Spring

The 100-member University Symphony Orchestra presents an ambitious season of six major concerts per year (two each quarter). Known for its imaginative presentations of unusual repertoire as well as for its powerful performances of major symphonic literature, the University Symphony opens each year with a costumed Halloween concert-a family-friendly event enhanced by storytelling, dancing, and special effects-and closes with a celebratory year-end collaboration with the combined choirs. Repertoire generally encompasses 19th- and 20th-century works written for large orchestral forces, including masterpieces by Beethoven, Brahms, Dvorák, Mahler, Shostakovich, Sibelius, Vaughan Williams, and more. In recent years the USO has presented several silent films with live orchestral accompaniment, including Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin, and performed with acclaimed professional soloists every season. USO string sections are coached by the Pacifica Quartet. Membership is chosen on the basis of competitive auditions, and includes both undergraduate and graduate students, faculty and staff, alumni, and some community members.

The Rockefeller Chapel Choir and its professional subset, the Decani, sing at Sunday services and festivals throughout the academic year and also in Rockefeller's signature Quire & Place concert series, presenting major works from the entire historical canon, lesser-known gems, and the premières of new work by distinguished composers. The choir's members come from diverse spiritual and cultural backgrounds, sharing together the rich musical experience of singing an array of choral music in the unique religious and cultural contexts of a chapel to which students of all world traditions are drawn.

The Women's Ensemble is made up primarily of undergraduate women at the University of Chicago. We explore classical repertoire from the Medieval era up through the present day and music from polyphonic singing traditions across the world, including South Africa, Zimbabwe, the Republic of Georgia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Sweden, and Norway, as well as a variety of American singing traditions. Through diverse repertoire, we strive to bring our voices together in powerful ways.

As the premier undergraduate choral ensemble at the University of Chicago, the Motet Choir accepts 28-36 singers each year. Concentrating on a cappella masterworks of all periods, this polished vocal ensemble specializes in music of the Renaissance and also performs historically and culturally diverse repertoire ranging from Gregorian chant to gospel standards. The Motet Choir presents at least three major concerts per year (one each quarter) and sings at convocations and special events on campus and throughout the Chicago area. The ensemble goes on tour every second year, often during the University's spring break.

The University Chorus is the largest vocal ensemble on campus. Its season includes an annual production of Handel's Messiah as well as presentations of choral masterworks such as Berlioz's Roméo et Juliette, Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, and Verdi's Messa da requiem. Among its 80 to 100 members are undergraduates, graduates, faculty and staff members, and singers from the Hyde Park and University community: The result is a wonderfully diverse group of vocalists, collaborating in performances of monuments of the literature. The University Chorus presents three to four concerts per season, culminating in a festive year-end performance with the combined choirs and the University Symphony Orchestra.

This seminar will take a critical look into the role of electronics in contemporary music-making and transdisciplinary art creation. We will pay special attention to the increasing democratization of music composition, performance, and improvisation through the advent of new technology that gives people of varying musical backgrounds a heretofore unprecedented palette of sonic colors and transformative audio signal processes with which they can express themselves musically. Extensive readings, listenings, and viewings will uncover how electronics have been instrumental in facilitating cooperation across artistic and scientific disciplines, leading to works of collaborative art that foster a spirit of mutual discovery and growth, and that can challenge tradition and dogma. Furthermore, we will explore how advancements in artificial intelligence and machine learning are leading to automated improvisation machines, providing an extra layer of complexity to performers who engage in improvisation, as well as a companion to those practicing the craft.

The seminar explores musical embodiments of a scriptural book, which has stood in the midst of rich theological and philosophical debates, within and between two religious universes. The seminar’s title paraphrases a major moment in the book: when God reveals himself to Job the sufferer, from the whirlwind. That was a powerful, boisterous moment. Combined with other audible articulations strewn throughout the book, it has opened itself up to a plethora of sonic imaginaries, suggested and elaborated in the course of its long durée. Inspired by the book, the seminar aims to probe the aesthetic theology of sound, noise and silence. We will study its manifestations in poetic, oratorical, pictorial, choreographic and cinematic embodiments of the book, from early times to the present day. We will focus mainly on modern expressions, which, while referring to ancient and medieval legacies, respond to contemporary plights and aporias. The figure of the suffering Job, at times the patron saint of music, will shed new light on the cultural connections among music, heresy, compassion, and consolation. Methodological considerations will be highlighted in each class, crossing disciplinary borders, periods and media.

We will focus on the status and analysis of music documentaries concerning, for example, musicians/groups, styles, instruments, historical periods, recording labels. One of our primary aims will be to determine how such films stand both in relation to other films (including so-called biopics) and in relation to other representations of musicians in images and words. Relatedly, we will be concerned with the technical and narrative strategies of directors, editors and script writers: e.g., the relative merits of location recording vis-à-vis studio environments; the use of confessional and “talking head” interviews; approaches for including performance footage; editing strategies; choice of film stock; and the like. In the end, our brief will be to understand how such filmic portraits reinforce and complicate notions of authorship/creativity, labor, economy, identity and value.