This colloquium—hosted by the Blair School of Music at Vanderbilt University—will investigate the complex, powerful, and infinitely various roles which music plays in the lives of both individuals and communities, here in Nashville and everywhere on the planet. Diverse perspectives will be sought from Vanderbilt faculty, students, and staff, as well as from distinguished guest artists, scholars, pedagogues, and laypersons from many walks of life, brought together to campus and to various venues around town.
Events
The Healing Power of Music with Richard Casper
SEPTEMBER 16, 2024 • 7:00-9:00PM
Knowledge Exchange Violin: A Performer's Odyssey
Peter Sheppard Skærved, violin
OCTOBER 21, 2024 • 7:30PM
In his recent set of international collaborations with museums, libraries, and environmental organizations, Peter celebrates historic instruments and fragile landscapes through conversations, performances, commissions of new musical works, filmed recordings, podcasts, and social media outreach. Vanderbilt’s own Michael Alec Rose has composed nearly a dozen new pieces for the project.
The Illusion of Inclusion: Grappling with the Past and Future of Music and Music Education with Arreon Harley-Emerson
NOVEMBER 20, 2024 • 8:00PM
This program will include a lecture presentation on the topic of social justice through song, exploring the ability of choral music to effect change and empower individuals on the issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion within the larger context of social justice.
Music Without Boundary: A Conversation With Jim Keller
DECEMBER 4, 2024 • 8:00PM
Jim Keller is an American musician, producer, manager, publisher, and composer whose work in the music business spans more than 40 years in the rock, classical and global genres. Keller will chat with Blair Assistant Professor Jen Gunderman about his life in music, welcome questions from the audience. From co-writing a hit pop song with his band Tommy Tutone to working as a manager and publisher for such diverse artists as Phillip Glass, Tom Waits, and Ravi Shankar, Keller has gained a rare breadth of view of the world of music. His insights and experience across genres are more relevant for young musicians than ever.
Medical Music Therapy: Creating Moments of Hope and Healing in Healthcare with Dana Kim
JANUARY 23, 2025 • 8:00PM
Out from the Shadows Series
Dana Kim is a board-certified music therapist at Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt. Dana has worked on many different medical specialty teams including hematology/oncology, diabetes and endocrinology, gastroenterology, neurology, orthopaedics, pulmonology, behavioral health and liver transplant providing evidence-based music interventions for children and their caregivers. Growing up in Noblesville, Indiana, Dana volunteered with Special Olympics swimming and an adaptive show choir that paired one-on-one volunteers and individuals with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities to learn music and basic choreography together in preparation for a concert at the end of the semester. These experiences provided a strong foundation in the importance of mind/body connection and the unique impact music has on our brains, bodies, and emotions.
From Broken Dreams to Shared Futures: Musicians Struggling for Justice with André de Quadros
JANUARY 30, 2025 • 8:00PM
Out from the Shadows Series
This event will investigate the musicking habits and challenges faced by people who may not have access to musical practices because of various circumstances and forces of marginalization.
André de Quadros, Professor of Music, Boston University will facilitate the conversation. In addition to being a marvelous choral conductor, Andre specializes in the topic of music and marginalization, and runs a music in prison program.
Ching-Yi Ling & Meredith Blecha Wells
February 12, 2025 • 8:00PM
If precollegiate programing is integrated into the university, precollegiate music education can generate new audiences for university music programs and serve as an important link between the university and the “real world.” Further, almost all, if not all, of our graduating students who pursue musical careers and strive to share their music with the “real world” will engage in teaching music to children in some form.
Symposium On Music & AI
An exploration of both the positive and negative impacts which advanced artificial intelligence is having—and seems poised to exert even more dramatically—on the creation, performance, and enjoyment of music.
FEBRUARY 18, 2025 • 8:00PM
Lecture and World Premiere
Presentation by Tod Machover, Professor of Music and Media, MIT, and Director of the Media Lab’s Opera of the Future group, including the world premiere of a duo for marimba and AI, composed by Professor Machover and performed by Ji Hye Jung, Professor of Percussion, Blair School of Music.
Reception to follow.
