Sound Expertise

Philip Ewell has, in recent years, become the most controversial music scholar on the planet. After his incisive work on music theory's white racial frame was unfairly attacked by fellow academics, he was suddenly thrust into the national spotlight, as right-wing news outlets targeted him as part of a broader backlash. A discussion about what it means to be caught up in the Culture Wars, racism in music scholarship, and how Dr. Ewell has grappled with it all. Philip Ewell is professor of music theory at Hunter College of the City University of New York. Show notes and more over at soundexpertise.org! Questions? Thoughts? Email soundexpertise00@gmail.com or tag Will on Instagram/Twitter @seatedovation

Do we hear silence? John Cage certainly thought so, and so does Chaz Firestone, a scientist whose laboratory's recent study revealed that yes, we do hear silence. In this conversation, we discuss his new findings, what they mean for the fields of perception studies and philosophy, and how science and the humanities can work together to provide new answers to longstanding questions. Chaz Firestone is Assistant Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences and Director of the Hopkins Perception & Mind Laboratory at John Hopkins Show notes and more over at soundexpertise.org! Questions? Thoughts? Email soundexpertise00@gmail.com or tag Will on Instagram/Twitter @seatedovation

In curating music and the performing arts at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, Dwandalyn Reece has one of the most important jobs one can have as a music scholar: providing a framework for the public to understand African-American culture, at a moment in which Black history is under a nationwide assault. In this conversation, Dr. Reece discusses her work at the Smithsonian, the process of acquiring important artifacts of Black musical life, and the museum's significance today. Show notes and more over at soundexpertise.org! Questions? Thoughts? Email soundexpertise00@gmail.com or tag Will on Instagram/Twitter @seatedovation

Mark Katz is John P. Barker Distinguished Professor of Music at UNC Chapel Hill; Alim Braxton is a rapper on death row, who has been incarcerated in Central Prison in North Carolina since 1993. In 2019, they struck up a correspondence, and then a friendship, and are now writing a book. This is their story. Show notes and more over at soundexpertise.org! Questions? Thoughts? Email soundexpertise00@gmail.com or tag Will on Instagram/Twitter @seatedovation

The revival of Julius Eastman's work has transformed the world of avant-garde music, and in many ways can be attributed to a single individual. Since the late 1990s, the composer and performer Mary Jane Leach has collected manuscripts and recordings of Eastman's music, and helped bring about the current wave of "Eastmania." But the politics of Eastmania have become increasingly complicated, and Leach has found herself enmeshed in controversy around who can make claim to his legacy. A conversation about all that, and more. Mary Jane Leach is a composer, performer, scholar, and co-editor of "Gay Guerrilla: Julius Eastman and His Music." Show notes and more over at soundexpertise.org! Questions? Thoughts? Email soundexpertise00@gmail.com or tag Will on Instagram/Twitter @seatedovation

In 2018, Douglas Shadle tweeted about systemic discrimination in American orchestral programming. His thread went viral, and he soon found himself doing what became known, around then, as public musicology. In this conversation, he talks about presenting his work outside the academy through advocating for marginalized composers, and what the Florence Price revival has meant for his scholarship (and, more troublingly, how Schirmer's acquisition of her music may actually prevent it from being heard). Douglas Shadle is associate professor of musicology at Vanderbilt University. Show notes and more over at soundexpertise.org! Questions? Thoughts? Email soundexpertise00@gmail.com or tag Will on Instagram/Twitter @seatedovation

In his long career as a scholar and conductor, Joshua Rifkin has done a lot: arranged for Judy Collins, performed in the first-ever marathon of "Vexations," helped lead the ragtime revival and, perhaps most importantly, totally upended the conventional wisdom about Bach's choral music. This is a conversation about all of that, and more: rich, insightful, and scandalous stories about one of the most fascinating lives a music scholar can lead. (Including: getting tipsy with John Cage, playing in a jug band, and fighting an entire generation of Bach scholars.) Joshua Rifkin is an acclaimed conductor and scholar. Show notes and more over at soundexpertise.org! Questions? Thoughts? Email soundexpertise00@gmail.com or tag Will on Instagram/Twitter @seatedovation

Bossa nova is everywhere –– from a dance craze in the '60s to elevator music today -- but it's also from somewhere. Kaleb Goldschmitt studies how bossa nova moved from a specific musical tradition grounded in Brazilian culture to an international phenomenon, and what that means for how we understand jazz history. A conversation about all that and more, including how queer and trans musicians and scholars are navigating post-Bolsonaro Brazil. Kaleb Goldschmitt is Associate Professor of Music at Wellesley College Show notes and more over at soundexpertise.org! Questions? Thoughts? Email soundexpertise00@gmail.com or tag Will on Instagram/Twitter @seatedovation

When classical composers incorporate indigenous music into their work, it's more than just cultural appropriation, because indigenous songs are more than just songs: they serve as medicine, law, and history. So what would it mean to redress such misuses, and to bring an indigenous worldview into Western art music? A conversation with Dylan Robinson about appropriation, repatriation, and his path towards becoming a scholar. (And, yes, we talk about Roomful of Teeth.) Dylan Robinson is Associate Professor, School of Music at the University of British Columbia Show notes and more over at soundexpertise.org! Questions? Thoughts? Email soundexpertise00@gmail.com or tag Will on Instagram/Twitter @seatedovation

