Little can be said about music during the last century without encountering the men and women who supported it financially. Pierre Bourdieu’s impression that the services rendered freely for the good of society reinforce a symbolic debt between giver and recipient complicates motivations behind patronage. Indeed, applying Bourdieu’s theory to alt…[Read more]

In a letter dated to 1960, Harry Partch describes living two lives simultaneously—one in modern America and another in ancient Greece. Furthermore, throughout his life, Partch exhibited striking dualities in both his music and personal life. Partch’s affinity for Greek themes and modalities in his music and musical theory is well known, but les…[Read more]

American musical theater occupies a unique space relative to other popular music genres. This is particularly true with regards to the ways aging performers are valued. Whereas aging or aged voices in popular music are often revered as “authentic,” aging musical theater performers face an industry largely uninvested in positive representations of…[Read more]

“To engage with CocoRosie requires absolute suspension of disbe- lief,” writes The Guardian. This has as much to do with their music as their appearance, for sisterly duo CocoRosie have embraced what they call a “posthuman kind of style” rooted in the dissolution of gender. In an effort to imagine a world beyond human constructions of gender,…[Read more]