ALFRED HOOK LECTURE/RECITAL SERIES 2013

SYDNEY CONSERVATORIUM OF MUSIC

The Alfred Hook Lecture/Recital Series is an annual program of presentations by eminent experts that explore a wide range of research in music. The 2013 program features presentations by internationally acclaimed musicologists and performers across a diverse range of topics. From its inception, the Series has hosted prominent speakers such as Judy Bailey, Leslie Howard, Paul Grabowsky, Peter Sculthorpe, Anthony Seeger, Terry Riley, Charles Rosen and Richard Toop.

The Series provides a showcase for presentations covering both Western Art Music as well as music from other cultures. This year sees the introduction of several dedicated lecture/recitals, emphasising the importance of this mode of presentation in the contemporary training of performer/scholars.

THE 2013 PROGRAM 3

DATE TOPIC PRESENTER

FRIDAY 22 MARCHA Platonic Model of Funky Rhythms, Or How to Get That Swing

Richard Cohn

FRIDAY 17 MAYWorks of Music and their Interpretation in Performance

Paul Thom

FRIDAY 7 JUNEPerforming Monteverdi: Some Problems (and a Few Solutions)

Tim Carter

FRIDAY 2 AUGUSTDancing to the Devil’s Tune: Liszt’s Mephisto Waltz and the Power of Virtuosity

David Larkin

FRIDAY 30 AUGUSTBards of Empire: Kipling and Grainger. Kipling’s Life and Works as reflected in the music of Grainger and others

Michael Halliwell & David Miller

FRIDAY 27 SEPTEMBERWe are all Musical: A Celebration of Human Musicality and its Importance for Health and Wellbeing

Raymond MacDonald

FRIDAY 25 OCTOBER Charles Valentin Alkan (1813 - 1888) 200 years on Stephanie McCallum

TIME AND VENUEAll Lecture/Recitals commence at 4pm and are in Recital Hall West, Level 1, Sydney Conservatorium of Music, Macquarie Street, Sydney.

COSTFree entry, bookings not required.

REFRESHMENTSPlease join us for refreshments at the conclusion of the lecture/recital.

SERIES DIRECTORProfessor Michael Halliwell Associate Dean Research (Acting)

SERIES COORDINATORSusie Walsh Research Services Officer

SERIES ENQUIRIESPlease direct all enquiries to the Series Coordinator, Susie Walsh:

T +61 2 9351 1442 E susie.walsh@sydney.edu.au sydney.edu.au/music/alfredhook

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A PLATONIC MODEL OF FUNKY RHYTHMS, OR HOW TO GET THAT SWING

Plato’s Republic reconciled the powers of 2 and 3, acoustically manifest as octaves and fifths. An analogous reconciliation is characteristic of African-diasporic repertories, where chains of dotted rhythms threaten to rupture a duply generated metric frame. Based on insights of the late Australian theorist Jeff Pressing, this presentation illustrates with examples from ragtime, samba, jazz, funk, and film music.

Richard Cohn is Battell Professor of Music Theory at Yale University, and Honorary Professor at the University of Sydney. He is author of Audacious Euphony: Chromaticism and the Triad’s Second Nature (Oxford, 2012). Two of his scholarly articles have earned the Society of Music Theory’s Outstanding Publication Award. Cohn is series editor of Oxford University Press’s Studies in Music Theory, and was recently appointed Editor of the Journal of Music Theory. His current research models metric states and syntaxes in classical and world-music repertories.

PROFESSOR RICHARD COHN22 MARCH

5PROFESSOR PAUL THOM17 MAY

WORKS OF MUSIC AND THEIR INTERPRETATION IN PERFORMANCE

Are works of music (e.g. operas in the standard repertoire) timeless artworks whose proper performance leaves no room for creative interpretation, are they historical entities that constantly change under interpretation – or is there a third possibility?

Paul Thom is an Honorary Professor of Philosophy in the School of Philosophical and Historical Inquiry at the University of Sydney. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanites, and a recipient of the Centenary of Federation Medal for service to Australian society and the humanities in the study of philosophy of the arts. His books include For an Audience: A Philosophy of the Performing Arts (Temple University Press 1993) and The Musician as Interpreter (Pennsylvania State University Press 2007). His recent articles include Opera and Authenticity in Performance in The Routledge Companion to Philosophy and Music, and The Aesthetics of Opera, Philosophy Compass (2011).

