La pluralidad discursiva manifiesta en la música cubana se ha encontrado enmarcada en una realidad estético-musical cambiante, causada por una postmodernidad social cada vez más abierta a la globalización de las expresiones culturales de los pueblos. Es dentro de esta dinámica creativa que se encontraron inmersos los performances musicales del…[Read more]

Essay analyzing Syrian wedding singer Omar Souleyman’s popularity in rave, techno, and other popular Western music markets.

In the first decade of the twenty-first century, a young generation of Syrian experimental composers conceived a space for musiqa mu‘asira, or contemporary art music. Informed by debates on critical aesthetics, modernity, and subjectivity in the Arab world and beyond, these composers drew on particular compositional devices and techniques to m…[Read more]

An introduction to music appreciation and history that emphasizes the political, cultural, and social influences on music from antiquity to the 20th century. Contents include sacred and secular, vocal and instrumental, and folk and art music from across the Western world, including modern popular song. No previous musical experience necessary. All…[Read more]

These are the introductory chapter and chapter eight of the multi-authored book that I edited on food-music relations in various regions and periods. In the introduction I analyze the phenomenological basis of the unbalanced relations between food and music. Chapter 8 deals with song lyrics about food in Latin American and the Caribbean.

Historical and archaeological topics have been very popular for many years. This is witnessed by a variety of events and developments, as for example by time travel formats on television as well as by such performances at historic sites or at open-air museums. These historical performances and affective adoptions – bodily and sensual experiences t…[Read more]

A somewhat whimsical musing on music videos by Fall Out Boy and Beyoncé, all through the lens of Lucretius by way of John Rahn.

Continuation of documentary about concert spirituals categorized by song theme, from sorrow songs to songs of transcendence. Each category is followed by a recording:
– “Oh, Didn’t It Rain” (Ruby Elzy, soprano)
– “Every Time I Feel de Spirit” (Lawrence Brown, composer; Evelyn Dove, soprano)
– “My Soul’s Been Anchored in the Lord” (Florence…[Read more]

Documentary about concert spirituals categorized by song theme, from sorrow songs to songs of transcendence. Each category is followed by a recording: –
“I Cannot Stay Here by Myself” (Hall Johnson, composer; A. Grace Lee Mims, soprano)
– “Who’ll Be a Witness for My Lord” (John Rosamond Johnson, composer; Kenneth Spencer, baritone)
– “Steal…[Read more]

This chapter develops two claims that are central to the book’s overall argument. The first is that certain temporal musical objects exist only as ephemera—always remaining outside of symbolic representation. These objects are constituted by lived time, or time as it shows up in human lives. The second claim is that the ephemeral meaning of mus…[Read more]

This is the 2020 update of a comprehensive open-access annotated bibliography listing carillon scores by African American composers and/or based on African American music. While most of the items are published, a few are unpublished but in informal circulation, or are pending publication. Carillonists are invited to use this resource to identify…[Read more]