ESM Professor Locke wins ASCAP award

Locke

Locke is honored this year for an article he wrote titled "Cutthroats and Casbah Dancers, Muezzins and Timeless Sands: Musical Images of the Middle East." It appeared in the summer 1998 issue of Nineteenth-Century Music, a scholarly journal, and in a book called The Exotic in Western Music (Jonathan Bellman, editor), published in March 1998.

In his article, Locke examines music's description of the Middle East through such works as Beethoven's The Ruins of Athens (with its marching Turks and whirling dervishes), Rossini's The Italian Woman in Algiers, Verdi's Aida, and works of Saint-Saëns, Karl Goldmark, Massenet, and Debussy. He notes, in particular, how the composers often invented a "Middle Eastern style" that gave them--and their listeners--a chance to explore fresh musical regions, which were quite different from the prevailing styles of their own place and time.

ASCAP will honor Locke and 21 other winners (including University alumnus Mark Grant '74, who studied at Eastman) at a special ceremony in New York's Lincoln Center on Wednesday, December 8.

The ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award was established in 1967 in memory of Deems Taylor, president of ASCAP from 1942 to 1948, who died in 1966 after a distinguished career as a composer, critic, and commentator. Five other members of the Eastman faculty in addition to Locke have been previous recipients of the Deems Taylor Award: Samuel Adler, professor emeritus of composition; Dave Headlam, associate professor of theory; Donald Hunsberger, professor/department chair of conducting and ensembles; Kim Kowalke, professor of musicology; and Jürgen Thym, professor/department chair of musicology.

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