Public Lecture Series

The School of Music’s Public Lectures take place at the dates and times listed below. All are welcome.
2024-25
30 April 2025: I Got Rhythm, I Got (Some) Music': Reconstructing Musicals as Critical Editions
Dr Ian Sapiro
Dr Ian Sapiro will discuss the subject of his Fellowship project, which focuses on the specific challenges faced by critical editors when reconstructing musicals, using his work creating a critical performing edition of the musical Girl Crazy (1930), for the George and Ira Gershwin Critical Performing Edition project, as a case study.
12 February 2025: Rethinking the Clarinet as an Animal
Dr Scott McLaughlin
During this lecture, Dr Scott McLaughlin addresed how to compose for the clarinet in a way that lets the instrument have its own agency and behaviors, to treat it more like an animal that we interact with, than a tool we manipulate. What does this mean for performer technique and agency? And how do we train musicians in this way without undermining existing technique or allowing the music to become simply random noise? Can the clarinet, like a bird, be seen to have its own language of sounds and actions, distinct from what we impose on it?