Publication details: “Fanny Tacchinardi-Persiani, Carlo Balocchino, and Italian Opera Business in Vienna, Paris, and London (1837-1845).” Cambridge Opera Journal 30, nn. 2-3 (2018): 259–304.
Abstract: This article addresses several historiographical questions about narratives of nineteenth-century Italian opera by discussing the international career of prima donna Fanny Tacchinardi-Persiani during the 1830s and 1840s. A number of hitherto overlooked letters between the singer and Carlo Balocchino, impresario of the Kärntnertortheater in Vienna, provide important insights into Tacchinardi-Persiani’s strategies of self-representation in the context of a dynamic operatic network that included the Italian States, Vienna, Paris and London. By revealing shifting power dynamics between opera impresarios, performers and composers, these letters, read in parallel with reviews and other writings of the time, offer a fresh look at the economic, ideological and artistic factors that contributed to the shifting geography of the European operatic landscape in the first half of the nineteenth century.
Publication details: “Pythagorean Pipe Dreams? Vincenzo Galilei, Marin Mersenne, and the Pneumatic Mysteries of the Pipe Organ.” Perspectives on Science 26, no. 1 (2018): 1-51.
Abstract: The pipe organ presented early modern science with a pneumatic black box of suggestive dimensions: while producing musical pitches and intervals that corresponded with those of an acoustic device like the monochord, pipe dimensions approached, but yet confounded clear association with the behavior of strings. Nevertheless, investigators like Vincenzo Galilei(c.1520–1591) and Marin Mersenne (1588–1648) continued to rely conceptually upon the monochord and the traditional ratios associated with it in their attempts to discipline the complex variables attending the acoustic properties of pipes. Thus, while certain conventions of historiography associate Vincenzo and Mersenne with a “disenchantment” of Pythagorean traditions that ostensibly retarded the development of an early modern physico-mathematics, their ratios of pipe scaling reveal instead a robust and evolving contribution of Pythagoreanism to mathematical reading of the Book of Nature.
Abstract: Claudio Monteverdi: A Research and Information Guide is an annotated bibliography that navigates the vast scholarly resources on the composer with the most updated compilation since 1989. Claudio Monteverdi transformed and mastered the principal genres of his day and his works influenced generations of musicians and other artists. He initiated one of the most important aesthetic debates of the era by proposing a new relationship between poetry and harmony. In addition to scholarship by musicologists and music theorists, Monteverdi’s music has attracted attention from literary scholars, cultural historians, and critical theorists. Research into Monteverdi and Renaissance and early baroque studies has expanded greatly, with the field becoming more complex as scholars address such issues as gender theory, feminist criticism, cultural theory, new criticism, new historicism, and artistic and popular cultures. The guide serves both as a foundational starting point and as a gateway for future inquiry in such fields as court culture, opera, patronage, and Italian poetry.
Abstract: Scholarship regarding solmization systems is largely limited to tonal methods. The present article extends the discussion to post-tonal aural skills, citing the need for a separate, interval-based methodology that fulfills the same functional role for atonal repertoire as scale-degree numbers and moveable-do syllables achieve for tonal music.
In Part I, we examine a tonal and atonal aural skills example as a means of justification for separate solmization methodologies. In Part II, we present an effective way to introduce our preferred system, ordered pitch-class intervals, in the classroom, as well as cite additional repertoire and teaching strategies that demonstrate the utility of adopting the new musical orientation. Finally, in Part III, we outline a sample curriculum for a 15-week undergraduate class and describe how to smoothly transition from tonal to atonal studies. The result is a repertoire- and skills-focused post-tonal aural skills course that equips undergraduates to more successfully understand and perform post-tonal compositions.
Ensemble: Alan Matheson and Wade Mikkola Duo Performers: Alan Matheson piano and flugelhorn, Atro “Wade” Mikkola acoustic bass Composers: Alan Matheson and Wade Mikkola Duo Recording details: AMK Recordings, December 2017
Abstract: This article is a study of the ways in which collaboration is signaled in the delivery of rap lyrics. I begin by describing the importance and prevalence of unified flow in music released by rap groups during the genre’s formative period in the 1980s and early 1990s. I follow this with a discussion of the continued importance of unified flow in tracks released by solo artists featuring guest rappers—a practice that has increased in frequency since rap’s inception, while rap groups have become less widespread. To illustrate this point, I analyze several songs that feature guest rappers, each exhibiting a level of flow cohesion that is exceptionally marked and uncommon when compared to most lead/guest rapper relationships. I conclude with some possible reasons for collaborative flow in rap music, as well as a discussion of unity as a theoretical concept. An understanding of the importance of unified flow in shared rap tracks enhances our understanding of the nature of collaboration and musical identity in rap music—a vital endeavor as music theorists strive to become increasingly conversant in the musical idioms and styles of hip-hop.
The MUSIC4EYES+EARS CD/Blu-Ray project presents new solo piano + electronics + video works written especially for Megumi Masaki. These works are designed to explore diverse concepts, performance techniques and interactive technologies in live piano + multimedia performance. Central to this project is how the interaction of image, movement, text and sound can create new expressive potentials as a whole. This exciting multimedia project features the music of Canadian composers Brent Lee, Keith Hamel, T. Patrick Carrabré, and Nicole Lizée.
Award-winning pianist Megumi Masaki’s innovation and breadth of her artistic activity, dynamic temperament and “riveting and mind-expanding” performances have earned her a reputation as a leading interpreter of contemporary music. She specializes in exploring how sound, image, text and movement can be integrated in live performances of multimedia works.
