Reflections on the Errant Voices Conference, April 2022 Consider the adjective “errant.” The word might describe a misbehaving child careening through the galleries of the Uffizi in Florence, Italy, or a knight cresting the peak of a mountain in search of his dragon. An errant traveler might be pursuing a high-minded purpose or wandering aimlessly. They might be naughty or noble, resolute or dreamy, discreet or disruptive. As initially theorized by the Martinican writer and theorist Édouard Glissant in his 1990 book, Poetics of Relation, errantry is rhizomatic, a biological term that refers to ..read more

On the evening of August 8, 2008, the Buskirk-Chumley Theater of Bloomington, Indiana, opened its doors for the premiere of ¡Únicamente la verdad! (Only the Truth), the first opera by Mexican composer Gabriela Ortiz (b. 1964). The work is a video-opera that was announced as the authentic story of Camelia la Texana, the main character of Los Tigres del Norte’s classic narcocorrido (drug ballad) “Contrabando y traición” (Smuggling and Betrayal). The opera’s libretto was written by the composer’s brother, Rubén Ortiz Torres (b. 1964), a visual artist based in San Diego, California, and the premie ..read more

Conferences are inflection points: moments where energies come together and reflect outward in new directions. The following is a report of the May 2022 “Ruptures and Convergences” Conference, hosted by the Music Studies and the Anthropocene Research Network. In the following recap of conference proceedings, I frame the comings and goings of energies with two sections that meditate on intersections of music and environmentalism. This review is intended as a partial state of the field, as journal entries, and as prompts for further action.  Past Presents/ce Pandemic-era concerns with racia ..read more

In this conversation, the first of a multi-part interview series with performers, scholars, and pedagogues of early music, historically informed performance, and related topics, David Miller spoke with conductor, instrumentalist, and musicologist Joshua Rifkin. A transcript is provided for increased accessibility. As a conductor and performer on various keyboard instruments, Rifkin has recorded the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, The Beatles, Antoine Busnois, Scott Joplin, Silvestre Revueltas, and many others. He is renowned for his leadership of groundbreaking one-on-a-part performances of B ..read more

The international attention Ukraine has received in the 270 days since Russia’s full-scale invasion of its sovereign neighbor is unprecedented. The world has never before shown such support for and interest in Ukrainian culture, including the world of the performing arts. Countless benefit concerts have been organized by high-profile orchestras, opera houses, and concert halls from the Metropolitan Opera in New York City to the Perth Concert Hall in Australia. Many of these events, limited no doubt by the urgency of the situation, feature the performance of frequently performed works of Wester ..read more

Ed. note: This essay is an offshoot from a lecture originally presented as the AMS Committee on Women and Gender Annual Endowed Lecture. Fred Maus and Tes Slominski read responses to that spoken delivery. These are also available to read (Maus; Slominski). I am grateful for the opportunity to collaborate with Andrea Bohlman. Together we nudged the original lecture to its present exploratory, experiential edge. Starting Trouble Warning: This presentation juxtaposes fragmented gestures, stories, media, and commercial interruptions. It is experimental and engages Jack Halberstam’s “the queer art ..read more

We are perhaps the only musicologists to have made it onto the front page of the National Enquirer, a newspaper that was the nation’s most renowned scandal-sheet for many decades. The story of our extended research trip in the late 1970s that led, in part, to that brief moment of notoriety, is one that we have decided to share with interested readers now that we are both retired from our academic posts (though still active as publishing scholars). More than 45 years ago, the two of us, junior faculty members at the University of Rochester’s Eastman School of Music, picked up the scent of an al ..read more

This is a story about ambition and struggle, success and failure, hubris and humility. It’s a story about the way a new pedagogy can change the teacher as much as the students. It starts with a song. I can’t remember where I first encountered Harry T. Burleigh’s 1917 arrangement of the spiritual “Go Down, Moses”—it may have been at a family Passover seder when I was young—but I now teach it in as many different undergraduate courses as I can. Teaching this song to non-majors and majors in classes large and small, I’ve found that “Go Down, Moses” offers diverse points of entry for students with ..read more

On May 14, 2017, while waiting to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin was filmed playing two Soviet-era popular tunes on a grand piano: Solov’ev Sodoy’s “Evening Song,” a famous melody in St. Petersburg (the song’s lyrics refer to the city by its Soviet-era name, Leningrad), and Titon Khrennikov’s “Moscow Windows,” a song about friendship. When Putin was ridiculed for his renditions in the Western media for their technical inadequacy, he responded by saying, “It is a pity that the piano was out of tune.”  Putin has expressed political ideas through mus ..read more

What of music in the time of war? It is not a new question, but a question whose answers unfold along complex and specific paths. In the eighteen days since the Russian government’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, music and musicians have been part of many of this war’s unfolding stories. Here are just a few: War reporters have borne witness to musicians on the front lines. Musical networks, including abroad, have enabled artists to flee, join in military resistance, and otherwise participate in humanitarian aid. Some have compiled albums, the proceeds of which go toward humanitarian relie ..read more