Tag: Music

Recent Developments in Canto-pop with YouTube – A Case Study of G.E.M. Tang

Presenter: Hei Ting Wong, Mathematics

Panel: Art & Popular Culture

Mentor: Mark Levy, Music

Time: 1:15pm – 2:15pm

Location: Alsea Room

Cantonese is a dialect of the Southeast region of China. Cantonese popular music (Canto-pop) is music with Cantonese lyrics, but most Canto-pop songs are produced in Hong Kong. Although Hong Kong is only a dot on the world map, Canto-pop can be found all over the world because of the migrated population and students who study overseas. With the development of the Internet, new media serves as an important channel in spreading recent as well as older Canto-pop songs all over the world. / G.E.M. Tang is the most successful new singer of Canto-pop in recent years. There are several reasons for her success, including promotion strategies which are different from those used by singers in previous generations. Her YouTube channel is her primary promotion medium. The content of her videos and the interactivity between her and her subscribers are attractive especially to the young generation – the main group of users of the Internet and the predominant audience for popular music. This project aims to investigate recent developments in Canto-pop. Canto-pop has been declining since the millennium due to the semi- withdrawal of the “four heavenly kings,” the four greatest male singers of the 1990’s, and problems of pirating. It is believed that the success of G.E.M. is based on a clearer understanding of the preferences of the current Canto-pop audience. This shows the industry a better way in promotion and music production, which hopefully to draw audience’s attention back to Canto-pop music.

All the Things It Was: Milton Babbitt and American Popular Culture

Presenter: Marissa Ochsner, Music

Panel: Art & Popular Culture

Mentor: Loren Kajikawa, Music

Time: 1:15pm – 2:15pm

Location: Alsea Room

The recent death of the composer Milton Babbitt has inspired a number of articles recounting his life and works. These accounts typically present Babbitt as the pinnacle of academic modernism, praising his accomplishments in the realm of theory and “serious” music composition and emphasizing that his music is difficult and complex. Many of these accounts also include, usually as a matter of trivia, the paradoxical fact that Babbitt was an avid jazz fan who grew up listening to and performing popular music. In this paper, I use the writings of Milton Babbitt, Roger Sessions, Joseph Horowitz, Dwight Macdonald, and other contemporary intellectuals to argue that Babbitt’s love of pop tunes is not incongruous with his interest in “serious” music. Babbitt’s advocacy of “serious” music composition is related to several cultural innovations of the early twentieth century, including the rise of the phonograph and radio, which accelerated the shift from song-based music composition in the style of Tin Pan Alley to artist-based music marketing of “stars” like Arturo Toscanini, Frank Sinatra, and Elvis Presley. Babbitt’s love of pop tunes from the 20s and 30s and advocacy for “serious” music composition in the 1950s and beyond wasn’t just a funny quirk — it was a reflection of what Babbitt wanted for American music culture: a more active and engaged public with an appreciation for the act of music composition.

On the Nature of Space and Breath

Presenter: Alexander Bean

Mentor: Robert Kyr, School of Music

Creative Work Presentation: C3 (Oak Room)

Major: Music Composition and Organ Performance 

Traditional Western vocal music, especially in the art song music of the 19th century, text is of primary importance to the meaning of the work. This approach to vocal music obscures the physical generation of speech sounds, as well as their interaction with the acoustics of the space in which they are being produced. In my song for solo voice, space and breath, I take the opposite approach, composing physical speech sounds that have no semantic meaning. I accomplish this objective by composing pure sound without text, and instead, I transcribe exact phonemes using the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). The performer is given a particular set of resonant frequencies (those pitches which sound the clearest in a particular room) in order to control the interactions between the phonemes and the performance space. In my presentation, I will discuss the International Phonetic Alphabet as a means of notating the range of speech sounds that humans can produce. Moreover, I will explain how I organize these sounds, which I use to shape the dramatic arc of the piece. Finally, I will perform my work, and make some final comments about the structure of the piece.

The Pearl of Santa Radegonda: An Investigation into Chiara Margarita Cozzolani’s Musical Fortune and Success during the Early to Mid-Baroque Era

Presenter(s): Natalie North—Percussion Performance and Music Theory

Faculty Mentor(s): Holly Roberts

Session 3: Beyond a Melody

In the second-half of the sixteenth century, the Council of Trent declared nuns as political entities whose musical activities required strict oversight . These papal mandates utterly failed in Milan, as they were met with the fiery opposition of Milanese nuns whose music would remain as heralding feats of their communities . In this project, I explore the music and life of Chiara Margarita Cozzolani (1602–78), a seventeenth-century nun and composer at the Milanese Benedictine convent, Santa Radegonda . In 1996, Robert Kendrick’s groundbreaking monograph (Celestial Sirens, Oxford University Press) immensely detailed the biographical and musical accounts of early modern women religious . For over twenty years, few scholars have continued this important work . Minimal scholarship has investigated how the backgrounds of Milanese nuns affected their long lasting legacies while living in cloistered convents . I contend that Cozzolani’s musical contribution would not have been celebrated during her lifetime had it not been for her entrance into the monastery as a member of Milanese nobility, during a time in which local clergy allowed women religious more artistic freedom . Additionally, I argue that Cozzolani’s position as maestra di cappella (choirmaster) of Santa Radegonda afforded her the unique privilege to perform, print, and preserve her music which ensured her legacy as a formidable composer in a field usually reserved for men . Support for my argument comes from the lack of extant biographies of Cozzolani’s female contemporaries that are without extraordinary upbringings . Had it not been for her fortunate happenstances, would Cozzolani’s music survive today?