Faculty

Experimental Composer Channels The Doors During UChicago Residency

Seth Brodsky (left) and Peter Ablinger Viewing Ablinger's Music's Over at the Gray Center

Constructed by longtime collaborator Winfried Ritsch, Music’s Over was the centerpiece of Ablinger’s nine-day residency at UChicago’s Richard and Mary L. Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry. The residency featured a range of talks, discussions, composition seminars and performances—reflecting the Gray Center’s mission as a forum for experimental collaboration between artists and scholars.

The residency inaugurated Gray Sound, a new program conceived by Gray Center director Seth Brodsky, a leading scholar of 20th- and 21st-century musical modernism. Envisioned as a regular performance and discussion series, Gray Sound represents a chance for prominent artists and the UChicago community to tease the boundaries of sound—when it moves from voice to music, from a recognizable tune to noise.

UChicago Composer Reigns as Matriarch Among Creative Women on Chicago's Music Scene

Augusta Read Thomas by Anthony Barlich

If winning a Grammy is a sign of creative achievement then Chicago could well be described as the contemporary classical music epicenter of the world. Year after year for the past two decades, a Grammy ceremony doesn’t pass without the name of a Chicago musician, producer, or ensemble etched on one of its gilded trophies.

The unique story of women at the helm on Chicago’s art music scene is a lineage that begins with Grammy award winning composer and UChicago University Professor Augusta Read Thomas, and passes to Lisa Kaplan, the pianist, founding member and Executive Director of Eighth Blackbird.

Two UChicago Scholars to be Honored by Modern Language Association

Kerry Park in Seattle, Washington, courtesy of unsplash.com

For her perceptive interpretations of American literature, politics and culture, Berlant will receive the 2019 Hubbell Medal for Lifetime Achievement, making her one of two UChicago faculty members to be honored this week by the Modern Language Association.

On Jan. 11 at the MLA Conference in Seattle, Berlant will be joined by Asst. Prof. Edgar Garcia, who will be recognized for his recent article on Native American pictography.

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