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Concerts from the Library of Congress: Pick of the Week

Week of June 8, 2020

This Pick of the Week brings you a set of fascinating lectures and demonstrations that focus on the intersection of music, sound and technology. We hope you enjoy it!

Pick of the Week - June 8, 2020

Lecture: "Capturing Sound: How Technology Has Changed Music" (event date: November 9, 2005)

According to Mark Katz of the Department of Musicology, Peabody Conservatory of Music, Johns Hopkins University, there is more to sound recording than you might think. Not just a tool for the preservation of music, the technology is a catalyst for change. In "Capturing Sound," Katz writes a wide-ranging, informative and entertaining history of recording's profound impact on the musical life of the past century, from Edison to the Internet.

Lecture/Demonstration: "Music & Technology: Ge Wang & Mark Applebaum" (event date: October 26, 2013)

In collaboration with Stanford University, Mark Applebaum and Ge Wang speak about and demonstrate key issues at the intersection of music and technology.

Pick of the Weekend - June 12, 2020

This Pick of the Weekend is dedicated to the use of technology in musical presentations and studies. We start this edition with a remarkable performance of Justice, a Library commission by Roger Reynolds, performed in the Jefferson Building's Great Hall in 2001. We paired it with two lectures: the first on technology in music and the role of performance spaces in the presentation of music and art; the second on the use of new technologies to study physical characteristics of musical instruments. We hope you enjoy it!

Justice by Roger Reynolds (performance date: November 30, 2001)

Composer Roger Reynolds' operatic work Justice, commissioned for the celebration of the Library's Bicentennial in 2000, was performed in the Great Hall of the Library's Jefferson Building. Composed for actress, soprano, percussionist, multichannel computer sound, and real-time surround sound, Justice is based on the Greek tragedy of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon. The text was adapted from Aeschylus and Euripides. All three performers-actress, soprano and percussionist - portray aspects of Clytemnestra's character as she contemplates her husband's return from the Trojan War and his subsequent death at her hand in retribution for the death of their daughter Iphigenia.


Forum on Artists and Technology  (March 3, 2010)

Here we present a panel discussion by composers Steve Antosca and Roger Reynolds moderated by Professor Thomas DeLio from the University of Maryland, College Park. This event is part of the spring 2010 series of lectures, workshops, forums, and performances focusing on current and historical trends in the use of technology in music, as well as the role that performance spaces play in the dissemination of music, art, and technology.

Science Meets Music: Technical Studies of Musical Instruments (event date: April 10, 2018)

This program features recent in-depth studies that serve as models of collaborations among curators, conservators and cultural heritage scientists in the field of musical studies. As part of a National Endowment of the Humanities (NEH) Preservation and Access Grant-funded project involving the Library of Congress, the Catholic University of America, and George Washington University, "Science Meets Music: Technical Studies of Musical Instruments" is the first of an annual series. These lectures highlight the NEH-supported study of glass flutes by Claude Laurent in the Library of Congress Dayton C. Miller Collection, along with invited talks that represent groundbreaking, collaborative research with broad interest for cultural heritage curators, conservators, scientists and musicians.