"Music and philosophy" is often about Nietzsche and Wagner, or Kant and Mozart. But, in Robin James's work, it can also be about pop, and feminist theory, and Peloton playlists. A conversation about Dr. James's approach towards philosophy, with a focus on her new project on the musical and cultural implications of our contemporary focus on "vibes." Robin James is Editor for Philosophy & Media Studies, Palgrave Macmillan Show notes and more over at soundexpertise.org! Questions? Thoughts? Email soundexpertise00@gmail.com or tag Will on Instagram/Twitter @seatedovation

There are approximately one bajillion biographies of Beethoven: do we need really another one? In fact, we do, because Laura Tunbridge has written an engrossing, provocative, and genuinely fresh book about Beethoven's life and times. A conversation about what it means to write about one of the most well-trodden composers in music history, and the rich new perspectives that Dr. Tunbridge brings to our understanding of Beethoven. Laura Tunbridge is Professor of Music and Henfrey Fellow and Tutor at St Catherine's College, University of Oxford. Show notes and more over at soundexpertise.org! A new call to action: tell us why you listen to the show! Tag Will on Instagram/Twitter @seatedovation or email our inbox, soundexpertise00@gmail.com

What does it mean to search for music-making in the archives of slavery? Maria Ryan studies African-descended musicians and listeners in the colonial Caribbean, and her research is fraught with ethical and logistical challenges. A conversation about fully imagining the lives of enslaved musicians, when the evidence of those lives is documented almost entirely by their oppressors. Maria Ryan is assistant professor of musicology at Florida State University's College of Music. Show notes and more over at soundexpertise.org! A new call to action: tell us why you listen to the show! Tag Will on Instagram/Twitter @seatedovation or email our inbox, soundexpertise00@gmail.com

What does it mean to be a scholar when the culture you study is under attack? Maria Sonevytsky and Oksana Nesterenko work on Ukrainian music, and their lives have changed profoundly in the last year. A conversation about the Ukrainian avant-garde and pop worlds, how wartime changes research agendas, and much more. Maria Sonevytsky is Associate Professor of Anthropology & Music at Bard College; Oksana Nesterenko teaches at Union College. Show notes and more over at soundexpertise.org! A new call to action: tell us why you listen to the show! Tag Will on Instagram/Twitter @seatedovation or email our inbox, soundexpertise00@gmail.com

The story of music in the Soviet Union isn't just about Shostakovich and Stalin -- sometimes, it's not about composers at all. Gabrielle Cornish writes about a different kind of socialist sound: noise abatement policy, pop music, and even an aborted plan to put a synthesizer in every Soviet home. A conversation about socialist noise, studying abroad in Siberia, what the war in Ukraine has meant for research, and more. Gabrielle Cornish is Assistant Professor of Musicology at the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music, and soon to be Assistant Professor of Musicology at the University of Wisconsin. Show notes and more over at soundexpertise.org! Questions? Thoughts? Share them with Will on Twitter @seatedovation or email our new inbox, soundexpertise00@gmail.com

The African-American pianist Hazel Harrison played with the Berlin Philharmonic in 1904, and was promptly forgotten. But Kira Thurman remembers. Her incredible book Singing Like Germans tells the rich, textured stories of Black classical musicians who performed in Germany, which provided a safe haven from American segregation, even though they still faced racism. A conversation about the paradoxes of race and colorblindness in classical music, and much, much more. Kira Thurman is associate professor of history, German studies, and musicology at University of Michigan. Show notes and more over at soundexpertise.org! Questions? Thoughts? Share them with Will on Twitter @seatedovation

Writing a biography isn't easy, especially when it's of a living person, and especially when that living person is an epochal, oft-mythologized musician like Joni Mitchell. But Ann Powers, one of my absolute favorite music critics, has been doing the work. For our Season 3 debut, a deep conversation with Ann about her in-progress Joni Mitchell book, the complexities and anxieties behind thinking through Joni's life alongside her own, and what it means to write about women making music. Ann Powers is NPR Music's critic and correspondent. Show notes and more over at soundexpertise.org! Questions? Thoughts? Share them with Will on Twitter @seatedovation

Finally, Sound Expertise returns! Season 3 begins on May 16, and it's our biggest and most ambitious to date: a full summer of interviews with music scholars about their research, and why it matters. Check out past episodes at soundexpertise.org and get ready for our season premiere next week: an interview with the amazing Ann Powers about her in-progress Joni Mitchell book! #hotmusicologysummer

We're almost back -- Season 3 will debut in just a few weeks! Before then, one final bonus episode: our great producer D. Edward Davis interviews Will and co-author Kerry O'Brien about their new book "On Minimalism: Documenting a Musical Movement," which University of California Press will release on April 25. We talk about our histories with musical minimalism, putting the book together, expanding the narrow canon of minimalism beyond white dudes, and more! More over at soundexpertise.org -- including info about our book launch events in NYC on April 23 and DC on April 26! Questions? Thoughts? Share them with Will on Twitter @seatedovation

Another bonus episode! A conversation with composer Matthew Aucoin, whose opera Euridice had a run at the Met last month, and who just wrote a new book about the history and culture of opera, The Impossible Art: Adventures in Opera. More over at soundexpertise.org! Questions? Thoughts? Share them with Will on Twitter @seatedovation

Check out this episode of the great podcast Phantom Power, on the life and work of composer R. Murray Schafer. You can check out more info on the episode here, and its second part here. We'll have another bonus episode up before the end of the year, and Season 3 will happen at some point in 2022! More over at soundexpertise.org! Questions? Thoughts? Share them with Will on Twitter @seatedovation