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PERFORMING MONTEVERDI: SOME PROBLEMS (AND A FEW SOLUTIONS)

The music of Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643) has long been at one cutting edge of the HIP (Historically Informed Performance) movement. A new look at sources and contexts, however, suggests that musicologists still have much to learn from performers, and vice versa, when exploring his Mantuan operas—including Orfeo (1607)— madrigals, and sacred works (the 1610 Vespers), and also his Venetian ones.

Tim Carter is the author and editor of various books on music in late Renaissance and early Baroque Italy, including Monteverdi’s Musical Theatre (2002) and The Cambridge History of Seventeenth-Century Music (2005), and also of the Cambridge Opera Handbook on Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro (1987) and of Oklahoma! The Making of an American Musical (2007). He has just published a critical edition of Kurt Weill’s first musical play composed in the U.S., Johnny Johnson (1936), and is currently collaborating with the economic historian Richard Goldthwaite on Orpheus in the Marketplace: Jacopo Peri and the Economy of Late Renaissance Florence, based on a treasure trove of materials newly found in the archives.

PROFESSOR TIM CARTER7 JUNE

7DR DAVID LARKIN2 AUGUST

DANCING TO THE DEVIL’S TUNE: LISZT’S MEPHISTO WALTZ AND THE POWER OF VIRTUOSITY

As a pianist, Franz Liszt exerted an uncanny power over his audiences. In Liszt’s Mephisto Waltz, the devil manipulates the behaviour of his hearers through his playing. This lecture/recital explores the Waltz as an allegorical representation of virtuosity, and the potentially sinister impact a skillful player might have on listeners.

David Larkin is a musicologist based at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music since 2010. A native of Ireland, he studied at University College Dublin and the University of Cambridge, where he completed his doctorate in 2007. He specializes in nineteenth-century German music, and has published articles on the compositions of Richard Strauss, Wagner and Liszt. Outside of academia, he has given public talks for the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Musica Viva, and many Sydney based operatic societies. He also writes concert reviews for the online database, Bachtrack, and sings with a variety of Chamber choirs around the city.

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BARDS OF EMPIRE: KIPLING AND GRAINGER. KIPLING’S LIFE AND WORKS AS REFLECTED IN THE MUSIC OF GRAINGER AND OTHERS

This presentation traces the controversial life and works of Rudyard Kipling as represented in musical settings by Percy Grainger and other contemporary composers. Kipling was writing as the British Empire was at its height and he soon became inextricably associated with it. Percy Grainger, more than any other composer, engaged with Kipling’s output in a variety of forms including solo songs.

Michael Halliwell studied at the London Opera Centre and with Tito Gobbi in Florence. He was principal baritone with the Netherlands Opera; Hamburg State Opera, and Nürnberg Opera, singing over 50 major roles. He has given papers on music and literature at many international conferences in Australia, South Africa, the United States, Britain, Germany and Austria, and has published widely.

David Miller studied in Australia (Max Olding and Alexander Sverjensky) and the United Kingdom (Paul Hamburger) and has been described as the “role model of Australian accompanists”. He has been on staff at Sydney Conservatorium of Music since 1980. David regularly conducts master classes and lectures for universities, conservatoriums, music organisations and music conferences in Australia and Asia.

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR MICHAEL HALLIWELL AND DAVID MILLER AM30 AUGUST

9PROFESSOR RAYMOND MACDONALD27 SEPTEMBER

WE ARE ALL MUSICAL: A CELEBRATION OF HUMAN MUSICALITY AND ITS IMPORTANCE FOR HEALTH AND WELLBEING

Every human being has a biological and social guarantee of musicianship. From the earliest communication between a parent and a child through to advanced forms of improvisation there is now convincing evidence to show how musical communication is universally accessible. This lecture will discuss current research and the importance of music listening and participation for health and wellbeing.

Raymond MacDonald is a saxophonist, composer and academic whose work explores the boundaries and ambiguities between what is conventionally seen as improvisation and composition. He is Professor of Music Psychology and Improvisation in the Department of Music at the University of Edinburgh. His ongoing research focuses on issues relating to improvisation, musical communication, music health and wellbeing, music education and musical identities. He runs music workshops and lectures internationally and has published over 60 peer reviewed papers and book chapters. He has released over 50 CDs, and toured and broadcast worldwide. His work is informed by a view of improvisation as a social, collaborative and uniquely creative process that provides opportunities to develop new ways of working musically.

