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Journeys through song
It’s unlikely that Sugata Bose’s classroom discussions begin with a serenade, but on Monday afternoon his audience needed a little musical inspiration. So in a rich tenor voice, the Harvard historian...
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Sweet hymns of joy
On Christmas Day in 1863, poet and Harvard professor Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote the words for “Christmas Bells.” The poem reflected the despair he felt at the grinding Civil War, but by the...
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Marsalis to conclude lecture-performance series
Wynton Marsalis will conclude his six-lecture series at Sanders Theatre on Jan. 30 with a lecture performance focusing on New Orleans and the birth of jazz. Currently the managing and artistic...
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Sing a song
It’s both a dream and a nightmare scenario for anyone seeking a career on the musical stage: Stand alone in front of an acclaimed Broadway star, sing your heart out, and then await the critique....
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The music that didn’t stop
It was a lecture delivered with cornet and clarinet, trombone and tuba, standup bass and bass drum. Wynton Marsalis and an all-star ensemble gave a capacity crowd at Sanders Theatre a musical history...
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Harmony and humanity
You could hear the packed house inside Sanders Theatre hold its collective breath as jazz pianist Herbie Hancock slid onto the bench and gently settled his hands on the Steinway to pluck a few chords...
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Bach to Bach
Mozart said of Bach: “He is the father, we are the kids. Those of us who know anything at all learned it from him.” Mozart referred not to the prolific and influential composer who typically comes to...
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A sweet-sounding moment
Max Tan ’15 came to Harvard from East Lyme, Conn., for his education, but he also came for this moment. It was announced in a phone call from Benjamin Zander, conductor and music director of the...
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Before the baton, a red pencil
In addition to his extraordinary gifts as a maestro, Sir Georg Solti had a knack for concise self-analysis. “I was born and trained to communicate music,” he wrote in his memoir. Harvard curators,...
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The wrong way forward
Conductor and composer Matt Aucoin ’12 is often compared to another Harvard alumnus with an extraordinary gift for music: Leonard Bernstein. Anyone familiar with Aucoin’s work and talent knows it’s an...
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Breaking musical barriers
She could have been Madonna. The musical genius at the front of the room was a certified rock star to an excited Handong Park ’18, who worried he was underdressed for the occasion. “I wouldn’t miss it...
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The introspective Laurie Anderson
For more than four decades, Laurie Anderson’s music and performance art have delighted and often mystified — so much so that even NASA took notice, offering her a gig as its first artist in residence....
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The unheard melodies of speech
Rife with symbolism as they are, public monuments and memorials often generate controversy and elicit impassioned proposals from designers. In a recent article on memorials in The Architectural...
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Path to understanding
Crossing Asia to the Mediterranean Sea, the Silk Road was once a vital route for trade. Named for the Chinese silks its merchants transported to the West, the road — really a mix of intertwining...
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The mystery of Mahler
Speaking to an audience at the Harvard Ed Portal, Federico Cortese, senior lecturer on music and director of the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra, wondered why Americans have such a unique relationship...
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Where next?
Practice is a series of profiles zeroing in on the makings of performance. Jazz pianist Vijay Iyer follows surgeon and violinist Terry Buchmiller. It takes years of arduous practice to become...
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Who needs answers?
“Works of art are designed to take us as quickly as possible to our most important questions,” Steven Seidel told an audience of artists and educators gathered at Farkas Hall on Monday night. It was...
View ArticleAge-old enchantments
Last semester, students in Gojko Barjamovic’s general education course “Ancient Near East 103: Ancient Lives” touched the ancient past. For class credit, undergrads spent hours helping recreate...
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A voice for creative leadership
How do you take a break from a demanding career for the first time in decades? If you are Deborah Borda, president and chief executive officer of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, you head to Harvard....
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Making music that matters
Don’t ever tell Angélique Kidjo what she can’t do. It’s a waste of time, and always has been. From an early age, the Benin-born singer and activist planned to be an R&B performer like James Brown....
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Along China’s keys
The evocative piano sonatas and etudes of Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Chopin, and Debussy are legendary, beloved around the world and celebrated in the classical canon. But what is known about the...
View ArticleThe gift of Kuumba
In the yearly cycle of a Harvard student, before the comfort of the festive year-end season, comes the stress of finals season. This weekend, as the community braces to clear that last hurdle, the...
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An enduring Christmas groove
Melancholy, upbeat, serene, and infectious are just some of the words that describe Vince Guaraldi’s quintessential holiday soundtrack, “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” whose unforgettable blend of jazz...
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David Bowie and me
The death of trailblazing music and style icon David Bowie from cancer on Sunday prompted an outpouring of tributes from his contemporaries, including the Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney, Bruce...
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Striving for imperfection
Step into Japanese-born composer and sound artist Reiko Yamada’s black box and you become a performer, creating a most perfect imperfect piece in modern music. Yamada’s interactive sound installation,...
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Field notes gathered by ear
Alto saxophonist Yosvany Terry is passionate about performing, composing, and teaching. But the new senior lecturer in the Music Department might be happiest when he’s visiting the countryside in his...
View ArticleJazz made visible
Crammed into a corner made by padded walls, hunched under a low tin ceiling, Max Roach smacked and rattled the drums while his feet rapidly tapped the pedals of the kick and hi-hat. A photographer...
