{"id":183622,"date":"2016-09-28T10:26:53","date_gmt":"2016-09-28T14:26:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/?p=183622"},"modified":"2016-09-28T10:28:48","modified_gmt":"2016-09-28T14:28:48","slug":"new-approaches-poetry-song-183622","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/new-approaches-poetry-song-183622\/","title":{"rendered":"Class, symposium explore ‘New Approaches to Poetry and Song’"},"content":{"rendered":"

How do the lyrics of OutKast and Eminem, the words from Rent\u2019s <\/em>\u201cLa Vie Boheme,\u201d <\/em>and Sofia Gubaidulina\u2019s setting of T.S. Eliot intertwine? Exploring such connections is part of the class, \u201cPoetry, Music, and Song,\u201d taught by Matthew BaileyShea,<\/a><\/strong> associate professor of music theory in the Department of Music. Such concerns will also be the focus of the upcoming symposium, \u201cNew Approaches to Poetry and Song,\u201d which will take place on October 1 and 2.<\/p>\n

In BaileyShea\u2019s class, students share the lyrics from their favorite songs by artists in a variety of genres. The class then studies those examples, uncovering a variety of complexities in the texts: internal and imperfect rhymes, assonance and alliteration, the sonic contrasts between Germanic and Latinate roots. \u201cPoets are very sensitive to word choices, something that is not always true with the average person,\u201d says BaileyShea. \u201cWords sounding different from one another are often just as interesting, if not more interesting, than similarities.\u201d The students in the course listen to songs, much the way that English majors study the sound of words, the patterns of accent, or the balance of rhymes in poetry.<\/p>\n

These nuanced relationships between poetic texts and their musical settings will be the topic of the upcoming Humanities Center<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0symposium set to begin Friday, September 30, and run through Sunday, October 2. Organized by BaileyShea, the symposium is an interdisciplinary collaboration on poetry and song that coincides with several courses this semester, including at the Eastman School of Music<\/a><\/strong>, the Department of English<\/strong><\/a> and the Department of Modern Languages and Cultures<\/strong><\/a>. Jonathan Dunsby, professor of music theory at Eastman, will be presenting at the symposium along with many other respected scholars from across the United States. They will gather at the University to examine the sound and rhythm of poetry, the role of space, place and time, and the various shifts in relationships between poetic \u201cspeakers\u201d and their audience. The approach is designed to allow for new ideas about text-music interaction. \u00a0\u201cThe tension between what the text is doing and simply the way that the music is reinforcing what\u2019s happening or contradicting what\u2019s happening \u2013 that\u2019s always a source of interest,\u201d says BaileyShea.<\/p>\n

The symposium will open on with a song recital presented by Eastman\u2019s Department of Voice and Opera<\/strong><\/a> on Friday evening. In addition to performers, there are eight invited speakers: Robert Hatten, professor of the University of Texas at Austin; Harald Krebs, professor of music at the University of Victoria; Susan Youens, professor of music at the University of Notre Dame; Michael Cherlin, professor of music theory and composition at the University of Minnesota; Don Michael Randel, professor emeritus at the University of Chicago; Elissa Guralnick, University of Colorado at Boulder; Yonatan Malin, associate professor of music theory at the University of Colorado at Boulder; and Stephen Rodgers, associate professor at the University of Oregon.<\/p>\n

Symposium schedule:<\/strong><\/p>\n