On February 23rd, Music and Linguistics Major Lili Tobias ‘19 presented her paper titled, “‘All my heart, in this my singing:’ Amy Beach and the Women’s Clubs of New England,” at the American Musicology Society – New England (AMS-NE) Chapter’s winter meeting. The AMS-NE Chapter’s winter meeting invited proposals for roundtable sessions or workshops (pedagogical, performative, and/or scholarly). Successful proposals would position the author’s contribution with respect to previous scholarship, and suggests the paper’s significance for the musicological community.

The paper that Tobias presented at AMS-NE began as her senior comprehensive paper that she wrote for her music major. Under the guidance of Professors Barbara Milewski and Jon Kochavi, Tobias chose late 18th to early 19th century American composer, Amy Beach, as her research topic. “My main argument is that her music is best discussed and analyzed within the context of other music written and performed by women,” Tobias said. “This is because Beach wrote most of her music to be performed by musicians in women’s music clubs throughout New England, which is clear from her choice of instrumentation (piano and voice, mainly).”

Tobias further noted that Beach’s choice of instrumentation matches the skills of the women musicians in those music clubs. “From a theoretical perspective, too, Beach’s harmonic language matches that of other music written by women during this era,” Tobias said.

It was not a difficult choice for Tobias to research Beach’s music for her senior comprehensive paper, since Tobias enthusiastically exclaims that Beach is her favorite composer. Not only that, Tobias saw a point of intervention to previous scholarly research on Beach’s music. “I wanted to address the problems with many accounts of Beach’s music, since they often focus on her large-scale compositions,” Tobias said. “By writing about her songs, I hoped to emphasize that these small-scale works were integral to her career as a composer, specifically because they brought about social music-making within women’s music clubs.”

Tobias was grateful to have had the opportunity to share her research with the public and to be a part of this year’s AMS-NE conference. Tobias highlighted the fact that this year’s conference had so many presentations on music composed by women. Because of this, many presentations overlapped with topics that Tobias discussed in her paper, creating highly engaging conversations.

Tobias also had the opportunity to attend and support another Swarthmore student paper presentation at a different musicology conference. Recent graduate Rachel Hottle ‘18 presented her paper titled, “Influences of Bluegrass and Radiohead on Metric Complexity in the Punch Brothers,” at the 2019 Rutgers University Musicology Society (RUMS) conference. The Punch Brothers is a progressive bluegrass ensemble. In the paper, Hottle “proposes a comparative genre analysis of metric complexity in Punch Brothers, which highlights the influence of metric conventions common in bluegrass and the progressive rock style of Radiohead.”

Currently, Tobias does not have any specific plans to expand her own paper, however, she does want to do more research on the topic. Particularly, Tobias said “I would love to expand on the theoretical section, since I’m more of a theory person than a musicology person. I only got to collect data from three of Beach’s songs, so it would be great to do an entire corpus study of all her songs in order to provide better support for the main argument of the paper.”

David Chan ’19

It was the summer before his senior year of high school and Navdeep Maini ‘19 heard “How to Save a Life,” by The Fray, being played on a piano. The beautiful music moved Maini and planted a desire within him to learn the introduction of the song. Without access to a keyboard, Maini turned to his tablet, and downloaded an app called “Piano Perfect.” With a “piano” available in the palm of his hands, Maini learned to play the introduction to “How to Save a Life.” Because of that experience of playing the piano, Maini signed up for “piano lab” at the beginning of senior year of high school.

Although that moment seems like a pivotal point in Maini’s musical training, Maini jokingly says, “My musical-training truly began around third grade with the recorder, going ham on some Buns, Hot Cross Buns.” Maini is referring to the English nursery rhyme, which is also an Easter song.

When it came time for his freshman year at Swarthmore College, Maini already knew he wanted to incorporate music into his studies, declaring a minor in the subject. With jokes aside, Maini exhibits a genuine interest in music, especially when it comes for his future. “I think a part of me felt like I had to complete something (major or minor) in music because getting a music or audio related job might be kind of cool,” Maini said.

Additionally, maintaining that same drive from his pivotal moment, Maini wanted an avenue to continue playing the piano. “I had interest in wanting to learn about how composers keep their audiences’ interests during long pieces and I also had interest in performance,” Maini said.

After taking many music classes for his major, Maini highlighted his interactions with Professor James Blasina and Professor Andrew Hauze. “Their teaching styles and methods are wonderful, and it feels like they do not mind teaching you beyond the scope of a class,” Maini said. “For example, when I was in Music 2b (Reading and Making Music: The Basics of Notation), Professor Blasina introduced me to the idea of moving to the relative minor in the middle of a song.”

Furthermore, Maini attributed his Music 48 voice lessons, his time in chorus and gamelan, and discussions with other students as other crucial learning moments. “Dr. Nancy Jantsch, my voice teacher, Professor Tom Whitman of Gamelan, and Professor Joe Gregorio of Chorus are all personable in their own ways and will work with you to not only create the best sound possible, but to enjoy music.”