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The ace of bass
Education is a crucial to Rufus Reid. The composer, bassist, and longtime teacher, who is the 2016 Harvard University Jazz Master in Residence, sponsored by the Office for the Arts at Harvard (OFA)...
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Plácido Domingo shares his secrets
Opera giant Plácido Domingo will sit down Thursday for “Giving Voice,” a conversation moderated by Tamar Herzog, Monroe Gutman Professor of Latin American Affairs and of History, and Anne C....
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Singer sensation
Over the course of his career, Plácido Domingo’s legendary performances have earned him thousands of standing ovations. On Thursday at Harvard’s Sanders Theatre, the master opera singer basked in the...
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For Ana Tijoux, hip-hop is home
Growing up, Ana Tijoux didn’t know where to call home. As the France-born-and-bred daughter of Chilean parents living in political exile, she felt conflicted about her identity — until she found...
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Radio heads
In an age when most radio is programmed through algorithms, WHRB (95.3 FM), Harvard’s independent station, remains gloriously autonomous and unfailingly human. “It’s an act of self-expression. I get...
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Musicologist puts race center-stage
Crowds usually didn’t fluster Marian Anderson. On Easter Sunday in 1939, one of the most famous singers of the 20th century, with help from first lady Eleanor Roosevelt, staged a concert at the...
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Finding harmony in music and medicine
Pediatric physician Lisa Wong said that the connection between medicine and music is not new, but has existed for centuries. Wong, a violinist and past president of the Longwood Symphony Orchestra...
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A sound all his own
Harry Yeff, an award-winning beatboxer who performs under the stage name Reeps One, arrived on campus Monday for a weeklong residency with the Office for the Arts- and Arts @ 29 Garden-sponsored...
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The sweep of jazz history
The legendary jazz pianist and composer Randy Weston spent a lifetime using music to tell stories that crossed cultures and continents. On Wednesday, Harvard will honor the 90-year-old for his...
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Three chords and some Kierkegaard
This article is part of a series on the impact of humanities studies in and out of the classroom. Storytelling has been a part of Brynn Elliott’s identity since she was a child, when she made up...
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A new holiday song cycle
The Harvard Glee Club and Radcliffe Choral Society’s holiday gift came early this year, in the form of a newly commissioned piece of classical music from alumnus Paul Moravec ’79. Moravec, the winner...
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Forever bringing joy
When Oxford University Press first asked Alex Rehding to write about one of the most iconic compositions in the history of music, the Harvard scholar wondered what he could possibly say that hadn’t...
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A vocal stand
Grammy Award-winning composer and conductor Craig Hella Johnson will lead a performance of his groundbreaking choral work “Considering Matthew Shepard” at Boston’s Symphony Hall on Feb. 5 The piece,...
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Life in wartime, etched in sound
For Radcliffe Fellow Jeremy Eichler, music and words developed along parallel tracks. A Newton native and the Boston Globe’s classical music critic, Eichler started violin at a young age, played viola...
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Women seek inroads in jazz, long a man’s world
The Piacenza Jazz Club in Italy is home to a music school. So when acclaimed pianist and singer Dena DeRose had down time before a recent show there, she perused the books in the teaching studio....
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Jazz singer Cassandra Wilson shares her mastery with Harvard students
In jazz, it doesn’t matter how well you play the notes: You can’t know where you’re going until you first know where you came from. The jazz tradition demands attention to the masters, especially...
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Amanda Palmer and Damon Krukowski talk analog vs. digital
Bring back the noise. Such was the prescription from indie musicians Amanda Palmer and Damon Krukowski ’85 during an animated discussion about digital creativity Tuesday night at the Carpenter Center...
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Tef Poe and friends ‘break bread’ at free Harvard Ed Portal show
Hip-hop artist Tef Poe turned up the volume at the Harvard Ed Portal, with a concert that sent a clear message about social injustice in America. The internationally acclaimed musician and American...
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Harvard Jazz Bands make and learn music on tour of Cuba
HAVANA — It isn’t easy to get to Güines. Though the town once contained Cuba’s leading sugar plantation slave enclave and its earliest railway, Güines (pronounced Gwin-es) isn’t listed on TripAdvisor...
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Harvard jazz leader Yosvany Terry returns to musical roots in Cuba
HAVANA — When Yosvany Terry was a child, his home was always filled with music. So when he stepped inside that home again on a summer trip to his native Cuba, he sat down almost immediately at the...
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Braxton Shelley gives Harvard a little more groove
Braxton Shelley believes in the holy power of sound. Harvard’s newest assistant professor of music brings years of experience as a composer, pianist, choir director, and minister to his intellectual...
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Wynton Marsalis shares the stage with Harvard President Drew Faust
Wynton Marsalis returns to campus Oct. 30 for an evening celebrating the video release of “Music as Metaphor,” the lecture and performance that launched his Harvard lecture series in 2011. The event,...
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Music and meaning, the Marsalis way
“In a few minutes, we are going to talk about improvisation. You are about to see it,” Harvard President Drew Faust told the crowd at Sanders Theatre on Monday evening as jazz great Wynton Marsalis...
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