Music 108f The Artful Ear
What are we doing when we listen to music? How does the human brainprocess sound and why do those sounds affect us as they do? Drawing onrecent neurological data, information from musicological and ethnomusicological sources, readings in aesthetics and our own personal experiences as listeners and makers of music, students will learn to listen with greater awareness and discernment to music from the widest variety of styles.
Meets Humanities I-A requirement
Eric Benjamin
Prereq. None; 4 credits

Music 114f Music of Heroism, Protest, and Lament during the Second World War (First Year Seminar)
The seminar will deal with the context of musical works written in the period of World War II by composers such as Stravinsky, Bartok, Shostakovich, Copland, Dallapiccola, Messiaen, Strauss, and Schoenberg. The music studied will cover a variety of styles and creative approaches, reflecting a wide range of responses to the world conflict. Ability to read music is desirable but not required.
Meets Humanites I-A requirement
L. Litterick

Music 166f Introduction to the Music of Africa
This introductory course concentrates on indigenous musical traditions from different parts of the African continent. Cross-cultural features as well as regional varieties are examined. A major objective of the course is to facilitate an understanding of the cultural contexts within which African musical traditions derive their meaning and significance. Relying on selected live performances as well as recordings of instrumental and vocal idioms, the course discusses the conceptual and behavioral aspects of music, the contexts and functions of musical performances, musical instruments and vocal styles, the training and status of musicians, and the stylistic features of the music.
Meets multicultural requirement; meets Humanities I-A requirement
O. Omojola
4 credits; enrollment limited to 25

Music 262s Performance Practices in African Music
This course examines African performance conventions, styles and techniques as illustrated in selected musical traditions. The course addresses important questions about African performances. For example: How are performing groups organized? What are the internal dynamics of group performance? When and how is improvisation appropriate? Selected examples, including Youruba dundun music, Dagomba drumming and Shona mbira music, are studied with a view to understanding African performance practices and presentational skills. The course combines lectures with practical sessions, and culminates in a group performance and a write-up based on the performance.
Meets multicultural requirement; meets Humanities I-A requirement
O. Omojola
4 credits; enrollment limited to 25

West African Music Ensemble
The West African Music Ensemble, a Five College ensemble in residence at Mount Holyoke since the spring semester ’05, performs traditional music, including dance and song, of the peoples of southern Ghana, Togo and Benin, including sections of Adjogbo and Agbekor.

New Faculty
Kimberly Dunn, graduate of Oberlin and Yale and DMA candidate at the University of Wisconsin will be the Interim Director of Choral Activities and Lecturer in Music.

E ric Benjamin, graduate of New England Conservatory, joins the Music Department as Director of Instrumental Activities and Lecturer in Music.
Olabode Omojola, graduate of the University of Nigeria, the University of Ibaden and the University of Leicester, joins the Music Department as Five College Africanist and Assistant Professor of Music.

Kivie Cahn-Lipman, cellist and graduate of Oberlin and Juilliard School of Music, and DMA candidate at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory, joined the Mount Holyoke and Smith Departments of Music in a shared position as Lecturer in Music in July of 2005.

Faculty Award
David Sanford received the faculty award for scholarship and research for his compositions in April 2005. He has formed a Big Band, the Pittsburgh Collective, which performs his music.

Faculty Retirement
Catharine (Cathy) Melhorn’s final department concert “Mark the Music,” titled after the composition commissioned by the Music Department to celebrate her 36 years of choral direction, was April 29, 2006. We celebrate her many accomplishments. As Larry Schipull, College Organist and Professor of Music, stated, "Cathy helped her students understand that the activity of making music, like all other forms of art, was an intellectual activity as well as an intensely physical one. Sometimes the intellectual problems are posed by the way the music is composed (say, in a complicated fugal passage), but I have been most struck by Cathy's pedagogical gifts when the intellectual challenges of a piece or performance required the students in her ensemble to examine their role as interpreters and re-creators of art. How do we deal with the anti-Semitic parts of Bach’s St. John Passion? If we wish to sing the words of a witch’s incantation in a convincing manner, does that necessarily mean we must believe what we are saying? Rather than pretending that the abstraction of music makes the important issues that art raises irrelevant, Cathy willingly chose to deal with the issues, and to make them into valuable learning experiences for her students. I hope her successors are equally willing to teach." Cathy’s final year of teaching was also marked by an invitation from the American Choral Directors’ Association to perform at the February, New York convention.

Gifts
Malcolm Feinstein, father of biologist and neuroscientist Sue Barry, has given five paintings entitled Theme and Variations to the Music Department. These large, wonderful paintings now adorn the two-story wall in the lounge area near the northeast door, in addition to “living” on the home page of the Music Department website, and give the entry and lounge space a lively vibrant look.

The Arthur Loeb Collection of early instruments will greatly enhance the Mount Holyoke and Five College Early Music Programs.

Music Licensure
Students interested in pursuing licensure K-12 can combine the music major with a minor in education. For specific requirements contact Ms. Lawrence in the Psychology and Education department. Licensure also requires a passing score on the literacy and specific subject area parts of the Massachusetts Educators Certification Test. For a list of the specific topics contact the Chair of the Department. Copies of the test objectives are available in the offices of the Music Department and the psychology and education.