Sound Expertise

In light of the recent resurfacing of racist remarks that Steve Reich made in the 1970s, what are the racial politics of the composer's canonic minimalist music? What is the history of Reich's engagement with civil rights in works like Come Out , and does the influence of African music on his compositions represent a form of cultural appropriation? A conversation with Sumanth S Gopinath...

What if feminist music history isn't just about elevating composers like Amy Beach and Clara Wieck Schumann, but also about understanding how everyday women made music? What is elocution, and how did a now-obscure genre of musical readings represent a cornerstone of American women performing in the nineteenth century? A conversation with Marian Wilson Kimber , professor of music at the Univer...

What happens when classical music takes seriously the work of Black avant-garde composers? What would a creolized musical world look like? And what is the relationship between scholarship and composing? A conversation with George E. Lewis , Edwin H. Case Professor of American Music at Columbia University. Show notes and more over at soundexpertise.org Questions? Thoughts? Share them with Will on T...

What does it mean to bring music of the distant past back to life? What happens when scholars focus not just on reconstructing the notes and words of Renaissance song but also on trying to recapture the lived experience of singing it? A conversation with Jesse Rodin , Associate Professor of music at Stanford. Show notes and more over at soundexpertise.org Have a question or comment about the show?...

What can operetta tell us about everyday life in fin-de-siècle Vienna? Why has our understanding of Vienna been limited to high-art composers like Mahler and Schoenberg, and how might studying operetta change our perspective on the Austro-Hungarian Empire amidst the tumult of the early twentieth century? A conversation with Micaela K. Baranello , Assistant Professor of musicology at the University...

How should we understand the legacy of Richard Wagner, the most controversial composer in history? Why did Wagner's music and ideas once assume such a colossal influence on culture, and what does it mean that the multiplicity of that influence has been largely forgotten in light of his anti-Semitism? A conversation with Alex Ross, music critic for The New Yorker and author of the forthcoming...

What makes some songs, from Kenny Loggins' "Danger Zone" to Tina Turner's "What's Love Got to Do with It," sound so distinctively "1980s"? What is timbre, why does it matter, and how do music theorists study it? And did Michael Jackson write the music for Sonic the Hedgehog 3?! A conversation with Megan Lavengood, Assistant Professor and Director of Mus...

When music departments focus exclusively on classical music, are they also being racially exclusionary? How can the academy move beyond its history of racism and embrace other musical genres? A conversation with Loren Kajikawa, Associate Professor of Music at George Washington University’s Corcoran School of the Arts & Design. Show notes and more over at soundexpertise.org

What if harmony isn't just about sounding good, but also about living together in a fractious time? How did sacred music in early modern Prague shape how people of different faiths existed alongside each other? A conversation with Erika Supria Honisch, Assistant Professor of History/Theory at Stony Brook University. Show notes and more over at soundexpertise.org

Trailer for a new podcast of weekly conversations with musicologists, ethnomusicologists, music theorists, and music critics, hosted by Will Robin and produced by D. Edward Davis. Episode 1 goes live on Tuesday, July 21.