Latest News - May 2023
Online sessions - May 22 (Monday), 20-22hRoll on Adorno: A reconsideration of the "new music" in the analysis class, by John Koslovsky en Ralf Pisters(the zoomlink for this session was sent to the VvM members by email)For more than a century, the idea of "new music" (neue Musik) has had an enormous influence on music theory education. As a cry that took hold in the first decades of the twentieth century (if not earlier), and which underwent a full-fledged philosophical exegesis in Theodor Adorno's 1949 book Philosophie der neuen Musik, the phrase "new music" still forms the intellectual backbone for many university and conservatory curriculum, especially in Europe. Another, more recent and Anglo-American oriented expression that similarly demonstrates a particular approach toward new-music is the so-called "post-tonal" analysis. Although milder in tone, the expression "post-tonal" also cultivates a certain mindset about teaching new music in the classroom, as well as a set of beliefs about the course of Western art music since the nineteenth century.
Without forgetting their philosophical and theoretical consequences, the concepts of "new" and "post-tonal" music have far-reaching implications for how we teach the analysis of music in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Among other things, they create a certain historiographical, methodological and aesthetic mindset, and significantly influence the types of repertoire and concepts we bring into the music theory classroom. In other words, while the "new"/"post-tonal" music curriculum offers a stable canon of works and a more or less workable approach, it lacks the infinitely broader and more eclectic forms of composition and music-making that have characterized the classical tradition (in a broad sense) for the past 120 years. As with any curriculum, time is essential, so the question soon arises of what can be done to cope with the explosive multiplicity of classical music since around 1900, while maintaining didactic and methodological coherence in the classroom. At the Conservatory of Amsterdam, we are currently working on a new core curriculum that seeks to both expand and diversify the range of courses for classical music of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. To this end, we have charted a course that places the notions of "new" and "post-tonal" music in their proper artistic and intellectual context, and allows students to choose different routes through the music of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, not only for analysis but also for music history. In our colloquium, we will discuss the ideas behind this recent methodological and curricular shift, explain the broad contours of the curriculum, and outline the opportunities and challenges ahead in implementing it. We will also look back on the first year of implementing this new curriculum. Several CvA teachers will be present to share with members their experiences so far. Finally, in an open discussion we would like to hear members' opinions about our approach, as well as the ways in which the variety of music from the 20th and 21st centuries is handled at other institutions. |
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UPCOMING EVENTS
May 22 - Online session (20h), Roll on Adorno: A reconsideration of the "new music" in the analysis class, by John Koslovsky en Ralf Pisters Spring 2024 - VvM's 25th anniversary Conference: "Off the beaten track" |