Tag: Music

  • Arts & Culture

    Achebe celebrates African literature with poetry

    Chinua Achebe, the esteemed Nigerian novelist and poet, delivered this year’s Distinguished African Studies Lecture at the Center for Government and International Studies (CGIS). Greeting the standing-room-only crowd in Tsai Auditorium earlier this week (Nov. 17), Achebe surprised the group by announcing that he had an unusual program in mind.

    3–4 minutes
  • Arts & Culture

    Marla Frederick talks about faith, God, and money

    Not long ago, Harvard cultural anthropologist Marla Frederick sat on a wooden bench in a slum of Kingston, Jamaica. She was interviewing local churchgoers about the Christian “prosperity gospel” often promoted by American televangelists. It offers up a simple (and controversial) idea: The more you give, the more you receive.

    4–5 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    Chaya Czernowin appointed professor of music at Harvard

    Chaya Czernowin, a composer who has received wide acclaim for her sophisticated, emotional operas, has been appointed professor of music in Harvard University’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), effective July 1, 2009.

    2–3 minutes
  • Arts & Culture

    Poetry, music, death take the stage at New College Theatre

    John Adams ’69, A.M. ’72 returned to Harvard on Nov. 17, where he attended a performance of his piece by Harvard’s Bach Society Orchestra (a group he led in the 1960s) at the New College Theatre.

    4–6 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    In brief

    Money Mondays offer help; Harvard Real Estate Services plans home-buying seminar; Fontainebleau Schools info session in Adams House; Global health workshop, Dec. 3; Holiday gifts for those in need; A musical invitation

    2–4 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    Newsmakers

    Carbonari named chair, Fulton named vice chair of Harvard’s JCHS Policy Advisory Board; HSPH presents Q Prize to maestro

    1–2 minutes
  • Arts & Culture

    Falling in love with South Asian music

    As a young boy, Richard Wolf, professor of music, liked to sit at the piano in his grandparents’ home and invent short musical ditties. “My grandfather would listen and shout, ‘Oh! It’s Bach! Oh, just like Mozart!’” Wolf recalled recently, with a laugh. “He was wonderfully encouraging.”

    5–8 minutes
  • Arts & Culture

    How the ‘talking machine’ allowed music and dance to cross oceans

    In the late 1920s, with the advent of new technology, gramophone and “talking machine” companies were able to capture the sounds and rhythms of life in cities across the globe. From New York to Havana, Paris to Honolulu, labels like Victor, Gramophone Company, and Okeh competed to record vernacular music.

    5–8 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    Day of the Dead celebration

    Harvard’s Peabody Museum of Archeology and Ethnography will come alive in a unique way Nov. 2 when it joins the Consulate General of Mexico in Boston in hosting a celebration of the traditional Mexican holiday Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead).

    1–2 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    Dunster House calls for soloists

    Dunster House seeks vocal soprano, alto, tenor, and bass soloists for its 36th annual Messiah Sing, scheduled for the evening of Dec. 11. One soloist for each voice part will be selected to perform. Auditions are scheduled Nov. 8 from 10 a.m. to noon in Dunster House. To sign up for an audition or for…

    1–2 minutes
  • Arts & Culture

    Judaica Division concert includes world premiere of sax concerto

    As part of its celebration of the 60th anniversary of the founding of Israel, the Harvard College Library’s Judaica Division will host the world premiere of a saxophone concerto composed by an award-winning Israeli composer Nov. 2, at 3 p.m. at Sanders Theatre.

    1–2 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    Peabody Museum to host Day of the Dead celebration

    Harvard’s Peabody Museum of Archeology and Ethnography will come alive in a unique way Nov. 2 when it joins the Consulate General of Mexico in Boston in hosting a celebration of the traditional Mexican holiday Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead).

    1–2 minutes
  • Arts & Culture

    Davis explains how he makes his operas swing

    A former Harvard professor returned to campus last week to explain how he makes opera swing. Anthony Davis, a composer known for his diverse approach to music, incorporating diverse elements like jazz, improvisation, minimalism, and the Javanese gamelan (an Indonesian musical ensemble that includes gongs, xylophones, and bamboo flutes) into his work, recently discussed his…

    4–5 minutes
  • Arts & Culture

    Maestro Previn guides students with expertise, wit

    Music great Sir André Previn’s motto, listed on his official Web site, reads, “A day without music is a wasted day.” Several Harvard students and two classical master composers put their day with the maestro to good use on Monday (Oct. 6).

    5–8 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    RiverSing rings in autumn

    Fall was grandly ushered in by local residents on Sunday (Sept. 21) with RiverSing, a unique arts festival along the Charles River in Boston and Cambridge.

