Performers and Performance (215-0-2)

Instructors

Linda Austern
847/491-5705
l-austern@northwestern.edu
Office Hours: E-mail instructor to arrange a meeting.
Specialist in Renaissance and baroque musical-cultural relations, gender and feminist theory, European iconography, music as related to visual art and the early history of science. Recipient of major fellowships and research grants, including American Council of Learned Societies, British Academy, Mary Ingraham Bunting Institute (Radcliffe College/Harvard University), and National Endowment for the Humanities. Author, Music in English Children's Drama of the Later Renaissance (Gordon and Breach, 1992), Music in English Life and Thought 1550-1650 (forthcoming); editor, Music, Sensation and Sensuality (Routledge, 2002), editor, Music and the Sirens (Indiana University Press, 2006). Author of numerous articles and reviews in books and such journals as Journal of the American Musicological Society, Modern Philology, Music and Letters, and Renaissance Quarterly.

Meeting Info

RCMA Lower Level 121: Tues, Thurs 11:00AM - 12:20PM

Overview of class

This core course focuses on questions concerning both practical musicianship and musicians' careers in past and present global traditions of Western-style music. It will explore different types of musical performances, the career paths and obstacles faced by well-known and unfairly forgotten performers, and consider ongoing controversies about performance. Specific issues will include mythic narratives of musicianship, the past and present development of historically informed performance and what these mean for conservatory students in 2022, African and Asian musicians across time and space, questions of gender and race in popular music and art music past and present, and histories of performance at Northwestern, among others. By these means, music students will gain introductory literacy in diverse types of music and performance practices, learn about the legacies of specific musicians, and better understand intersections between creativity and commerce in diverse contexts, all grounded by the idea of performance. Students will learn how to use archived material across media to conduct individual research on musicians from past and present, including crossover between genres and their own musical heritage.

Registration Requirements

Music Majors Only

Learning Objectives

-Learn about diverse musicians, their legacies, and the circumstances of their performances in varied global contexts
-Conceive of music history through the lens of performers rather than through the composer or the work
-Develop a sense of how the concept of work differs from the concept of performance, and engage, where applicable, with notions of performance practices
-Develop music research skills and verbal communication skills about music
-Historicize and locate yourself and others within a complex world of musicians across genres

Class Materials (Required)

Nor textbook purchase required.

Class Attributes

Literature & Fine Arts Distro Area