Excited to present a paper this weekend in the annual meeting of Gesellschaft für Musiktheorie, which was supposed to be held at Hochschule für Musik Detmold but was moved online due to the ongoing pandemic situation. In fact, out of four conferences I was going to attend this fall, the GMTH event is the only one that has not been postponed. I will talk about the adoption of Western concepts of musical form in Russia, in particular Sergei Taneyev‘s sonata theory (which was primarily taught according to Beethoven’s model) and its influence on his student Nikolai Medtner. Moreover, I will chair a session on digital music theory pedagogy and music recognition, which I am looking forward to.
Diversity of Voices
I have always found it fascinating that there is no direct correlation between a singer’s visual appearance, sexual identity, role identity on stage, voice type, and tessitura. Isn’t it wonderful that the shades of the human voice are just as diverse as the varieties of human gender, age, and ethnicity? Anything is possible in that transcendent continuum of phoniatric functionality. In my opinion, the utter beauty of a voice comes from the multitude of influences that it is affected by. The more the aesthetic and physical preconditions intermingle, the more captivating the result.
Gazing at Musicians
There seems to be no common sense of what it means to promote oneself as a classical musician. Music universities largely fail to offer valuable advice on how graduates can generate meaningful outreach as entrepreneurs, and so they apparently cannot help but resort to the mechanisms they experience in the world of commercial music business. That means: Visual appearance is what counts and is given the greatest attention. Legions of performers of classical music pretend to make the world a better place through their music, but what they essentially do is trying to look good in their latest concert announcement, home video, or photo session.
Dear fellow musicians, what about using your social media coverage to support those many colleagues who struggle to make a living from freelance musicianship? Why would you strive for physical beauty, given that so many of the people in the business fail to get paid properly? I’d suggest you reach out to your followers in order to develop a consciousness of professional representation, and focus your efforts to achieve political awareness of the desolate state of musicianship itself. If you could imagine directing your attention to these elementary issues instead of your looks, people would even more happily support your career. Do not compete for superficial compliments but for professional recognition. Ditch your glamorous Instagram profile today, join and engage in a professional body instead, and become an ambassador of your occupation’s welfare. Your help is much appreciated.
Freshly out: Sonata elettrica
One of the most fortunate moves in my activity as a composer was to make my sheet music freely available on the internet. Numerous performances and recordings resulted from that decision, simply because performers or conductors looking for new repertoire are likely to browse IMSLP and other websites for a particular genre or combination of instruments. While I hesitate to encourage fellow composers to do the same since I realise there might be reasons not to upload one’s music for free, this is what works out fine for me. On that note, I invite you to have a look at my latest composition, Sonata elettrica for amplified guitar and piano, the typesetting of which I have just completed. It is a virtuoso showpiece in a somewhat uncommon instrumentation, calling for a classically-trained electric guitarist who takes joy in some adventurous duo musicking. Thanks go to Siamak Sattari who expertly helped me elaborate the guitar part.
wendelinbitzan_sonataelettrica
Behind the Curtain
According to a New York Times article, authored by Anthony Tommasini, blind auditions obstruct racial diversity in orchestras and are inapt to ensure discrimination-free hiring of professional musicians. While the principal argument of the piece is convincing (people of colour do not benefit from a system of meritocracy in which they are structurally impeded to participate), one may be at odds with the conclusion. I simply don’t unterstand how doing away with blind auditions is supposed to improve the situation—or is it just the misleading headline? Enhanced support for BIPoC applicants is certainly needed, and all the more in earlier stages of education in order to achieve equal opportunities in a competitive environment, but I don’t see the connection of these measures to the hiring procedure of orchestras. I’m curious if somebody can explain this to me.