Sound Expertise

"Music and philosophy" is often about Nietzsche and Wagner, or Kant and Mozart. But, in Robin James's work, it can also be about pop, and feminist theory, and Peloton playlists. A conversation about Dr. James's approach towards philosophy, with a focus on her new project on the musical and cultural implications of our contemporary focus on "vibes."

Robin James is Editor for Philosophy & Media Studies, Palgrave Macmillan

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Questions? Thoughts? Email [email protected] or tag Will on Instagram/Twitter @seatedovation 

There are approximately one bajillion biographies of Beethoven: do we need really another one? In fact, we do, because Laura Tunbridge has written an engrossing, provocative, and genuinely fresh book about Beethoven's life and times. A conversation about what it means to write about one of the most well-trodden composers in music history, and the rich new perspectives that Dr. Tunbridge brings to our understanding of Beethoven.

Laura Tunbridge is Professor of Music and Henfrey Fellow and Tutor at St Catherine's College, University of Oxford.

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A new call to action: tell us why you listen to the show! Tag Will on Instagram/Twitter @seatedovation or email our inbox, [email protected]

What does it mean to search for music-making in the archives of slavery?  Maria Ryan studies African-descended musicians and listeners in the colonial Caribbean, and her research is fraught with ethical and logistical challenges. A conversation about fully imagining the lives of enslaved musicians, when the evidence of those lives is   documented almost entirely by their oppressors.

Maria Ryan is assistant professor of musicology at Florida State University's College of Music.

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A new call to action: tell us why you listen to the show! Tag Will on Instagram/Twitter @seatedovation or email our inbox, [email protected]

What does it mean to be a scholar when the culture you study is under attack? Maria Sonevytsky and Oksana Nesterenko work on Ukrainian music, and their lives have changed profoundly in the last year. A conversation about the Ukrainian avant-garde and pop worlds, how wartime changes research agendas, and much more.

Maria Sonevytsky is Associate Professor of Anthropology & Music at Bard College; Oksana Nesterenko teaches at Union College.

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A new call to action: tell us why you listen to the show! Tag Will on Instagram/Twitter @seatedovation or email our inbox, [email protected]

The story of music  in the Soviet Union isn't just about Shostakovich and Stalin -- sometimes, it's not about composers at all. Gabrielle Cornish writes about a different kind of socialist sound: noise abatement policy, pop music, and even an aborted plan  to put a synthesizer in every Soviet home. A conversation about socialist noise, studying abroad in Siberia, what the war in Ukraine has meant for research, and more.

Gabrielle Cornish is Assistant Professor of Musicology at the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music, and soon to be Assistant Professor of Musicology at the University of Wisconsin.

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Questions? Thoughts? Share them with Will on Twitter @seatedovation or email our new inbox, [email protected]

The African-American pianist Hazel Harrison played with the Berlin Philharmonic in 1904, and was promptly forgotten. But Kira Thurman remembers. Her incredible book Singing Like Germans tells the rich, textured stories of Black classical musicians who performed in Germany, which provided a safe haven from American segregation, even though they still faced racism.  A conversation about the paradoxes of race and colorblindness in classical music, and much, much more.

Kira Thurman is associate professor of history, German studies, and musicology at University of Michigan.

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Questions? Thoughts? Share them with Will on Twitter @seatedovation

Writing a biography isn't easy, especially when it's of a living person, and especially when that living person is an epochal, oft-mythologized musician like Joni Mitchell. But Ann Powers, one of my absolute favorite music critics, has been doing the work. For our Season 3 debut, a deep conversation with Ann about her in-progress Joni Mitchell book, the complexities and anxieties behind thinking through Joni's life alongside her own, and what it means to write about women making music.

Ann Powers is NPR Music's critic and correspondent.

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Questions? Thoughts? Share them with Will on Twitter @seatedovation

Finally, Sound Expertise returns! Season 3  begins on May 16, and it's our biggest and most ambitious to date: a full summer of interviews with music scholars about their research, and why it matters.

Check out  past episodes at soundexpertise.org and get ready for our season premiere next week: an interview with the amazing Ann Powers about her in-progress Joni Mitchell book!

#hotmusicologysummer

We're almost back -- Season 3 will debut in just a few weeks! Before then, one final bonus episode: our great producer D. Edward Davis interviews Will and co-author Kerry O'Brien about their new book "On Minimalism: Documenting a Musical Movement," which University of California Press will release on April 25. We talk about our histories with musical minimalism, putting the book together, expanding the narrow canon of minimalism beyond white dudes, and more!

More over at soundexpertise.org -- including info about our book launch events in NYC on April 23 and DC on April 26!

Questions? Thoughts? Share them with Will on Twitter @seatedovation

Another bonus episode! A conversation with composer Matthew Aucoin, whose opera Euridice had a run at the Met last month, and who just wrote a new book about the history and culture of opera, The Impossible Art: Adventures in Opera.

