Concerts Report

MUSC 2200Concert ReportinstructionsSo far you should have gotten links to recordings of four concerts at AUC, as follows:“The Lions of Cairo: Early Western Music and Classical Arab Repertory” (This description is incorrect—there is also music from the late renaissance and the high baroquein this concert.)“Cairo Guitar Collective: Remembrances”“VP Project” (This is a concert of Latin American music.)“Modern Ensemble: Concert Exchange Korea, Cairo, New York” (This is an avant garde online music project involving musicians in New York, Korea, and Cairo.)Watch and listen to two of these concerts attentively. Make sure you access the program before you begin watching —there will be a link at the YouTube site for the concert. Use aslarge a screen as you can, and I suggest you use good-quality headphones. Sound quality is very important for obvious reasons. Write a report on each of the concerts you watch and hear.Concert reports should be typed and at least three pages long. Use the simple past tense (“I attended the concert… The performers played three pieces… There were two singers…”). You need to submit your ticket and program (if any) with the report. When you refer to a piece for the first time, you mustlist both composer (even if that is “anonymous”) and title. Write the composer first, and put the title in italics. Examples:Leo Brouwer, Un Día de NoviembreAstor Piazzolla, L’evacionPlainchant, Puer natus in BethlehemFrancesco Geminiani, Sonata for Cello, No. 6AdagioAllegro assaiGraveAllegro…Notice that that last piece has four movements—that means that it will sound like four separate, smaller pieces, played one after the other. Notice, also, that the “title” of each of these movements is actually its tempo. This sonata is notlike a classical period sonata, which uses sonata allegro form; in the Baroque period, that same word, “sonata” (from “sonare,” to sound), is just used for pieces for instruments only.

In each report you should include the following items:

I. Introduction

1. Give the date, time, and location of the event.

2. Briefly describe the concert venue: size of the hall, nature of the audience, and so forth.(This is the place in which to explain that you are actually watching a video recording of the concert.)

3. List all the performers and the instrument(s) or voice type of each, UNLESS there was an orchestra and/or choir; in that case, give the name of the ensemble and of the conductor. Be sensible about this. If there is a string quartet or wind quintet playing, do list all of their names and instruments. If there is an orchestra of twenty-five players, or a chorus of fifty singers, don’t copy the list from the program; just give the name of the ensemble and explain what it is (e.g. “the Bel Canto Singers, a children’s choir”).

4. Could you easily follow the order of the concert? Why or why not?

II. Analysis

Briefly describe each piece, identifying each by composerand title. Just touch on each piece, musically –say something about what you heard.

Since each of these concerts consistsof a (comparatively) large number of short pieces, you do NOT need to provide a paragraph for each piece. Instead, ifyou can, tell me something about them as they are grouped in the program, e.g. “two sets of songs by Romantic composers, and six folk songs, followed by three new works by Egyptian composers,” or “a set of twelve songs, most of them love songs, in varioustempi, all accompanied by guitar and piano.” You can then go on to say a little more about particular numbers that you found striking, musically, for any reason.

Choose a piece, ormore than one, to analyze in somewhat more detail. Apply the “Guidelines for listening reports.”[It is attached to the same email where you got these instructions.] You may compare different piecesto each other, discuss the differences between the composers (or different works by the same composers), refer to relevant facts concerning the historical background of the pieces or the instruments —or not, as it seems appropriate.x

DO NOTpad out your paper with photographs of pianos, saxophones or accordions, illustrations of music stands from on-line catalogs, or clip-art drawings of a chorus of elves and reindeer with Santa Claus conducting. Your time is better spent thinking about what you heard, describing it, and trying to explain why it worked the way it did and evoked the particular reactions you felt to it.III.

Conclusion

What is your overall reaction to this piece or pieces? What do you like or not like about it (them)? What about the whole concert? Add any other observations you may have. Youropinions matter, and I am eager to hear them, but make sure you back them up with intelligent remarks about what you have heard and seen.

Please write clear, concise, grammatical, and CORRECTLY-SPELLED English. (When you have finished writing and revising, read the whole paper, beginning to end, every word, again. Check words that you aren’t sure of. THEN use the spell-check, as a final precaution.) Taking chances is fine. If you are trying to describe what you heard, and you call the texture monophony when it was actually homorhythmic, or you describe an oboe solo as a clarinet solo, you will probably not lose for it. On the other hand, a slovenly paper full of typos, dashed off in half an hour the night before the deadline, will be marked as it deservesto be.

Both reports are due by the day of the final exam