Behind the Peake

On this episode of Behind the Peake, Associate Professor of Music History Sarah Williams chats with musicologist and pianist Bonny Miller author of Augusta Browne: Composer and Woman of Letters in Nineteenth-Century America (Boydell & Brewer, 2020).  This wide-ranging discussion touches on the landscape of feminist musicology, who decides what is good music and great music, the challenges of archival research and independent scholarship, and how we can get "more seats at the table" of the Western classical canon. 

Recent Masters of Music in Music History graduates April Balay and Kayla Low discuss the joys and challenges of completing coursework and a major research thesis in two years, how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted their graduate studies, and how to persevere with large-scale writing projects. April discusses her thesis on nostalgic trends in American popular music in the 20th and 21st centuries in times of cultural upheaval. Kayla's thesis explored the legacy of 18th-century flautist Johann Joachim Quantz and the reasons for the reverence of his treatise yet the absence of his pieces from programming on contemporary degree recitals.  

Composer Meira Warshauer (Columbia, SC) and marine scientist and artist Bonnie Monteleone (Wilmington, NC) discuss art, music, and environmental advocacy as well as their collaborative work. Their art and music will be showcased at the University of South Carolina’s Southern Exposure New Music Series on October 27, 2022 with the performance of Meira’s Ocean Calling Trilogy and Bonnie’s art installation What Goes Around Comes Around. Find out more at meriawarshauer.com and plasticoceanproject.org. 

Dr. Sarah Williams interviews Dr. Amanda Eubanks Winkler (Syracuse University)  about her project uncovering the role music, dance, and drama played in English schools during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Eubanks Winkler discusses the reach of archival materials in recreating historical narratives and how performance can help fill the gaps.  

Dr. Greg Stuart interviews Dr. Marianna Ritchey about her book Composing Capital: Classical Music in the Neoliberal Era (Chicago, 2019). They discuss the ways in which the current neoliberal regime uses classical music to serve its institutional structures and goals, and how artists and composers align themselves with the free market ideology. Ritchey shows us how, by blurring the line between creativity and entrepreneurship, current classical music serves capitalism and suggests a way forward in which music can divorce itself from its role as commodity. 

Dr. Alexandria Carrico and opera composer Frances Pollock, Yale University, discuss the possibilities for increased inclusion and diversity in opera programming and composition in the 21st century.  Through the collaborative organization Midnight Oil Collective, Pollock discusses strategies for creatively restructuring the institutions that traditionally fund artists and their works, thus encouraging increased diversity and inclusion in subject material, performers, composers, venues, and more. Pollock and her collaborators aim to make the "starving artist" framework a thing of the past. 

Dr. Kunio Hara and Dr. Hye-Jung Park discuss the interactions between American pianist Ely Haimowitz and Korean musicians during the US Military Government in Korea (USAMGIK) following the Second World War. Dr. Park's work explores how Haimowitz, the chief advisor of the  USAMGIK's music section, was responsible for fostering US-Korean relations through Western classical music and the restoration of native Korean music. Dr. Park currently teaches at the National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan. 

Dr. Alexandria Carrico interviews Dr. Kate Storhoff,  bookstore manager at Bookmarks, a literary arts nonprofit, and faculty at North Carolina School of the Arts. Her work on contemporary wind band and ensemble repertoire focuses on the underrepresentation of composers of diverse backgrounds and she recently published the article "Not Yet Bridging the Gender Gap: Women's Experiences in Composing for the 21st Century Wind Ensemble" in the journal American Music.  Dr. Storhoff discusses how to create a path forward for diverse representation in the world of collegiate bands and wind ensembles.