More over at soundexpertise.org!

Questions? Thoughts? Share them with Will on Twitter @seatedovation

Check out this episode of the great podcast Phantom Power, on the life and work of composer R. Murray Schafer. You can check out more info on the episode here, and its second part here. 

We'll have another bonus episode up before the end of the year, and Season 3 will happen at some point in 2022!

More over at soundexpertise.org!

Questions? Thoughts? Share them with Will on Twitter @seatedovation

Eighteen music scholars describe their experiences of the pandemic.

"On the Banks of the Wabash" was arranged and performed by D. Edward Davis.

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For our Season 2 finale, a wide-ranging conversation with the eminent musicologist Richard Taruskin. We talk about his trajectory, from playing early music and studying Russian opera to writing the Oxford History of Western Music and penning polemics in the New York Times; his deep-set belief that musicologists should be skeptics and contrarians; what he hopes for the future of music scholarship; and why he believes it's necessary to make people angry.

Richard Taruskin is professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley.

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Questions? Thoughts? Share them with Will on Twitter @seatedovation

How did Cold War money shape the musical avant-garde? What were the roles of experts, elites, and the Rockefeller Foundation in shaping the cultural politics of new music––in the era of serial tyranny and Milton Babbitt's "Who Cares If You Listen?" An interview with musicologists Michael Uy and Eduardo Herrera about their research on funding new music in the Sputnik moment, in both the U.S. and Latin America.

Michael Uy is Allston Burr Resident Dean and Assistant Dean of Harvard College, Dunster House, and Lecturer on Music at Harvard. Eduardo Herrera is Associate Professor at Rutgers University and soon to join Indiana University as Associate Professor of Folklore and Ethnomusicology.

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Questions? Thoughts? Share them with Will on Twitter @seatedovation

How does one come to study a topic that is on the margins of an academic discipline? What does it mean to do ethnographic fieldwork amidst the intimacies of the dance floor––and what are the challenges of doing so in queer spaces? A wide-ranging conversation with ethnomusicologist Luis-Manuel Garcia, on his scholarly journey from early music to rave culture to  gay fetish parties in Berlin.

Luis Manuel Garcia-Mispireta is Lecturer in Ethnomusicology and Popular Music Studies at the University of Birmingham.

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Questions? Thoughts? Share them with Will on Twitter @seatedovation

Algorithms run our lives these days, from Netflix binges to predictive policing. And that includes algorithmic  recommenders––like Spotify's Discover Weekly and Pandora––that shape how we consume music. How does algorithmic music recommendation work and, perhaps more importantly, who makes it work? After all, algorithms are made and tweaked by people, who work at tech companies and have their own ideas and values.  An interview with anthropologist Nick Seaver, who has conducted years of ethnographic fieldwork to understand who creates algorithmic recommenders, and why they do what they do.

Nick Seaver is assistant professor of anthropology at Tufts University.

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Questions? Thoughts? Share them with Will on Twitter @seatedovation

When a modern opera debuts, normally the stakes aren't very high. But when it's composed by Benjamin Britten and premieres in England after World War II, that's a different story. Britten's high-profile operas––whose performances were attended by Queen Elizabeth II––were seen as a reflection of British postwar identity. An interview with musicologist Imani Danielle Mosley on how a series of strange operas by queer, modernist composer became a referendum on what it meant to be British––and why that matters.

Imani Mosley is assistant professor of musicology at the University of Florida's School of Music.

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Questions? Thoughts? Share them with Will on Twitter @seatedovation

Since pretty much the beginnings of our field,  musicologists have gone digging for lost music, bringing old pieces back into the world after centuries of neglect. But it's not just about finding some new scores: it's also about building an understanding of the culture that created and preserved them. When we find music in Renaissance manuscripts, what meaning can, and should, we make from it? An interview with musicologist Laurie Stras about what she has uncovered in the archives––including a major work by the Renaissance composer Antoine Brumel––what it means for music to be anonymous, what to do when you realize your research might actually be wrong, and a lot more.

Laurie Stras is Research Professor of Music at the University of Huddersfield and Emeritus Professor of Music at the University of Southampton.

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Questions? Thoughts? Share them with Will on Twitter @seatedovation

In 2013, the music librarian David Hunter found the name George Frideric Handel in a printed list of investors in one of Britain's official slave trading companies. Since then, Dr. Hunter has researched Handel and his patrons' investments in the slave trade, as well as the broader relationship between slavery and the history of classical music. What does it mean that profits from the brutality and horror of the Middle Passage benefitted the career of the composer who wrote the "Messiah"? And what should we do with our knowledge of this today?

