Bach’s Worldview Was Way Different from Ours – On “Musical Theology”
In Bach’s pre-Enlightenment time, understanding how and why he composed his music might lead contemporary composers to new and exciting areas. Learn more.
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The Lasting Legacy of the Slave Trade on American Music
Today is the UN International Day of Remembrance of the Slave Trade, we honor this day by charting the legacy of African diasporic music in America.
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Listening and Liberation: The World Is Sound
When you enter a Tibetan shrine, you see objects lit by the flicker of candles, hear the sounds of chanting, and inhale the smell of incense. We are trained to look at art, but these objects have lives and relationships with humans that are contingent on all of our senses. In a museum we typically prioritize […]
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Getting to Know Your Reverends of Song
There’s really no arguing that the church has produced many of the most significant contributions to music’s development throughout history. It’s both inspired and financed so many great orchestral and choral composers, from Mozart and Beethoven to Haydn and Verdi, without whose work there would be an unimaginable void in human culture. Even despite the […]
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Composer Erik Satie Was So Much Weirder Than You Realize
Erik Satie (1866-1925) is praised by historians for helping to provide the pre-war pathway to minimalism in classical music. His piano compositions, most famously the Gymnopédies suite of 1888 and the Gnossiennes suite of 1893, set the tone for experimentation within the next century of composers. These composers traversed new understandings of tonality, space, and emotion, even as academic trends in […]