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CHARLES VALENTIN ALKAN (1813 - 1888) 200 YEARS ON

Stephanie McCallum discusses the works, reception and performance history of Charles Valentin Alkan (1813-1888) in his bicentenary year. After several years preparing and recording his five sets of character pieces, Receuils de Chants, her recordings and performances of his monumental sets of Etudes, and the impact of her original article about Alkan’s mental state, Stephanie evaluates Alkan’s contribution to Romantic piano literature and his relevance today.

Stephanie McCallum is Associate Professor in piano at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, University of Sydney. Her live performances of the Concerto, the Symphony, and other works from Alkan’s Op. 39, have been described by critics as ‘titanic’, ‘awe-inspiring’, ‘stupendous’, ‘virtuosic pianism of the highest calibre’ and ‘one of the glories of Australian pianism’.

With the release in 2006 of a 2 CD set of Alkan’s Douze études dans les tons mineurs, (described by Hugh Macdonald as “the Alps and the Himalayas of pianism, the one superimposed on the other”) she became the first pianist to have recorded Alkan’s complete studies in the major and the minor keys (opus 35 and opus 39). Her most recent release is the first of a two volume set of Alkan’s complete Chants. For a complete list of recordings visit www.stephaniemccallum.com

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR STEPHANIE MCCALLUM25 OCTOBER

ABOUT ALFRED HOOK

ALFRED SAMUEL HOOK(1886–1963)

Alfred Samuel Hook, architect and professor, was born at Heston, Middlesex, England and educated at Boscombe, and at the East Bournemouth Science, Art and Technical School; he later studied architecture in London and qualified as an associate of the Royal College of Art.

An established, if impoverished, architect Hook arrived at Cairns, Queensland, in 1909. Moving to Sydney in 1912, he became a draughtsman with the government architect where he remained for fourteen years and rose to designing architect. Among his projects was the structural design of the steel reinforcement for the country trains concourse at Central Railway Station.

Hook contributed to the foundation of the faculty of architecture at the University of Sydney in 1918 and to the development of its curriculum. From 1922 he lectured there part time. Appointed associate professor of architectural practice and construction in 1926, he was ‘the practical man’ of the faculty, highly regarded by his students as a lucid exponent of structural mechanics. A founder of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects which was established to foster national uniformity of architectural practice and status, Hook became its inaugural president in 1929 and its first life fellow (1932). As professor of architectural

practice and construction (1946-51) and dean (1948-49), he oversaw much of the intensified postwar training for ex-servicemen and women. Outside the university, he advised the trustees of the Anzac Memorial, Hyde Park, served many years on the Building Appeals Board (chairman from 1942), arbitrated building disputes and was a long-term member of the executive-committee of the Standards Association of Australia.

Always ready to acknowledge the contribution of a broad range of arts to architecture, Hook was a man of diverse talents. From 1936 to 1945 he gave regular lunch-hour talks on the history of music, using gramophone records given to the university by the Carnegie Corporation of New York. He was a member of the Sydney University Musical Society’s choral group and a keen amateur organist who was associated with the installation of the university’s War Memorial Carillon (1928) and the foundation of the department of music (1948).

Rosemary Broomham, ‘Hook, Alfred Samuel (1886–1963)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University. The extended biographical entry is available at adb.anu.edu.au/biography/hook-alfred-samuel-10535/text18703

This Lecture/Recital Series, named in Alfred Hook’s memory, is made possible by funding from the Doreen Robson Bequest.

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Sydney Conservatorium of MusicT +61 2 9351 1222E con.reception@sydney.edu.ausydney.edu.au/music

Series DirectorProfessor Michael Halliwell, Associate Dean Research (Acting)

Series CoordinatorSusie Walsh, Research Services Officer

Series EnquiriesPlease direct all enquiries to the Series Coordinator: Susie Walsh T +61 2 9351 1442 E susie.walsh@sydney.edu.ausydney.edu.au/music/alfredhook

Produced by the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, the University of Sydney, March 2013. The University reserves the right to make alterations to any information contained within this publication without notice.

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SYDNEY CONSERVATORIUM OF MUSIC

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