Commentary on songs and singing.
Learning American history by listening to music may sound like a short cut, but when the teacher is opera star Thomas Hampson, it's more of a highbrow leg-up.
One of the most powerful, searing renditions of the national anthem ever recorded, Jimi Hendrix’s iconic Woodstock anthem, almost never happened...
While American culture developed primarily in conformity with European standards during the 19th century, native elements began to receive attention in Europe beginning in the early 20th.
Of the distinguished refugee composers chased to the US by Hitler, two - Kurt Weill and Arnold Schoenberg - so memorably responded to Pearl Harbor that one is tempted to surmise that no American-born composer could have reacted with such exigent fervor to the Japanese attack.
Never has there been a more urgent time to foster cultural humility, diversity, and community dialogue while addressing systemically exclusionary teaching practices in vocal music.
Singing Down the Barriers offers readers from all ethnic backgrounds a space in which to better understand the historical and cultural barriers to researching, programming, and performing repertoire by composers from the African diaspora. Emery Stephens and Caroline Helton present a pedagogical guide for singers, singing teachers, students, and administrators that will assist not only with programming but also in creating sustainable, brave spaces for critical conversations on race, equity, and American music. The book is divided into three parts:
Part one presents historical context for African American song from the 19th century to the 21st century.
Part two examines the culture of academic institutions and provides a framework for positive change.
Part three provides strategies to foster integrated communities that can explore this repertoire with respect and mutual support as well as ways to incorporate Afrocentric music into the canon.
This book is a seminal resource for higher education, community music programs, private studios, and beyond, and will help support DEI initiatives for vocal music programs.
Song in Walt Whitman’s America was an everyday affair, and it remains so today. His praise is not of humming, nor of half-remembered ballads, but of full-throated songs. The rhythm of work, or nurturing care, of playtime throbbed to the sound of song throughout life and across society’s many constituent parts.
“America” has always meant different things to different people. The American poetic tradition is a particularly rich narration of our people and of becoming a culture--a culture chiseled with a fierce independence of mind and heart and soul unmistakably grounded in the very myriad of racial heritages from which it was born.
An essay about Stephen Foster and the international reception and popularity of his song "Hard Times Come Again No More"
An essay on the development of the concert Spiritual, with a specific focus on the Spiritual "Wade in the Water"