MARCH 6, 2025 • 6:00PM
Panel discussion: “AI and the Political Economy of Music and the Arts”
- Scott Hawley, Head of Research for Hyperstate Music AI, and Professor of Physics, Belmont University
- Jenny Davis, Professor of Sociology, Vanderbilt University
- Dan Cornfield, Professor of Sociology, Vanderbilt University
- Alexandre Frenette, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Vanderbilt University
Reception to follow.
Mindtravel: Murray Hidary
MARCH 24, 2025 • 8:00PM
Composer, pianist, visual artist, meditation coach, and entrepreneur Murray Hidary brings musical improvisation and mindfulness practice together through his Mindtravel Foundation. Mindtravel performances are completely and spontaneously improvised at the piano. Whether working with a small group outdoors through headphones or a large group on the concert stage, Murray’s music provides space for reflection, healing, and insight.
Two New Duos For Clarinet & Percussion: Valerie Coleman and Fred O.
APRIL 10, 2025 • 8:00PM
CONCERT of two new duos for clarinet (Mariam Adam) and marimba (JiHye Jung) by Grammy-winning composer Valerie Coleman and Fred Onovwerosuoke "Fred O." This event will feature a lecture by Fred O on the background of his "Exotic Dances" as well as a world premiere performance of these two pieces. This project will not only enrich the performing arts by expanding the repertoire for clarinet and percussion, but it will also help encourage women composers working in a historically male dominated field. As two leading classical female performers, our synergy will show the pacesetting the industry needs while contributing to the repertoire as a legacy point.
Capstone Festival: Nashville Meeting Ground
APRIL 19, 2025 • 2:30PM
Colloquium Team
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Mariam Adam
Co-Director, Assistant Professor of Clarinet
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Michael Alec Rose
Co-Director, Professor of Composition
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Michael Bess
Chancellor’s Professor of History, Professor of the Communication of Science and Technology, Professor of European Studies
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Emelyne Bingham
Principal Senior Lecturer of Music Theory and Cognition
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Zachary Ebin
Director of the Suzuki Program
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Robert Fry
Senior Lecturer in Music History
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Ji Hye Jung
Associate Professor of Percussion
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Joshua McGuire
Principal Senior Lecturer in Musicianship
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Deanna Walker
Adjunct Instructor of Songwriting, Composition and Theory
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David Binns Williams
Senior Lecturer in Musicianship and Choral Studies, Director of the Vanderbilt Community Chorus
About
This colloquium—hosted by the Blair School of Music at Vanderbilt University—will investigate the complex, powerful, and infinitely various roles which music plays in the lives of both individuals and communities, here in Nashville and everywhere on the planet. Diverse perspectives will be sought from Vanderbilt faculty, students, and staff, as well as from distinguished guest artists, scholars, pedagogues, and laypersons from many walks of life, brought together to campus and to various venues around town.
Throughout its year-long program of presentations, concerts, seminars, interviews, panel discussions, lectures, exhibitions, and community outreach, the colloquium will unfold through the rich counterpoint of music-making, scholarship, pedagogy, storytelling, and conversation.
The colloquium’s primary focus of investigation will be on music’s radical potential as a force for good in the world. Guest artists and local musicians will share their experience, expertise, and creative breakthroughs for making music in a wide array of contexts and communities, with diverse strategies for building new communities, seeking social justice, addressing marginalized individuals, collaborating with various institutions, and promoting human flourishing.
A core principle motivating this colloquium is the intrinsic value of education: the love of learning both for its own sake, and for the sake of a more just world. A steady rationale for the colloquium’s events is the ongoing affirmation of intellectual curiosity and emotional well-being.
For Vanderbilt students, faculty, and staff alike, the colloquium will therefore serve as a release and respite from the usual—and often overwhelming—apparatus of academic advancement and professional anxiety.
Empowered by the dean and the provost, the colloquium will celebrate our individual and collective capacity for critical inquiry, imaginative risk-taking, and generative dialogue.
The colloquium will therefore also serve as a hopeful, constructive, and contrapuntal corollary to a prevailing academic environment of professionalized and outcome-driven initiatives.
Musical inquiry is as real as anything else in the real world. This colloquium will clarify and expand this far-reaching reality.