    1–2 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    RiverSing to ring in fall with communal sing-along

    Later this month, the Revels and the Charles River Conservancy will again team up for RiverSing, a free and open-to-the-public event celebrating the beauty of the Charles River and the first day of fall. Featuring seasonal music and communal singing, the Sept. 21 event will be held on the John W. Weeks Footbridge linking Allston…

    1–2 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    Praise and preservation

    Harvard University President Drew Faust used the bully pulpit of Appleton Chapel this week (Sept. 16), urging the University’s citizens to act responsibly on environmental matters.

    2–4 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    HRC to hold auditions

    In preparation for its 2008-09 repertoire (including performances of Mozart’s “Requiem” and Poulenc’s “Gloria”), the Harvard Radcliffe Chorus (HRC) will be holding auditions for University students on the following days and times: Sept. 11 from noon to 3 p.m.; Sept. 12 and Sept. 14 from 1 to 4 p.m.; and Sept. 15 from 1 to…

    1–2 minutes
  • Arts & Culture

    Harvard’s Department of Music announces fellows and award winners

    Harvard’s Department of Music recently announced a host of fellowship and award recipients. The Oscar S. Schafer Award is given to graduate students “who have demonstrated unusual ability and enthusiasm in their teaching of introductory courses, which are designed to lead students to a growing and lifelong love of music.”

    4–6 minutes
  • Arts & Culture

    The Russian bells: A multifaceted love story

    The saga of the Lowell House bells, scheduled to return to Russia this summer after 78 years at Harvard, was the subject of a festival and symposium Sunday and Monday (June 1-2) at Lowell House and the Barker Center.

    4–6 minutes
  • Arts & Culture

    Beatrice Viramontes is a maestro of gigs and digs

    Despite her roots in the primarily Mexican-American East L.A. and a father who played traditional Mexican music on his guitar, Beatrice Viramontes says it “stressed her out” when her father performed at family parties and asked her to sing.

    3–5 minutes
  • Arts & Culture

    Changing lives with music and science

    When Bong-Ihn Koh’s mother brought home a cello piece by mistake, the young Koh got his hands on it and was hooked.

    3–5 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    Craig Hugh Smyth

    At a Meeting of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences on May 6, 2008, the Minute honoring the life and service of the late Craig Hugh Smyth, Director of Villa I Tatti Professor of Fine Arts, Emeritus, was placed upon the records. Smyth was a promoter of the study and practice of art conservation.

    4–6 minutes
  • Arts & Culture

    Rain doesn’t dampen spirit of Arts First

    It was a rainy (not to say explosive) weekend, yet despite the daunting weather, the arts not only endured but prevailed at the University as dance, song, theater, and conceptual art brightened up the Yard and its environs.

    1–2 minutes
  • Arts & Culture

    Hamlisch offers vital audition advice

    The multigifted and much-admired musical composer Marvin Hamlisch taught a master class in the New College Theatre on “The Art of the Audition” recently (April 9) under the auspices of Learning From Performers.

    4–6 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    Office for Arts announces spring 2008 grants

    More than 800 students will participate in 27 projects in dance, music, theater, and multidisciplinary genres at Harvard this spring, sponsored in part by the Office for the Arts (OfA) grant program. Grants are designed to foster creative and innovative artistic initiatives among Harvard undergraduates.

    5–7 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    In brief

    PDK TALK TO EXPLORE LEADERSHIP, LAST CALL FOR ARTISTS, FREE TICKETS FOR YING SWAN SONG, DUMBARTON OAKS SET TO REOPEN

    2–3 minutes
  • Arts & Culture

    Arts In brief

    A.R.T. PRODUCTION UP FOR TOP AWARD LOCKWOOD, JUILLIARD STRING QUARTET TO EXPLORE BEETHOVEN

    1–2 minutes
  • Arts & Culture

    With old forms, improvisation, Bielawa creates ingenious anachronism

    Manhattan composer Lisa Bielawa is a Radcliffe Fellow this year. Her tiny studio on Concord Avenue is spartan: white walls, a piano, a violin, two chairs, a table strewn with music staff paper. On one side is the glow of a computer. On the other is a single window, with a blur of trees beyond.…

    4–7 minutes
  • Arts & Culture

    Conference brings out pacific potential of African hip-hop

    Harvard and hip-hop. One is the famous university, the other the music style marked by rapping, rhyming, and a synthetic backbeat. Both begin with the letter “h.” Nothing else in common, right? Wrong. Harvard last week (March 13-15) hosted a three-day conference on African hip-hop, a musical style that experts say not only makes audiences…

    5–7 minutes