Last year Helge Harding and I wrote an essay on contemporary music education, assessment of musical performance, quality management in teaching, and questions of artistic excellence in general. The text is now published as a leading article in the latest issue of magazine Üben & Musizieren. It will soon be available via the Schott Music website—for now I uploaded a PDF full-text version here. Looking forward to your opinions!
Research
Medtner’s Night Wind Howls Again
Just to let you know, for the unlikely case that anybody shares my nerdy predilection for exuberant Russian piano music: I will be presenting my paper on Nikolai Medtner‘s E minor Sonata ›Night Wind‹, Op. 25 No. 2, once again as part of the 17th annual conference of the Gesellschaft für Musiktheorie at Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Graz, on November 17, 1.30 pm. Analytical insights will be augmented by in-depth examination of the work’s poetic and hermeneutic contexts. I’d be so lucky to enjoy your company!
A Month with Medtner
September keeps me busy with two activities related to the music of Nikolai Medtner. I am again contributing to a project in the field of cognitive musicology based at EPF Lausanne, providing harmonic analyses for a bunch of Medtner’s fascinating skazki in order to make the music accessible to computational modeling. At the end of the month I will be participating in the annual conference of Gesellschaft für Musikforschung for the first time, presenting a paper on Medtner’s massive ›Night Wind‹ Sonata, Op. 25 No. 2, at Universität Kassel. Couldn’t be more excited!
Social Media and Teaching
My colleague Benjamin Vogels published an excellent study on the applicability of social media in academic teaching, particularly in the context of music theory. The article is available in the current issue of the journal of the Gesellschaft für Musiktheorie (ZGMTH). An exciting read, and highly recommendable for faculty and students open to present-day teaching methods.
Besides, my own article on Vincent d’Indy’s Cours de composition musicale has recently been published in the first volume of Bärenreiter’s new dictionary of music theory treatises and textbooks.
Medtner Society Inaugural Concert
This Sunday, May 21, will see the first Berlin Medtner Concert Day take place at Logenhaus Wilmersdorf, serving as the inaugural concert of the freshly founded International Medtner Society. In two recitals starting at 11am and 6pm, six devoted musicians will introduce themselves with piano sonatas, skazki, and Goethe songs. Looking forward to the performances of Anna Warnecke, Luisa Splett, Irina Chistiakova, Darya Dadykina, Vasily Gvozdetsky, and Evgeny Nikiforov—and also to adding some introductory words and remarks based on my latest research. The concerts are nearly fully booked, so hurry up to snatch one of the last tickets. For details see the Facebook event page.