming seriously as a window onto understanding world history and central human functions like rhythm, temporality, bodily movement, connections, and displacements. But we also try to listen and have fun. Each class includes a discussion of a reading followed by a lecture, listening, and videos. Occasional demonstrations of drumming traditions and/or tutorials (by myself and visitors) will occur in the latter portion of the class, and students are encouraged to pursue ethnographic projects and attend performances. Though the foundations for our course are Western drumming (rock and jazz) and South Asian drumming (Indian and Sri Lankan), we will explore traditions from other regions such as West Africa, the Caribbean, East Asia, and the United States. We consider the entanglement of drumming in religious practices, political protests, noise regulation, theorists of rhythm (such as the philosopher and sociologist Henri LeFebvre), and unique drumming
subcultures like America’s Drum Corps International. This is an advanced seminar, primarily for juniors and seniors who are prepared to engage deeply and critically with a specialized research topic in ethnomusicology. The topic of the seminar is determined by the instructor, and can focus on a particular theoretical concern (for example: postcolonial studies, sound studies, ethnicity, war), and/or on a genre or body of repertoire.

Music 3740 is a Composition Seminar that treats composing as both an end in itself and a means for thinking broadly and speculatively about music. We will work on various compositional techniques through exercises as well as 'free' composition, giving attention to skills as well as to personal voice. We will survey the current musical landscape through listening, analysis and dicussion. The question of musical style itself will be pursued, and while we will be oriented to western art music, we will consider a wide range of styles, including popular music. It is assumed that students will have fluency with musical notation. Prerequisite: Music 171, or permission of the instructor.

We will explore the history of Baroque opera from the vantage point of its beginning and its end: Claudio Monteverdi’s Orfeo (1607) and Christoph Willibald Gluck‘s Orfeo ed Euridice (1762), both works setting into music narratives about the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice as told by Ovid, Virgil, and others. We will discuss not only the historical documents that survive about these two masterworks (scores, librettos, letters etc.) but also today’s productions available in video. Why was the myth of Orpheus central to creators and audiences? What do these two operas and their performances tell us about being human in the world, both back then and today? How do we approach and understand this 400-years old multimedia genre, and why do these works still attract worldwide audiences today? We will also investigate works by Sartorio, Lully, Charpentier, Purcell, Telemann, and Handel. These works are based on poetic texts (“librettos”) thus we will explore text/music issues, focusing on prosody. Students in ITAL/FIGS are not expected to know music (in technical terms) but will have an opportunity to be exposed to poetic texts (in Italian, French, and German) that, by supporting music, function differently from other texts.

An introduction to music and sound recording with a focus on concerts and live performances. The entire process will be examined from start to finish, including the roles played by composers, musicians, listeners, performance spaces, and recording technology. Meetings will take place in the classroom, in concert spaces and in the studio. Music majors and minors will be given preference for registration.

Introduction to and development of principles of tonal voice-leading, harmonic function, counterpoint, and form through written analysis, composition, improvisation, and written work. Course covers diatonic harmony and introduction to chromaticism. Repertoires will focus on Western classical music. Musicianship component will include sight-singing, dictation keyboard harmony. Fulfills College Formal Reasoning and Analysis Foundational Requirement.

Introduction to and development of principles of tonal voice-leading, harmonic function, counterpoint, and form through written analysis, composition, improvisation, and written work. Course covers diatonic harmony and introduction to chromaticism. Repertoires will focus on Western classical music. Musicianship component will include sight-singing, dictation keyboard harmony. Fulfills College Formal Reasoning and Analysis Foundational Requirement.