UChicago Music Notes Vol. 3

UChicago Music Notes: Department of Music Newsletter

This week, we share the unique ways a graduate student instructor is adapting her course for an online environment, we announce a streaming lecture series by Department faculty, and we bring you a streaming concert of Harlem Stride via UChicago Presents. Plus, UChicago Presents Executive Director Amy Iwano shares the music that has been bringing her comfort during this time.

Thumbnail image showing two screenshots of Ailsa Lipscombe in a video recorded lecture

Responsive Teaching: Redefining Instruction in an Unfamiliar Environment

When the University of Chicago was one of the first U.S. universities to announce on March 12 that instruction in Spring 2020 would be moving online, the question on everyone’s mind was How do I move an entire course from the classroom to the computer? For fifth year PhD candidate Ailsa Lipscombe, the task was even greater: How do I teach a course solo for the first time in an entirely new learning and instructional environment?

Lecture Series – Music Revealed

Public Musicology: Department brings streaming lecture series to Facebook Live

The University of Chicago Department of Music is excited to announce the launch of a streaming humanities lecture series titled Music Revealed. With multimedia presentations delivered via Facebook Live, University of Chicago Music Faculty will peel back the layers on the history, theory, and anthropology of music.

The first lecture features Assistant Professor of Music Jennifer Iverson on Friday, May 8 at 4:30 pm. Professor Martha Feldman presents on May 15, and Professor Philip V. Bohlman takes the virtual stage on May 22.

Aaron Diehl headshot between two open grand pianos

UChicago Presents brings concert stream of Harlem Stride with pianist Aaron Diehl – Friday, May 1 at 7pm CDT

Aaron Diehl – who, as a pianist equally at home in classical and jazz, is the epitome of a multi-faceted musician – connects the history of stride piano and Harlem rent parties to our current time with a streaming concert featuring compositions by James P. Johnson, Thomas “Fats” Waller, Willie “the Lion” Smith, and other luminaries from the 1920’s.

Cover art for Beethoven: Complete Violin and Piano Sonatas with Isabelle Faust and Alexander Melnikov showing Alexander Melnikov and Isabelle Faust next to each other in black and white

What are you listening to? Amy Iwano, Executive Director of UChicago Presents

Beethoven: Complete Sonatas for Violin and Piano

"I’ve been listening to Isabelle Faust and Alexander Melnikov’s Beethoven: Complete Sonatas for piano & violin. Beethoven feels necessary during this time; his music is fortifying, reassuring, and comforting, reflecting a wide range of emotions – distemper and disapprobation, tenderness and passion, and Faust and Melnikov perform the music with great sensitivity, intensity, joy, and beauty."