Tom Benjamin, a new TVIH member and distinguished musician and educator, will offer a series of music education lectures for music lovers. If you like to sing,, play an instrument, or just enjoy listening to music, this program is for you. This program is free and open to TVIH members and the public.
Today's Topic: Listen! Is Music A Universal Language?
Musical works from around the world share many of the same basic structures, and evoke similar emotions or images in us. At the same time they are products of distinctive cultures, and may be on the surface very different from each other. We'll focus on the similarities in this session, through guided listening.
Our sessions will attempt, probably unsuccessfully, to answer the question "Is music a universal language?" We'll do this through a lot of guided listening, to music from all over the world, primary the indigenous music of many different cultures, but also to some jazz, pop and classical music that shares many traits with so-called "folk" music. Thank goodness for YouTube! Tom hopes that you'll end up enjoying and wanting to hear much more of the fascinating, beautiful and exciting music from the world's cultural heritage.
There's nothing you need do to prepare for these sessions, but you might enjoy spending hours on YouTube, exploring the musical traditions of Africa, the Far East and Middle East, Eastern and Western Europe, the British Isles and the Americas. You'll quickly discover that there are multiple cultures and musical traditions within any given country or region- but of course! At each session, Tom will distribute listening lists of the example we'll hear, to suggest further exploration on your own.
Our Speaker:
Tom Benjamin is a composer, music theorist, conductor and performer- only because he can't decide what he wants to do when he grows up. He tau ght music theory and composition for far too many years at the University of Houston, the National Music Camp (Interlochen) and the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins, where he chaired the Theory Department. Tom has just retired from a wonderful 30-year gig as Minister of Music at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Columbia. He's looking forward to a new and very different kind of teaching with the swift folks at TVIH.
Alan Coltri and Laurie Coltri will provide technical assistance in the zoom meeting room.
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To join the zoom meeting, you must register.
A meeting link will be emailed to you.
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