Annunciations: Sacred Music for the Twenty-First Century

Annunciations: Sacred Music for the Twenty-First Century
Author: George Corbett
Publisher: Open Book Publishers
Total Pages: 339
Release: 2019-05-01
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1783747293

Our contemporary culture is communicating ever-increasingly through the visual, through film, and through music. This makes it ever more urgent for theologians to explore the resources of art for enriching our understanding and experience of the Judeo-Christian tradition. Annunciations: Sacred Music for the twenty-First Century, edited by George Corbett, answers this need, evaluating the relationship between the sacred and the composition, performance, and appreciation of music. Through the theme of ‘annunciations’, this volume interrogates how, when, why, through and to whom God communicates in the Old and New Testaments. In doing so, it tackles the intimate relationship between Scriptural reflection and musical practice in the past, its present condition, and what the future might hold. Annunciations comprises three parts. Part I sets out flexible theological and compositional frameworks for a constructive relationship between the sacred and music. Part II presents the reflections of theologians and composers involved in collaborating on new pieces of sacred choral music, alongside the six new scores and links to the recordings. Part III considers the reality of programming and performing sacred works today. This volume provides an indispensable resource for scholars and artists working at the interface between theology and the arts, and for those involved in sacred music. However, it will also be of interest to anyone concerned with the ways in which the Divine communicates through word and artistry to humanity.

Annunciations

Annunciations
Author: George Corbett
Publisher:
Total Pages: 376
Release: 2019
Genre: Music
ISBN: 9781783747313

"Our contemporary culture is communicating ever-increasingly through the visual, through film, and through music. This makes it ever more urgent for theologians to explore the resources of art for enriching our understanding and experience of the Judeo-Christian tradition. Annunciations: Sacred Music for the twenty-First Century, edited by George Corbett, answers this need, evaluating the relationship between the sacred and the composition, performance, and appreciation of music. Through the theme of 'annunciations', this volume interrogates how, when, why, through and to whom God communicates in the Old and New Testaments. In doing so, it tackles the intimate relationship between Scriptural reflection and musical practice in the past, its present condition, and what the future might hold. Annunciations comprises three parts. Part I sets out flexible theological and compositional frameworks for a constructive relationship between the sacred and music. Part II presents the reflections of theologians and composers involved in collaborating on new pieces of sacred choral music, alongside the six new scores and links to the recordings. Part III considers the reality of programming and performing sacred works today. This volume provides an indispensable resource for scholars and artists working at the interface between theology and the arts, and for those involved in sacred music. However, it will also be of interest to anyone concerned with the ways in which the Divine communicates through word and artistry to humanity."--Publisher's website.

Music: Its Theologies and Spiritualities

Music: Its Theologies and Spiritualities
Author: Edward Foley
Publisher: MDPI
Total Pages: 182
Release: 2020-11-25
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3039435930

This volume is an exploration of the varied and sometimes unrecognized ways in which music—especially in ritual contexts—can serve as both a spiritual conduit as well as a theological source. With topics ranging from a Congolese choir in Ireland to the Orthodox chant in Georgia, from postmodern reflections on new Passion compositions to reflections on the sacramentality of Black gospel music, this volume offers a rich plumbing of very diverse yet well researched musical traditions—case studies from around the globe—for their spiritual and theological contributions.

Classical Music Futures

Classical Music Futures
Author: Neil Thomas Smith
Publisher: Open Book Publishers
Total Pages: 383
Release: 2024-01-30
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1805110764

This volume brings together contributions from a wide range of international academics and practitioners. It traces innovations within classical music practice, showing how these offer divergent visions for its future. The interdisciplinary contributions to the volume highlight the way contrasting ideas of the future can effect change in the present. A rich balance of theoretical and practical discussion brings authority to this collection, which lays the foundations for timely responses to challenges ranging from the concept of the musical work, and the colonial values within Western musical culture, to unsustainable models of orchestral touring. The authors highlight how labour to meet the demands of particular futures for classical music might impact its creation and consumption, presenting case studies to capture the mediating roles of technology and community engagement. This book will be of interest to scholars and students in the fields of musicology and the sociology of music, as well as a general audience of practitioners, freelance musicians, music administrators and educators.

The Voice of the Century

The Voice of the Century
Author: Massimo Zicari
Publisher: Open Book Publishers
Total Pages: 250
Release: 2022-04-29
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1800643357

The fields of performance studies, empirical musicology, and the musicology of recordings have seen a tremendous development in recent years, shedding new light on the recent history of our performing tradition and conveying essential information to music practitioners, critics and audiences. This innovative work considers the notion of bel canto and the manner in which this vibrant tradition lives in the records of Luisa Tetrazzini (1871-1940), one of the most celebrated sopranos ever. Tetrazzini, whose discographic career includes about 120 recordings, belongs to that generation of inspirational performers who heralded the dawn of a new era of music appreciation, alongside such iconic figures as Enrico Caruso, Adelina Patti and Nellie Melba. Drawing on a vast body of scholarship and a number of contemporary reviews, Massimo Zicari establishes Tetrazzini’s role in the Italian operatic tradition and its much disputed set of performing conventions. His transcriptions of her recorded interpretations from Rossini, Donizetti, Bellini and Verdi will prove invaluable to singers and conductors interested in a tradition that goes back to legendary figures such as Jenny Lind and Maria Malibran. The author also discusses her voice quality and technique, tempo flexibility, her use of vibrato and portamento—features of musical performance that question several widely-held, normative views about aesthetics and interpretative tradition. The volume includes eighty-eight musical examples and its closing section consists of the vocal scores of thirteen operatic arias. The musical material (both examples and transcriptions) is entirely original. This unique approach seeks to combine an academic perspective with the making of the music, in the hope that the plea for originality may be enhanced by models from the past.