Maini has written some original pieces, which he calls “simple amongst this land of complexity.” During two Parrish Lunch Hour Concerts, Maini has performed some of his original pieces. As for the near future, Maini is searching for a job in the software industry, but maintains that his interest in music will remain with him. “Music seemed interesting and theory seemed cool. Should I keep exploring this interest? What if I start hating computer science in the future? Is there something I could switch to? I think these questions fueled me towards more music and not less,” Maini concluded.

David Chan ’19

On Friday, March 1, the renowned medieval music ensemble Sequentia will perform a series of Medieval Northlandic charms, riddles, and elegies at Swarthmore College. In this world-premiere performance, director, harpist, and vocalist Benjamin Bagby and his colleagues, vocalist and harpist Hanna Marti, vocalist Stef Conner, and flutist Norbert Rodenkirchen, will chant and sing these songs in Old English, Old High German, and Old Icelandic, displaying English Professor Craig Williamson’s original translations. Professor Williamson’s translations are taken from his recently published book The Complete Old English Poems, and these translations largely inspired Bagby to construct the musical lineup.

According to Professor Williamson, he and Bagby became interested in each others’ academic work on Beowulf about ten years ago. Since then, they’ve built a friendship centered on passion for medieval studies. After Professor Williamson published The Complete Old English Poems in 2017, Bagby was “overwhelmed” with its “beauty and its depth,” and, after corresponding with each other in the same year, Professor Williamson and Bagby planned this performance to showcase both Sequentia’s and Professor Williamson’s talents.

Among the pieces that Benjamin Bagby and Sequentia will perform are Old English riddles. Though Anglo-Saxon riddles are not set to music, what makes them special are their humor and sexual suggestiveness; they are the modern day equivalent of “dirty jokes”, except Old English Riddles have both a clean and “dirty” answer. In addition, the group will sing the Anglo-Saxon magic charm of Nine Herbs, a story of healing; the Old Icelandic Song of Grotti’s Milestone, the narrative of the rebellion of two slave girls against their king; Deor, the lamentation of a tribal singer rejected by his chieftain; the lament of the last survivor from Beowulf; and  Wulf and Eadwacer, a mysterious lament of a woman cut off from her lover, and some of the oldest recorded songs from the German-speaking people.

Listening to Sequentia’s performance, even if one is familiar with medieval music, is still worthwhile because no two performances of the same Medieval song will ever be the same. We usually think of music based on a certain song’s melody. However, medieval songs are “based on beats,” explains Professor Williamson. “We don’t really know the tunes. Music was never really written down in any of the Anglo-Saxon and Old Germanic languages…we have to reconstruct the melody.” So, one singer might perform the same song in a completely different way than another performer. This is especially true of Benjamin Bagby who, according to Professor Williamson, takes a more “storytelling” and “acting” approach in his performances.

In fact, Professor James Blasina of the Music Program hopes that his students will be inspired by Benjamin Bagby and Sequentia’s unique performance and see “the strong links between academic study and musical performance.” Professor Blasina says that it is tempting sometimes to try to to separate “history and context” and “ what is often referred to as the ‘music itself,’” when, in reality, “there is no such thing as the ‘music itself,’ and in order to understand the music, you have to understand more than just the notes on the page.” Benjamin Bagby and Sequentia, Professor Blasina says, exemplify just that. “To have them here is pretty spectacular,” Professor Blasina says, and he along with the Music Program feels so fortunate to be able to hear them perform live and interact with them in the classrooms.

If one is not familiar with Medieval music, however, Professor Blasina says we can still “appreciate the beauty of [the music] and find it interesting” simply by “listening to the aesthetics of the sound.” He also suggests paying particular attention to the humor in the text as a way to relate to these songs that might seem out of reach for some. Professor Blasina says that in much Medieval music, there is a “very strong sense of reverence, but also a very strong sense of irreverence.” Though it may seem ironic and paradoxical, this opposition is essential in portraying the humor and Professor Blasina says “if we can find the humor in that music” and “find the same things funny…that is one way to connect to other human beings.”

Professor Williamson is also a firm believer that, even though the songs Sequentia will be performing are from centuries ago, “there are elements of [the music] that cross the bridge between cultures and between times and between genders.”

“They were human beings,” Professor Williamson says. “Maybe they lived a different kind of life than we lived, but they had lovers, they had children, they had sorrows, they had joys…there are many ways in which they are like us.” In listening to Benjamin Bagby and Sequentia’s performance, Professor Williamson hopes that the audience will be able to see “what’s shared and what’s human between two times and two people” and form a profound connection that “crosses the bridge across time.”

The event is sponsored by the Cooper Foundation and will take place on Friday, March 1, in the Lang Concert Hall at 8 p.m.

Maria Consuelo de Dios ’21