Immersion in the Duke departments and programs in music and the arts is an important backdrop for this new Focus cluster that brings artists and musicians to the classroom, as well as taking students to performances in music, theatre, film, and visual arts. The opportunity to combine research, writing and performance will allow students to begin their Duke career in a robust and profound fashion. Courses include lectures in global musical traditions, musical & artistic identities and entrepreneurship, conducting, ethnomusicology, instrumentation, composition, choreography, fine arts from historical and contemporary perspectives, theatre, documentary studies and film, and dance. The IDC seminar will include integrated dinner discussion and participation in events hosted by Duke Performances.
John Brown, Vice Provost for the Arts; Professor of the Practice of Music
Introduction to fundamental concepts and approaches to the study of music, theatre, dance, documentary film studies, art history, creative writing and performance. Students will have the opportunity to do original research in their field of choice, while also working with a group of Duke and Triangle faculty from across different areas of the Arts at Duke.
Elizabeth Byrum Linnartz, Instructor of Music
Vocal music tells stories with the languages of music, the spoken word, and human gesture and expression. This Focus course takes a flyover view of the history of vocal music from chant to Broadway and samples the repertoire at live vocal music events and recordings of historic performances. Students learn to listen, write about, and discuss the meaning of music, as well as connect with one’s own singing in group voice instruction and rounds. Explore a topic of your choice in a final presentation.
Yana Lowry, Assistant Director, FOCUS Program
Edna Andrews, Nancy & Jeffrey Marcus Distinguished Professor; Professor of Linguistics and Cultural Anthropology; Faculty Member of the Duke Institute for Brain Sciences and Center for Cognitive Neuroscience
The search for meanings in musical works occupies a central theme in music studies. The composer’s intentions, social and political circumstances, and the score itself are all part of the broader search for meaning and level of impact of a given work for individuals and cultures at large. Drawing from the latest research in neuroscience, musicology, linguistics and semiotics, this course seeks to understand how musical meanings are constructed, as well as how interpretations of artistic works are negotiated and made by naive listeners and scholars.
Marcia Rego, Associate Professor of the Practice of Thompson Writing Program
Inquiry into the concept of "performance" broadly construed; not only as it refers to "staged" concerts or plays, but as social ritual and as self-presentation, appropriately situated in cultural context. Writing experiments aimed at capturing the ephemerality of live performance, with attention to how meaning is enacted through movement, sound, lighting, rhythm, voice, emotion, and audience interaction. Regular writer's workshops and eld trips to theater, dance, and musical performances. Students compose critical reviews and a research project on a performance genre, an artist's approach, or other related topic of their choosing.