David Hunter is Librarian Emeritus at the University of Texas at Austin.

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Questions? Thoughts? Share them with Will on Twitter @seatedovation

Way back in 2011, Rebecca Black's music video "Friday" went viral because it was widely considered to be one of the worst songs of all time. But what does that actually mean––for music to "go viral," and for music to be so widely criticized as "bad"? A conversation about gender, genre,  and musical virality in the 2010s with musicologist Paula Clare Harper.

Paula Clare Harper is a Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow at Washington University in St. Louis; this fall, she will join the faculty of the University of Nebraska at Lincoln as an assistant professor.

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Questions? Thoughts? Share them with Will on Twitter @seatedovation

Though often overlooked in mainstream histories, the voices of Black women were central to the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in August 1963. And those voices included some of the greatest musicians of the time: Odetta, Mahalia Jackson, Camilla Williams.  These women, and the political significance of the spirituals they sang, are the subject of this week's episode: a conversation with the musicologist Tammy L. Kernodle about the wide-ranging role of music, and the fractious political coalitions it represented, at the 1963 March on Washington.

Tammy L. Kernodle is Professor of Musicology at Miami University in Ohio.

Show notes and more over at soundexpertise.org!

Questions? Thoughts? Share them with Will on Twitter @seatedovation

When we think about music and deafness, it's often through the lens of Beethoven: the mythological figure who overcomes his hearing loss to compose great music. But members of the d/Deaf community often talk less about hearing loss than about deaf gain.  And we can gain a lot from understanding the wide range of methods through which d/Deaf people engage with, create, and listen to music. A conversation with musicologist Jessica A. Holmes, who researches the relationship between music and disability, including the listening expertise found in d/Deaf culture.

Jessica A. Holmes is a lecturer in the Department of Musicology at the UCLA Herb Albert School of Music.

Show notes and more over at soundexpertise.org!

Questions? Thoughts? Share them with Will on Twitter @seatedovation

Maybe you teach music history, and maybe you don't, but pedagogy is a part of your life: we have all been teachers, and we have all been students. This conversation, with musicologists Andrew Dell'Antonio and Sara Haefeli, is about how they have innovated in their classrooms, but it is also about teaching itself as a practice, as an art, and as a form of research. What does it mean to abandon traditional lecturing and traditional grading, and empower students to see themselves as creators of music history? 

Sara Haefeli is associate professor of music theory, history, and composition at Ithaca College. Andrew Dell'Antonio is professor of music at the University of Texas at Austin's Butler School of Music.

Show notes and more over at soundexpertise.org!

Questions? Thoughts? Share them with Will on Twitter @seatedovation

Music theory has long been a space in which white male scholars analyze music  by white male composers. But many music theorists are actively trying to change that, and our guest today, Professor Ellie Hisama, is foremost among them. In this conversation, we discuss her pioneering work on women modernist composers; diversifying the music theory classroom; her recent scholarship on gender discrimination in music theory, including sexist and homophobic comments made by Milton Babbitt; and a lot more.

Ellie Hisama is Professor of Music, Music Theory and Historical Musicology at Columbia University.

Show notes and more over at soundexpertise.org!

Questions? Thoughts? Share them with Will on Twitter @seatedovation

What happens, musically and spiritually, when a congregation sings gospel ? How can we analyze music that moves not just the mind, but also the body and the soul? A conversation with Braxton D. Shelley, whose scholarship fuses theology and musicology to understand how musical techniques like vamps and "tuning up" lead to transcendent religious experiences.

Braxton D. Shelley is Stanley A. Marks and William H. Marks Assistant Professor at the Radcliffe Institute and Assistant Professor of Music in the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

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Questions? Thoughts? Share them with Will on Twitter @seatedovation

We're back! The first episode of Season 2 features Susan McClary: one of the most influential, and controversial, musicologists of our time. We talk about her lifelong pursuit of analyzing music in its cultural context, from madrigals to Madonna; the early rejections that set her on a path towards becoming a groundbreaking feminist scholar; the intense criticism to which her scholarship has been subjected; the infamous Beethoven 9 controversy; and much more.

Susan McClary is the Fynette H. Kulas Professor of Music at Case Western Reserve University.

Show notes and more over at soundexpertise.org!

Questions? Thoughts? Share them with Will on Twitter @seatedovation

We're back next week! Season 2 of Sound Expertise begins on Tuesday, March 23.

Host Will Robin will interview fellow music scholars about their research, and why it matters, in a new season of weekly episodes that'll take us into the summer. Check out our past episodes at soundexpertise.org and get ready for our season premiere next week: an interview with the amazing Susan McClary!

