University Of North Texas Professor Challenges The Way Audiences Experience Music With AN UNAWARE COSMOS
By: Julie Musbach Oct. 18, 2018
Imagine a day at the beach - the sounds of a volleyball game, children's laughter, gulls squawking, waves crashing, a burst of music from a boom box combine in an experiential sonic symphony.
Joseph Klein, chair of the Division of Composition Studies at the University of North Texas College of Music composed "An Unaware Cosmos" to challenge the way we experience music and celebrate music as an expression of the natural world.
"When we are out in nature, like at the beach, we look at the activity around us and listen to all the sounds as one thing," Klein said. "You could go to the beach the next day and there may be the same things happening, but it would sound completely different."
Audiences attending a traditional musical performance watch and listen as an event is performed in front of them on stage. Compositions unfold with familiar patterns of melody, harmony and tonal qualities that all work together in predictable ways.
In contrast, "An Unaware Cosmos" deconstructs the orchestra into 19 individual modules for various combinations of instruments positioned throughout the performance hall. Music from these distinct modules is fragmented, dislocated, suspended, disrupted, and penetrated, often in unpredictable ways.
"This approach to form suggests that all possible events theoretically exist, while our ability to experience them is restricted to the present moment; thus any given realization of "An Unaware Cosmos" is simply one of a potentially limitless number of ways the work may unfold," Klein said.
Klein's composition of "An Unaware Cosmos" was a six-year endeavor supported in part by a fellowship from the UNT Institute for the Advancement of the Arts. This is the first performance of the composition featuring all 19 modules. For those unable to attend the concert in person, be sure to livestream "An Unaware Cosmos" here
About the UNT College of Music
The College of Music is one of the nation's largest and most respected comprehensive music schools. It offers fully accredited degrees from the bachelor to doctoral levels and is home to the world's first jazz studies degree program. Faculty include internationally acclaimed artists and scholars in composition, conducting, ethnomusicology, music education, music entrepreneurship, music history, music theory, performance and performance and performing arts health. The college presents more than 1,100 concerts and recitals annually. UNT music alumni can be found around the globe in impressive, award-winning careers across a wide-range of music professions. Visit the College of Music online calendar at http://music.unt.edu/calendar and connect with the College of Music on Facebook at Facebook.com/UNTCollegeofMusic, and on Twitter at @UNTCoM
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