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November 17, 2024, Filed Under: At the Archives

Passion and Promise: La Traviata Captivates at UT Austin

A printed program for the Butler Opera Center’s production of La Traviata, set against the red curtain backdrop of the McCullough Theatre.

 By Mana Pouresmaeil, PhD Student

 

A printed program for the Butler Opera Center’s production of La Traviata, set against the red curtain backdrop of the McCullough Theatre.
A printed program for the Butler Opera Center’s production of La Traviata, set against the red curtain backdrop of the McCullough Theatre.

On October 25, 2024, the Butler School of Music at UT Austin presented a stirring rendition of Giuseppe Verdi’s La Traviata at the McCullough Theatre, captivating the audience from start to finish. This performance, part of a four-show run, highlighted the remarkable talent fostered within the university’s opera program.

The evening opened with a warm welcome for conductor Douglas Kinney Frost, whose skilled direction established both the musical and emotional foundation for the night. Hyein Hong, a second-year D.M.A. student, brought an expressive and technically superb presence to the role of Violetta Valery, embodying the character’s emotional depth with every note. Her portrayal was nuanced and deeply moving, leaving the audience spellbound.

Opposite Hong, Taiwon Kim gave an equally compelling performance as Alfredo Germont. The chemistry between Hong and Kim intensified the tragic poignancy of their story, drawing the audience into the heart of their ill-fated romance. Their duets were among the evening’s highlights, each one brimming with the passionate intensity of Verdi’s music.

Highlights from the Butler Opera Center’s La Traviata production, featuring memorable stage moments and insights from conductor Douglas Kinney Frost.

Austin Shirley’s evocative set and lighting design added to the production’s impact, with atmospheric visuals that perfectly complemented the emotional arc of the story. Act III featured a notable moment with Donnie Ray Albert as Georgie Germont, marking the 50th anniversary of Professor Albert’s distinguished career. His presence enriched the performance, and the audience’s enthusiastic applause underscored the significance of this milestone.

This production of La Traviata not only showcased the immense talent within UT Austin’s voice and opera program but also highlighted the dedication and passion of everyone involved. It was a truly memorable experience and a promising glimpse into the future of these gifted artists.

 

Explore upcoming events at the Butler School of Music here: https://music.utexas.edu/events

 

 

 

 

 

November 7, 2024, Filed Under: At the Archives

SEE YOU AT AMS 2024!

UT Austin’s Musicology and Ethnomusicology division will be well-represented at the upcoming American Musicological Society Annual Meeting in Chicago, held on November 14-17, 2024, with students, faculty, and alums presenting their research and leading sessions.

Spanning a broad spectrum of topics, the presentations and events (listed below) reflect the division’s rich array of research areas and commitment to interdisciplinary scholarship.

Join us for a reception on Nov 16, 7:30pm-9:30pm at Palmer House Hilton’s Wilson Room, 3rd floor. We look forward to gathering with UT Austin students, faculty, alums, friends, and prospective members of our community.

For the full AMS conference program, visit https://www.conftool.pro/chicago2024-ams/sessions.php.

 

Thursday, November 14

10:45am-12:15pm

Session: Constructing Latinidad: Cumbia Music, Identity, and Affect

Chair: Jacqueline Avila

 

2:15pm-3:45pm

Session: Sounding Borders: Orality and Aurality in the U.S.-Mexico/New Spain Border Region,18th-19th Centuries

Chair: Jacqueline Avila

 

7:30pm-9:30pm

Session: Ethics and/of Early Music

Presenters: Andrew Dell’Antonio, Luisa Nardini

 

Friday, November 15

9:00am-10:30am

Session: Augustinian Soundscapes: The Church and Monastery of San Giovanni a Carbonara in Naples

 

Presentation: The monastery in the context of Neapolitan and European history

Luisa Nardini

Presentation: Plainchant and Its Local Context at the Monastery of San Giovanni Carbonara

Bibiana Vergine

Presentation: Performance as Pedagogy: Neumes in the Aeneid and the Metamorphoses at San Giovanni a Carbonara

Catherine Heemann, Kyrie Bouressa

 

10:45am-12:15pm

Session: Understanding and Mediating Contemporary Culture Through Opera

Chair: Hannah Lewis

 

12:30pm-2pm

Session: Accessibility and the History of Theory

Presenter: Andrew Dell’Antonio

 

2:15pm-3:45pm

Session: Axes of Time in Eastern Orthodox Sonic Space

Chair: Luisa Nardini

 

Presentation: Anaphora, Anamnesis, Apocalypse: Music and Time in the Hymns of the Great Entrance in the Orthodox Church

Dmitriy Stegall

Presentation: The Veil Was Torn: Inverse Perspective in Sofia Gubaidulina’s St. John Passion

Madeline Styskal

 