Dante's Christian Ethics

Dante's Christian Ethics
Author: George Corbett
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 249
Release: 2020-03-12
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1108489419

This book is a major re-appraisal of the Commedia as originally envisaged by Dante: as a work of ethics. Privileging the ethical, Corbett increases our appreciation of Dante's eschatological innovations and literary genius. Drawing upon a wider range of moral contexts than in previous studies, this book presents an overarching account of the complex ordering and political programme of Dante's afterlife. Balancing close readings with a lucid overview of Dante's Commedia as an ethical and political manifesto, Corbett cogently approaches the poem through its moral structure. The book provides detailed interpretations of three particularly significant sins - pride, sloth, and avarice - and the three terraces of Purgatory devoted to them. While scholars register Dante's explicit confession of pride, the volume uncovers Dante's implicit confession of sloth and prodigality (the opposing subvice of avarice) through Statius, his moral cypher.

Classical Music

Classical Music
Author: Michael Beckerman
Publisher: Open Book Publishers
Total Pages: 154
Release: 2021-03-30
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1800641168

This kaleidoscopic collection reflects on the multifaceted world of classical music as it advances through the twenty-first century. With insights drawn from leading composers, performers, academics, journalists, and arts administrators, special focus is placed on classical music’s defining traditions, challenges and contemporary scope. Innovative in structure and approach, the volume comprises two parts. The first provides detailed analyses of issues central to classical music in the present day, including diversity, governance, the identity and perception of classical music, and the challenges facing the achievement of financial stability in non-profit arts organizations. The second part offers case studies, from Miami to Seoul, of the innovative ways in which some arts organizations have responded to the challenges analyzed in the first part. Introductory material, as well as several of the essays, provide some preliminary thoughts about the impact of the crisis year 2020 on the world of classical music. Classical Music: Contemporary Perspectives and Challenges will be a valuable and engaging resource for all readers interested in the development of the arts and classical music, especially academics, arts administrators and organizers, and classical music practitioners and audiences.

Rethinking Social Action through Music

Rethinking Social Action through Music
Author: Geoffrey Baker
Publisher: Open Book Publishers
Total Pages: 270
Release: 2021-04-12
Genre: Music
ISBN: 180064129X

How can we better understand the past, present and future of Social Action through Music (SATM)? This ground-breaking book examines the development of the Red de Escuelas de Música de Medellín (the Network of Music Schools of Medellín), a network of 27 schools founded in Colombia’s second city in 1996 as a response to its reputation as the most dangerous city on Earth. Inspired by El Sistema, the foundational Venezuelan music education program, the Red is nonetheless markedly different: its history is one of multiple reinventions and a continual search to improve its educational offering and better realise its social goals. Its internal reflections and attempts at transformation shed valuable light on the past, present, and future of SATM. Based on a year of intensive fieldwork in Colombia and written by Geoffrey Baker, the author of El Sistema: Orchestrating Venezuela’s Youth (2014), this important volume offers fresh insights on SATM and its evolution both in scholarship and in practice. It will be of interest to a very varied readership: employees and leaders of SATM programs; music educators; funders and policy-makers; and students and scholars of SATM, music education, ethnomusicology, and other related fields.

Straight to the Heart

Straight to the Heart
Author: Daniel Blackaby
Publisher: David C Cook
Total Pages: 170
Release: 2024-08-06
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 083078585X

Our approach to apologetics needs to change when the very idea of “truth” is controversial. But as authors Daniel Blackaby and Mike Blackaby teach us, we can still reach people if we understand what they value most. This practical guide to our current landscape explores five effective communication pathways: Story: As people wired for narrative, we can speak through the stories we live and tell. Beauty: In an increasingly industrialized world, we can point people to “pockets of beauty” that reveal the attractiveness of God. Art: In a society that celebrates the arts, we can cultivate creativity in the church, then send artists out as cultural missionaries. Desire: To a people motivated by love, identity, and purpose, we can show how Jesus is the perfect fulfillment of our deepest longings. Community: As relational creatures where connectivity is disappearing, we can offer a community of unified diversity. Culture may be in flux, but God’s Word remains true. Straight to the Heart helps us speak to the passions that drive our culture without compromising the life-changing truth of the gospel.

Acoustemologies in Contact

Acoustemologies in Contact
Author: Emily Wilbourne
Publisher: Open Book Publishers
Total Pages: 198
Release: 2021-01-19
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1800640382

In this fascinating collection of essays, an international group of scholars explores the sonic consequences of transcultural contact in the early modern period. They examine how cultural configurations of sound impacted communication, comprehension, and the categorisation of people. Addressing questions of identity, difference, sound, and subjectivity in global early modernity, these authors share the conviction that the body itself is the most intimate of contact zones, and that the culturally contingent systems by which sounds made sense could be foreign to early modern listeners and to present day scholars. Drawing on a global range of archival evidence—from New France and New Spain, to the slave ships of the Middle Passage, to China, Europe, and the Mediterranean court environment—this collection challenges the privileged position of European acoustical practices within the discipline of global-historical musicology. The discussion of Black and non-European experiences demonstrates how the production of ‘the canon’ in the cosmopolitan centres of colonial empires was underpinned by processes of human exploitation and extraction of resources. As such, this text is a timely response to calls within the discipline to decolonise music history and to contextualise the canonical works of the European past. This volume is accessible to a wide and interdisciplinary audience, not only within musicology, but also to those interested in early modern global history, sound studies, race, and slavery.