IAP 2014 Activities by Sponsor - Music and Theater Arts

Marcus Thompson, Professor of Music

Jan/18

Sat

03:00PM-06:00PM

Kresge Auditorium

Enrollment: Unlimited: No advance sign-up
Prereq: Tickets

Boston Chamber Music Society Winter Concert.   Marcus Thompson, Artistic Director.
The Russian Brahms:
A journey of 20 years, Brahms Piano Quartet in C minor is subtitled “Werther” after Goethe’s novel in which the sentimental hero kills himself for the unrequited love of his friend’s wife. Depending how you choose to interpret the relationship between Brahms and Clara Schumann, you may hear the musical sighs of pain, nervous Scherzo and deeply sentimental love song as a heartfelt goodbye. Taneyev’s String Quintet marries emotion and technique, utilizing a second viola to enhance the poignant theme and concluding triple fugue.

Brahms
Piano Quartet in C minor, Op. 60

Taneyev
String Quintet in C major, Op. 16


Featured Musicians

Ida Levin, violin
Yura Lee, violin
Marcus Thompson, viola
Dimitri Murrath, viola
Ronald Thomas, cello
Mihae Lee, piano

Admission: General: $35; WGBH members & senior citizens: $32; Non-MIT students: $10; MIT students with MIT student ID at the door: free; MIT faculty and staff: 20% off of general admission. For tickets and information, please visit: http://www.bostonchambermusic.org/

Sponsor(s): Music and Theater Arts
Contact: Clarise Snyder, 4-243, 617-253-2906, csnyder@mit.edu

Gary Van Zante, Curator, MIT Museum, Teresa Neff, Lecturer in Music

Enrollment: Advance sign-in preferred
Sign-up by 01/02
Limited to 25 participants
Attendance: Attendance at all preferrred

Museums are mostly about visual experience and increasingly about interactive and immersive learning environments that engage visitors with objects and their history. Conceptualizing and designing exhibitions about music presents a special challenge.  

Descriptions of a musical performance can be supplemented by documents, graphics, and visual material, but the “artifact” is not a physical object, but the experience of listening. The only records of most historical music performances are musical scores, reviews, and commentaries.  When describing these performances, it can be difficult to engage the imagination without resorting to technical terminology, which can alienate a general audience.

Listening is at the heart of music and if the focus is music of the past, then how can we experience this in a museum or any other setting?  Can a past performance be recreated?  Can participants (other than the curator) manipulate elements of a performance to fit their idea of what a performance from the past might have been?  Can the participant be part of that performance?

 This IAP class will begin to develop a dynamic application for interactive historical performance. Utilizing Messiah performances by the Handel and Haydn Society, we will recreate and manipulate these performances in reverse chronological order ending with 1815. And we will investigate whether this same process can be used not only in museum settings, but to disseminate live concerts in a more enticing way today.

Sponsor(s): MIT Museum, Music and Theater Arts
Contact: Teresa Neff, 10-263, 617 452-3212, TNEFF@MIT.EDU

---

Facing the Music

Jan/09	Thu	01:00PM-03:00PM	4-160, Bring your own laptop
Jan/16	Thu	01:00PM-03:00PM	4-160, Bring your own laptop
Jan/23	Thu	01:00PM-03:00PM	4-160, Bring your own laptop
Jan/30	Thu	01:00PM-03:00PM	4-160, Bring your own laptop

 This IAP class will begin to develop a dynamic application for interactive historical performance. Utilizing Messiah performances by the Handel and Haydn Society, we will recreate and manipulate these performances in reverse chronological order ending with 1815. And we will investigate whether this same process can be used not only in museum settings, but to disseminate live concerts in a more enticing way today.

Gary Van Zante - Curator, MIT Museum, Teresa Neff - Lecturer in Music