7:30pm-9:30pm

Childhood and Youth Session and Business Meeting: Spotlight on New and Emerging Work from Early-Career Scholars

Presenter: Hannah Neuhauser

 

Saturday, November 16

 

10:45am-12:15pm

Session: The Middle Ground in Anime Music Studies

Panelist: Rose Bridges

 

10:45am-12:15pm

Session: Identity and Aesthetics in Asian American Popular Music

Presentation: Shaping a Pluralistic Asian America: Revisiting Asian American Popular Music in the 1970s

Peng Liu

 

2:15pm-3:45pm

Session: Sonic Survival and Resistance through Performance and Memory Among Women in Latin America and Korea

Chair: James Gabrillo

 

Presentation: Gendered Memories and Sounding Silence in the Korean Borderland

Jeong-In Lee

Presentation: Women in Malandreo: Aesthetics, Violence and Urban Sociability in Caracas

Victoria Mogollon Montagne

Presentation: Polyphony of Indigenous Identities in ‘Mujeres del Viento Florido’: Strategic Alliances in the Face of the Labor Dynamics of Colonial Capitalism

Mercedes Payán Ramírez

 

4:00pm-5:30pm

Session: East Asian Explorations of Temporality, Cyclicity, and Form

Chair: James Gabrillo

 

7:30pm-9:30pm

UT Austin Reception

Location: Wilson, 3rd floor, Palmer House Hilton

 

Sunday, November 17

10:45am-12:15pm

Session: Making Sense of Trauma through Music and Dance

Presentation: “Does Anyone Hear My Voice?:” Foregrounding of Sonic Trauma From Turkey and Syria’s February 6th, 2023 Earthquake in Turkish Popular Music

Ashley Nicole Thornton

 

10:45am-12:15pm

Session: Ecomusicology/Eco-Cultures

Chair: Alison Maggart

 

10:45am-12:15pm

Session: Sounding Imperiality

Chair and presenter: Erol Koymen

 

November 1, 2024, Filed Under: At the Archives

Reviving the Classics: Cantonese Music for the Modern Ear

Album cover notes for Chinese Masterpieces for the Erh-Hu, featuring a portrait of Lui Man-Sing performing on the traditional two-stringed erh-hu.

By Mana Pouresmaeil, PhD Student

Here’s a true gem from our Ethnomusicology Archive & Lab: the 1960s vinyl recording Chinese Masterpieces for the Erh-Hu, now available for in-lab listening.

Album cover notes for Chinese Masterpieces for the Erh-Hu, featuring a portrait of Lui Man-Sing performing on the traditional two-stringed erh-hu.
Album cover notes for Chinese Masterpieces for the Erh-Hu, featuring a portrait of Lui Man-Sing performing on the traditional two-stringed erh-hu.

This album takes listeners on a mesmerizing journey through classic Chinese music, brought to life by the renowned musician Lui Man-Sing on the erh-hu, a two-stringed instrument traditionally crafted from bamboo and snake skin with roots deep in ancient China. Lui’s performances merge historical resonance with a contemporary energy, capturing both the soul and vitality of Cantonese musical traditions.

Listeners are transported by compositions like Birds Returning to the Forest and Triumph from the Battlefield, each evoking vivid scenes from nature and Chinese folklore. Through innovative modifications and expressive techniques, Lui and his ensemble breathe new vibrancy into these compositions, creating a dynamic experience that bridges the beauty of traditional Cantonese music with a modern touch.

This album is a testament to the harmonious blend of tradition and innovation. Lui Man-Sing’s artistry revitalizes the erh-hu, allowing audiences to experience the essence of Cantonese music in a way that feels both timeless and refreshingly contemporary.

Stay tuned for more highlights and treasures from our Ethnomusicology Archive & Lab!

October 17, 2024, Filed Under: At the Archives

UT Austin Musicology & Ethnomusicology at SEM 2024

Students, faculty, and recent alumni from UT Austin’s Musicology and Ethnomusicology division will present their research and chair sessions at the Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM) Annual Meeting held virtually on October 17 to 26, 2024. Covering a wide range of themes, the presentations (listed below) highlight the division’s diverse research interests and interdisciplinary approaches. For the full conference program, visit https://www.conftool.pro/sem2024/sessions.php.

