Students from Professor Yvette Jackson’s Introduction to Composition (MUS4) Fall 2023 course explored the collections of the Harvard Art Museums and selected works to inspire original compositions. The final works, performed by Parker Quartet, are available to watch via the link below. Note: To access the performances, use the code 3456. Available through June 30,…
Student Spotlight: Devon Gates
Devon Gates is a Social Anthropology concentrator, with a secondary in Music. She is also participating in the Harvard-Berklee Joint Program of Study….
The Fromm Music Foundation Announces 2023 Commission Recipients, Prize Winners, and Project Grant Recipients
The Fromm Music Foundation at Harvard University is pleased to announce the 2023 commission and project grant recipients. Each year, the Fromm Music Foundation accepts applications for commissions of new music, and awards commissions to fourteen American composers. The Fromm Music Foundation commissions represent one of the ways that the foundation strives to support the…
Professor Alejandro L. Madrid receives Humboldt Research Award
Alejandro L. Madrid, the Walter W. Naumburg Professor of Music, has been awarded a Humboldt Research Award honoring his research and academic achievement. Professor Madrid is only the fifth musicologist to receive this award. The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation grants Humboldt Research Awards to internationally recognized researchers of all disciplines in recognition of their academic…
Elaine Fitz Gibbon: Music as Theater
How avant-garde performance redefines music’s possibilities Music Department graduate student Elaine Fitz Gibbon was recently featured on the Harvard Griffin GSAS website for her research on experimental music theater composition and performance. What the practitioners of [Musiktheater] began to argue is that the rituals of concert music are socially constructed. They . . . allow…
Fifteen Questions: Vijay Iyer on Cognition, Temporality, and Musical Community
Professional musician and Harvard professor of the arts Vijay Iyer recently sat down with Fifteen Minutes to chat about his career, his teaching philosophy, and the neuroscience of music. Excerpt: Iyer: “I’ve been very fortunate to, for the last 30-something years, to have been mentored by really visionary and generous Black musicians. And prior to that…
Clayton Stephenson Wins Grand Prize of Inaugural Nina Simone Piano Competition
The Harvard Music Department is thrilled to announce that pianist and recent Harvard/NEC dual-degree graduate Clayton Stephenson ’23, won the Grand Prize of the inaugural Nina Simone Piano Competition in Cincinnati, Ohio, after a masterful final-round performance of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor. The 23-year-old virtuoso competed with two other talented pianists in the finals, performing…
Prof. Charrise Barron: “How Music Powers Protest”
The Harvard Gazette sat down with Professor Charrise Barron for a Q&A about her teaching, and current book project. GAZETTE: Could you talk about your current book project, which was the focus of your research leave? BARRON: My current book project is called “The Platinum Age of Gospel.” That’s 1993 to 2013. I’m naming that era…
Elson Lecture Recap: “In stutter, artist finds voice”
The Harvard Gazette featured JJJJJerome Ellis’ Elson Lecture for a recap writing, “Jerome Ellis embraces onetime ‘curse’ in works inspired by nature and Blackness.”…