Polishing the Lens:  Teaching Interpretive Skills Via Historical Performance Practice

Tuesday, May 14, 2019, 2:00 PM
University of Oregon, Berwick Hall

With Evan Harger

*All Musicking events are free and open to the community. All events are subject to change.

 

As an orchestra teacher, one of my main goals is to train students to use their critical interpretive faculties on a daily basis. However, most students’ typical orchestra experience consists of sitting and following orders from a conductor. As a result, many students do not ask the big questions – How and Why. The art of interpretation is not an arcane art – every single music student can develop their interpretive lens. The intersection of education and interpretation, via historical performance practice, is the subject of this presentation.

Utilizing Jean-Féry Rebel’s 1715 composition Les Caractères de la Danse, I will – with the help of an ensemble of student musicians – break down the basic components of score interpretation such as range, pitch, orchestration, rhetoric, and poetic meter etc . . . We will demonstrate multiple ways of playing a passage, and more importantly – show how it is easy for students to grasp these basic concepts.

 

* The Musicking conference is free and open to the public. Click HERE to donate to the conference and keep Musicking  free for our community.