 

 

Oct 17, 10:00am-12:00pm

Session 1D: Queering Performance

Sounding Queer World-Building in the Musical Performances of Muna

Andrea Kate Klassen

 

 

Oct 17, 10:00am – 12:00pm

Session 1F: Teaching Palestine through Music, Dance, and the Arts (Roundtable)

Hanna Salmon

 

 

Oct 17, 10:00am – 12:00pm

Session 1J: Ethnomusicology and Urban Planning: Reflection on New Research Opportunities

Chair: Robin Moore

 

Austin’s Sp/R/acialized Histories

Sonia Seeman

 

Cultural Sustainability in Practice

Kevin Parme

 

Austin’s Live Music Fund and Urban Musical Financing

Charles Carson, Catherine Heemann

 

Music Cities: Policy, Impact, and Collaborative Research

Jeannelle Ramirez

 

The Musician Income Crisis: A Performer’s Perspective

Diego Salinas

 

 

Oct 18, 12:00pm-2:00pm
Session 5I: Cumbia Aesthetics and Politics in Latin America

The beginning of Chilean cumbia: La Sonora Palacios band as part of the Chilean popular culture

Constanza Fuentes

 

Oct 19, 10:00am-12:00pm

Session 7F: Contemporary Perspectives on Afro-Venezuelan Tambor

Electro Tambor: Diasporic Stories of Collaboration and Experimentation with Afro-Venezuelan Music

Victoria Mogollon Montagne

 

Oct 19, 12:30pm-2:00pm

Session 8G: Sound Studies I
From Ruins to Reverberations: Mapping the Auditory Landscape of the US Camptown in the Korean Borderland

Jeong-In Lee

 

 

Oct 19, 12:30pm-2:00pm

Session 8I: Musical Representation and Identity II

Chair: Sonia Seeman

 

La Policia del Son: Navigating Purism, Taste, and Authority in the Contemporary Huasteca

J.A. Strub

 

 

Oct 20, 10:00am-11:30am

Session 9A: Time and Periodicity
The Veil Was Torn: Inverse Perspective in Sofia Gubaidulina’s St. John Passion

Madeline Styskal

 

 

Oct 20, 12:00pm – 2:00pm

Session 10G: Community, Transmission, and Revival in the “Music Village”

Transnationalism, postnationalism, and cosmopolitanism in folk-revivalist music workshops: the case of Müzik Köyü

Dimitris Gkoulimaris

 

 

Oct 20, 12:00pm – 2:00pm

Session 10H: Virtual Communities
Resistance Through Musicking: Guichu Community on Bilibili

Zixuan Wang

 

 

Oct 23, 12:30pm-2:00pm

Session 12C: Social Movements/Protest/Resistance I

Chair: Robin Moore

 

 

Oct 23, 7:00pm-9:00pm

Session 13A: Queering Media
Pretty and Problematic: The Use of Music in Guadagnino’s Call Me by Your Name

Brandon Lane Foskett

 

Transnational Transmedia Pop Texts on Drag Race Philippines

James Gabrillo

 

 

Oct 25, 10:00am-12:00pm

Session 17C: Violence, Trauma, Witness
“Does Anyone Hear My Voice?:” Digital Cultural Intimacy and Sonic Witnessing in Turkish Popular Music Following the February 6th, 2023 Earthquake

Ashley Nicole Thornton

 

 

Oct 25, 10:00am-12:00pm

Session 17F: Blackness, Anti-Blackness, and Praxis
Afro-Dominican Salve Performance and Resistance to Anti-Blackness

Eli Mena

 

 

Oct 25, 10:00am-12:00pm

Session 17G: Transnational Studies

Nostalgia, Memory, and Neo-colonialism: Neo-traditional Hip-Hop Music and Okinawan Identities

Qifang Hu

 

October 13, 2024, Filed Under: At the Archives

Exploring a Rare Record: From Courtly Classics to Street Sounds

Back of cover for Nonesuch LP Explorer Series H-7039, “The Persian Santur - Music of Iran, with album notes including image of a santur and photograph of Nasser Rastergar-Nejar, featured on the recording

By Mana Poursmaeil, PhD Student

One of the disc records in our Ethnomusicology Archive & Lab features a rare album by the Iranian composer and singer Nasser Rastegar-Nejad, whose work stands out as a unique fusion of traditional and popular musical styles. While the album incorporates classical Iranian court instruments, its overall tone evokes the vibrant street music of 1950s Iran. This blend of classical instrumentation with accessible compositions and lyrics creates a distinct musical experience.

Back of cover for Nonesuch LP Explorer Series H-7039, “The Persian Santur - Music of Iran, with album notes including image of a santur and photograph of Nasser Rastergar-Nejar, featured on the recording
Album cover notes for Nonesuch LP Explorer Series H-7039, “The Persian Santur – Music of Iran.”

The album’s cover notes state: “Nejad is heard in the Warner Bros film Performance; he also composed and performed the score for the off-Broadway show The Persian (APA-Phonex, Spring 1970), receiving favorable reviews from The New York Times and other publications.” The notes also highlight the Santur, a classical Iranian instrument with a deep cultural history. The recording took place at Electra Sound Record in New York, adding an international layer to its historical significance.

 

Stay tuned as we continue to regularly post highlights and gems from our Ethnomusicology Archive & Lab!

 

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