Longyear Musicology Lecture: Margaret Murata, University of California, Irvine
Friday, October 19, 2007, 3:30 PM
Niles Gallery, Lucille Little Fine Arts Library
Free and open to the public

Margaret Murata, Professor of Musicology at the University of California, Irvine, is one of the top specialists in the Italian cantata. She has served as Vice President of the American Musicological Society and President of the Society for Seventeenth-Century Music. She has published widely on music of seventeenth-century Italy. She will speak on "Other and Self in the Italian Cantata."

Colloquium: A Conversation with Nick Collins
Friday, November 16, 2007, 3:30 PM
Niles Gallery, Lucille Little Fine Arts Library
Free and open to the public

Nicolas Collins (b. 1954, New York City) is an experimental composer who is currently the chair of the Sound Department of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago as well as the Editor in Chief of Leonardo Music Journal since 1998. He studied musical composition with Alvin Lucier at Wesleyan University, worked for many years with David Tudor, and has collaborated with numerous soloists and ensembles around the world. As a composer he has helped pioneer the use of quirky hybrids of high and low technology in live performance. He has long been active as a curator of concerts and sound installations. Through his teacher Lucier he met and worked with John Cage, David Tudor, Christian Wolff, Robert Ashley and Gordon Mumma. Co-sponsored by the Department of Art.

Longyear Musicology Lecture: Tom Riis, University of Colorado, Boulder
Friday, January 25, 2008, 3:30 PM
Niles Gallery, Lucille Little Fine Arts Library
Free and open to the public

Behind the Scenes with Frank Loesser: The Business of Broadway in the Golden Age

Guest Lecture/Performance: “Music in Medieval Spain’s Three Cultures: Christian, Jewish, Muslim"
Sunday, February 03, 2008, 7:00 PM
Niles Gallery, Lucille Caudill Little Fine Arts Library
Free and open to the public

Judith R. Cohen is a performer and ethnomusicologist specializing in Judeo-Spanish ("Ladino") Sephardic songs, as well as in medieval and traditional music, including Balkan, Portuguese, Yiddish, and French Canadian, pan-European balladry, and songs from Crypto-Jewish regions of the Portuguese-Spanish border. She is the General Editor for the Spain series of the Alan Lomax project, carried out with the Association for Cultural Equity and Rounder Records. Dr. Cohen is on the faculty of York University (Toronto). Co-sponsored by the Division of Musicology (Rey M. Longyear Fund), the Department of History, the Department of Hispanic Studies, and the Judaic Studies Program.

Guest Lecture/Performance: "Women and Music in the Sephardic Tradition"
Monday, February 04, 2008, 12:00 PM
Niles Gallery, Lucille Little Fine Arts Library
Free and open to the public

Judith R. Cohen is a performer and ethnomusicologist specializing in Judeo-Spanish ("Ladino") Sephardic songs, as well as in medieval and traditional music, including Balkan, Portuguese, Yiddish, and French Canadian, pan-European balladry, and songs from Crypto-Jewish regions of the Portuguese-Spanish border. She is the General Editor for the Spain series of the Alan Lomax project, carried out with the Association for Cultural Equity and Rounder Records. Dr. Cohen is on the faculty of York University (Toronto). Co-sponsored by the Division of Musicology (Rey M. Longyear Fund), the Department of History, the Department of Hispanic Studies, and the Judaic Studies Program.

Guest Lecture: Chiung-Chi Chen
Tuesday, February 05, 2008, 3:00 PM
Niles Gallery, Lucille Little Fine Arts Library
Free and open to the public

"Sounding the Unsung Voices: Performance Practice of Ritual Opera in Contemporary Taiwan." Chiung-Chi Chen is a recent recipient of the Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology from U.C.L.A., and currently holds a post-doctoral fellowship at U.C. Santa Cruz.

Longyear Musicology Lecture: Kyle Gann, Bard College
Friday, February 08, 2008, 3:30 PM
Niles Gallery, Lucille Little Fine Arts Library
Free and open to the public

Author of "The Music of Conlon Nancarrow" (Cambridge University Press, 1995), "American Music in the 20th Century" (Schirmer Books, 1997), and "Music Downtown: Writings from the Village Voice" (University of California Press, 2006).

Guest Lecture: Donna Kwan
Tuesday, February 12, 2008, 3:00 PM
Niles Gallery, Lucille Little Fine Arts Library
Free and open to the public

“Korean Expressive Folk Culture in Transmission: Cultivating a Communal Way-of-Being in the Madang.” Donna Kwan is a recent recipient of the Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology from U.C. Berkeley, and is currently Visiting Assistant Professor at Lawrence University.

Guest Lecture: Julia Byl
Thursday, February 21, 2008, 3:00 PM
Niles Gallery, Lucille Little Fine Arts Library
Free and open to the public

“Retreating Borders: Musical Islam in an Unconverted Land.” Julia Byl is a recent recipient of the Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology from the University of Michigan.

Guest Lecture and Performance: Gail Zappa and A Zappa Tribute Concert
Friday, March 14, 2008, 7:30 PM
Singletary Center for the Arts - Concert Hall
Free and open to the public

The South-Central Chapter of the American Musicological Society, the University of Kentucky School of Music, and the John Jacob Niles Center for American Music present an evening devoted to the music of Frank Zappa. His widow, Gail Zappa will present a talk, “Some Composers Do Not Enjoy Water Sports . . .” The lecture will be followed by "A Zappa Tribute: Inspirations and Music of American Composer Frank Zappa,” performed by the University of Kentucky Chamber Winds, Michael Yonchak conductor.

The program will include:

• Ionisation, Varese
• Octet, Stravinsky
• Dog Breath Variations, Zappa
• Envelopes, Zappa
• G-Spot Tornado, Zappa

Longyear Musicology Lecture: Steven Huebner, McGill University
Friday, March 28, 2008, 3:30 PM
Niles Gallery, Lucille Little Fine Arts Library
Free and open to the public

"Ravel's Politics." Huebner is the author of "The Operas of Charles Gounod" (Clarendon, 1990) and "French Opera at the Fin de siècle: Wagnerism, Nationalism, and Style" (Oxford, 1999; winner of the Prix Opus 2000).

His many articles and reviews have appeared in such journals as Nineteenth Century Music, Journal of the American Musicological Society, Cambridge Opera Journal, Music and Letters, Journal of the Royal Musical Association as well as in several collections of essays in English, French and Italian. His article "Zola the Sower" was winner of the 2002 Westrup Prize. Recent essays include: "'Le Hollandais fantôme': Ideology and Dramturgy in d'Indy's L'Etranger," "'Striptease' as Ideology," "Ravel's Child: Magic and Moral Development," "Maurice Ravel: Private Life, Public Works." Huebner is program chair for the national meeting of the American Musicological Society in 2008 and was recently appointed editor of Cambridge Opera Journal. His Ph.D. was granted by Princeton University in 1985; since then he has taught at McGill University in Montreal.

Doctoral lecture recital: Alexandre Lopes
Sunday, April 13, 2008, 7:00 PM
Niles Gallery, Lucille Little Fine Arts Library
Free and open to the public

Lopes will discuss the orchestral works of Ernani Aguiar, a contemporary Brazilian composer.