And we're back! Well, kind of. Season 2 of Sound Expertise launches on March 23, but for now here's a bonus preseason episode. Our intrepid producer, D. Edward Davis, interviews host Will Robin (University of Maryland) about his book "Industry: Bang on a Can and New Music in the Marketplace," out with Oxford University Press next week. We talk about the role of the festival Bang on a Can in shaping the broader world of new music, the institutions and politics of contemporary classical in the '80s and '90s, research methods, and more! And stick around until the end of the episode to hear a teaser for Season 2!

As always, show notes and more over at soundexpertise.org

Questions? Thoughts? Share them with Will on Twitter @seatedovation

What does it mean to create music that is valued as a national emblem, but also be part of a community that is marginalized within that nation? What is jazz manouche, and how does this musical tradition reflect the complicated status of its Romani creators in France? A conversation with Siv B. Lie, assistant professor of ethnomusicology at the University of Maryland.

Show notes and more over at soundexpertise.org

Questions? Thoughts? Share them with Will on Twitter @seatedovation

How can ethnomusicology help us understand the value of music in a capitalist society? When we view music as a commodity, what might it reveal about how people make meaning (and money) from art across different cultures? A conversation with Timothy Taylor, professor of ethnomusicology at UCLA's Herb Albert School of Music.

Show notes and more over at soundexpertise.org

Questions? Thoughts? Share them with Will on Twitter @seatedovation

In light of the recent resurfacing of racist remarks that Steve Reich made in the 1970s, what are the racial politics of the composer's canonic minimalist music? What is the history of Reich's engagement with civil rights in works like Come Out, and does the influence of African music on his compositions represent a form of cultural appropriation? A conversation with Sumanth S Gopinath, associate professor of music theory at the University of Minnesota.

Show notes and more over at soundexpertise.org

Questions? Thoughts? Share them with Will on Twitter @seatedovation

What if feminist music history isn't just about elevating composers like Amy Beach and Clara Wieck Schumann, but also about understanding how everyday women made music? What is elocution, and how did a now-obscure genre of musical readings represent a cornerstone of American women performing in the nineteenth century? A conversation with Marian Wilson Kimber, professor of music at the University of Iowa.

Show notes and more over at soundexpertise.org

Questions? Thoughts? Share them with Will on Twitter @seatedovation

What happens when classical music takes seriously the work of Black avant-garde composers? What would a creolized musical world look like? And what is the relationship between scholarship and composing? A conversation with George E. Lewis, Edwin H. Case Professor of American Music at Columbia University.

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Questions? Thoughts? Share them with Will on Twitter @seatedovation

What does it mean to bring music of the distant past back to life? What happens when scholars focus not just on reconstructing the notes and words of Renaissance song but also on trying to recapture the lived experience of singing it? A conversation with Jesse Rodin, Associate Professor of music at Stanford.

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Have a question or comment about the show? Tweet at us at @seatedovation

What can operetta tell us about everyday life in fin-de-siècle Vienna? Why has our understanding of Vienna been limited to high-art composers like Mahler and Schoenberg, and how might studying operetta change our perspective on the Austro-Hungarian Empire amidst the tumult of the early twentieth century? A conversation with Micaela K. Baranello, Assistant Professor of musicology at the University of Arkansas.

Show notes and more over at soundexpertise.org

How should we understand the legacy of Richard Wagner, the most controversial composer in history? Why did Wagner's music and ideas once assume such a colossal influence on culture, and what does it mean that the multiplicity of that influence has been largely forgotten in light of his anti-Semitism? A conversation with Alex Ross, music critic for The New Yorker and author of the forthcoming book Wagnerism: Art and Politics in the Shadow of Music.

Show notes and more at soundexpertise.org 

What makes some songs, from Kenny Loggins' "Danger Zone" to Tina Turner's "What's Love Got to Do with It," sound so distinctively "1980s"? What is timbre, why does it matter, and how do music theorists study it? And did Michael Jackson write the music for Sonic the Hedgehog 3?! A conversation with Megan Lavengood, Assistant Professor and Director of Music Theory at George Mason University, about timbre and the Yamaha DX7 synthesizer.

Show notes and more over at soundexpertise.org

When music departments focus exclusively on classical music, are they also being racially exclusionary? How can the academy move beyond its history of racism and embrace other musical genres? A conversation with Loren Kajikawa, Associate Professor of Music at George Washington University’s Corcoran School of the Arts & Design.

Show notes and more over at soundexpertise.org

What if harmony isn't just about sounding good, but also about living together in a fractious time? How did sacred music in early modern Prague shape how people of different faiths existed alongside each other? A conversation with Erika Supria Honisch, Assistant Professor of History/Theory at Stony Brook University.

Show notes and more over at soundexpertise.org

Trailer for a new podcast of weekly conversations with musicologists, ethnomusicologists, music theorists, and music critics, hosted by Will Robin and produced by D. Edward Davis. Episode 1 goes live on Tuesday, July 21.