Olivia DrakeTwenty-four Wesleyan students will hit a high note in their singing careers April 19, when they perform with one of the preeminent choral groups in Connecticut. The Wesleyan Concert Choir is teaming up with Greater Middletown Chorale, the region's 32 year-old community chorus, and a 22-piece string orchestra of professional instrumentalists drawn from the New Haven Symphony and Yale Symphony Orchestras for a concert to be held at Crowell Concert Hall. "On measure eight, energize it, not with volume but with energy," says director Joseph D'Eugenio, during a March 10 group practice. "And be very anticipatory of the diminuendo (more…)
(more…)
Jorge Arevalo Mateus, a Ph.D candidate in ethnomusicology, was featured in the March 5 edition of The Middletown Press in an article titled "Global music, culture student in residence at Wesleyan." Mateus, a music archivist, ethnomusicologist, scholar, musician, composer and audio installation artist, is a Grammy-winning producer for Best Historical Recording. In 2008, Mateus won an award for writing from the ASCAP Deems Taylor Award, CD Liner Notes, and he has published many essays, articles and reviews in academic and popular journals, edited volumes, and other publications such as New York Archives Magazine, Ethnomusicology, Journal of Popular Music Studies; and…
Angel Gil-Ordóñez, adjunct professor of music, was named "Artist of the Week" by classical music label Naxos. The former associate conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra of Spain, Gil-Ordóñez has conducted symphonic music, opera and ballet throughout Europe, the United States and Latin America. He conducted the music for the newly-released DVD, The City, a classic 1939 documentary film.
David PesciThe Wesleyan University Board of Trustees affirmed the promotion with tenure, effective July 1, 2009, of the following members of the faculty: Jane Alden, associate professor of music, was appointed assistant professor of music at Wesleyan in 2001. Prior, she was an acting assistant professor at Stanford University, and an instructor at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Alden was awarded a Wesleyan Center for the Humanities Fellowship and was a visiting research associate at Harvard University. She has been the recipient of a Mellon Center Mini-Grant, a Wesleyan University seed grant, and Wesleyan University Snowdon funding for a symposium.…
Mark Slobin, professor of music, received honorable mention for the Fenia and Yaakov Leviant Memorial Prize in Yiddish Studies Dec. 2 by the Modern Language Association of America. Slobin and was honored for his work on Yiddish Folksongs from the Ruth Rubin Archive, published by Wayne State University Press. The prize is awarded each even-numbered year and is awarded alternately to an outstanding translation of a Yiddish literary work or an outstanding scholarly work in English in the field of Yiddish. Slobin will receive a certificate for the achievement Dec. 28 during the Modern Language Association of America's annual convention…
(more…)
Jorge Arévalo Mateus, a Ph.D candidate in ethnomusicology, received a 2008 American Society of Composers, Authors & Publishers Deems Taylor Award on Oct. 20. Mateus was honored for his liner notes for The Live Wire: Woody Guthrie in Performance 1949, released by Woody Guthrie Publications. Mateus and fellow winners will be honored at a special reception at the The Frederick P. Rose Hall in New York, N.Y. Dec. 9. Established in 1914, the American Society of Composers, Authors & Publishers is the first and leading U.S. Performing Rights Organization representing the world's largest repertory totaling over 8.5 million copyrighted musical…
It’s all about politics, about western influences, Asian influences, African influences, gender relations, protest, genocide, violence, spirituality, centuries of culture, the latest fad, and performers in the New York Subway system and more than a hundred other topics set in disparate times, places and civilizations. Which is all another way of saying it’s all about music. Specifically, the Annual Meeting for the Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM), which will be held Oct. 25-28 at Wesleyan. (more…)
(more…)
Mark Slobin, professor of music, is the author of Global Soundtracks: Worlds of Film Music published by Wesleyan University Press in September, 2008. The collection of essays analyzes the music of films ranging from mainstream and sub-cultural American films through case studies of those from China, India, Indonesia, Egypt, Nigeria, Latin American, and the Caribbean, and includes a variety of key films, periods, and studio practices. Global Soundtracks is the first anthology to suggest methods for understanding how the conventions of standard film music became localized and expanded around the world in many different periods and cinema systems, and to…