The Impossibility of Opera with Matthew Aucoin

Well, it's our final episode, and we have the exact right guest to help say goodbye to a podcast that focuses on music scholarship, and why it matters: William Cheng, whose work fundamentally reconsiders what musicology can be, by laying out a philosophy of care and repair. This conversation covers a large swath of Dr. Cheng's scholarship, including his foundational writing on music and video games, his public-oriented social justice advocacy, and his scrutiny of ethical questions around musical taste. It's a rumination on the present and future of the field. And it's our finale.Show notes and more over at soundexpertise.org!Questions? Thoughts? Email [email protected] or tag Will on Instagram/Twitter @seatedovation

Well, we're almost done: this is the penultimate episode of our fourth and final season. In our final weeks, host Will and producer Eddie take some time to reflect back on what it's meant: the origins of the podcast, the community we've built, and the legacy of Sound Expertise.Show notes and more over at soundexpertise.org!Questions? Thoughts? Email [email protected] or tag Will on Instagram/Twitter @seatedovation

Musicology today could not exist without feminist musicology, and feminist musicology could not exist without Suzanne Cusick. Dr. Cusick's revolutionary work has scrutinized gender and sexuality in musical life for decades, and is foundational to musicology as we know it today. In this profound conversation, she reflects on her arc through the field, and what still needs to change.Show notes and more over at soundexpertise.org!Questions? Thoughts? Email [email protected] or tag Will on Instagram/Twitter @seatedovation

From its beginnings, the eugenics movement has looked to music: for foundational figures like Francis Galton and contemporaries like Charles Murray, the child-prodigy composer or violinist could serve to demonstrate that talent was innate and inherited, and thus could be bred. The horrendously racist implications of such a vision have long been understood, but the relationship between music and eugenicist thought has received scant attention. In this dark but important conversation, musicologist Alexander Cowan reveals the central role of music to eugenicist philosophy, and how myths of musical talent have undergirded myths of racial supremacy.Show notes and more over at soundexpertise.org!Questions? Thoughts? Email [email protected] or tag Will on Instagram/Twitter @seatedovation

We did it! Sound Expertise recorded its first-ever live episode at the American Musicological Society conference in Chicago. It was a super-fun event with a raucous crowd. Please enjoy this thoughtful conversation with Jonathan Bailey Holland, dean of Northwestern's Bienen School of Music, about his path as a composer and what it means to oversee a music school at a transformative moment.Show notes and more over at soundexpertise.org!Questions? Thoughts? Email [email protected] or tag Will on Instagram/Twitter @seatedovation

Naomi André is one of the most important scholars of opera today, best known for her landmark 2018 book Black Opera: History, Power, Engagement. But the study of opera and race is not where Professor Andre’s career began: her path through musicology has been incredibly fraught, because of who she is, and what she wanted to do as a scholar. This week's conversation is difficult but necessary, for registering how exclusionary the field of musicology once was, and what work still has to be done.Show notes and more over at soundexpertise.org!Questions? Thoughts? Email [email protected] or tag Will on Instagram/Twitter @seatedovationALSO, we're going to be at the American Musicological Society conference in Chicago this week!!Friday, Nov 15, 11:45am: Sound Expertise LIVE! The American Composer and the Future of the Conservatory with Jonathan Bailey Holland.What does it mean to compose in America today, while overseeing a major cultural institution in flux? For this special live taping of the podcast Sound Expertise, host Will Robin interviews composer Jonathan Bailey Holland, dean of the Bienen School of Music at Northwestern University, to answer these crucial questions. (Accessible only to those registered for the conference)Friday, Nov 15, 8pm: A hang for friends and fans of the pod, at 2Twenty2 Tavern right by the conference hotel. Come by anytime between 8 and 9:30 or so and say hi, and also goodbye!

Everybody's studying Taylor Swift these days, from Swifties decoding her vault to YouTubers decoding her harmonies to right-wing conspiracists decoding her plot against America. But what does it mean to study Taylor Swift as a musicologist? Christa Bentley, Kate Galloway, and Paula Harper know: they're co-editing Taylor Swift: The Star, the Songs, the Fans, a book of essays out next year. This week: a conversation about what it means to study the cultural phenomenon that is Taylor Swift, and what Taylor can tell us about musicology today.Show notes and more over at soundexpertise.org!Questions? Thoughts? Email [email protected] or tag Will on Instagram/Twitter @seatedovationALSO, we're going to be at the American Musicological Society conference in Chicago soon!Friday, Nov 15, 11:45am: Sound Expertise LIVE! The American Composer and the Future of the Conservatory with Jonathan Bailey Holland.What does it mean to compose in America today, while overseeing a major cultural institution in flux? For this special live taping of the podcast Sound Expertise, host Will Robin interviews composer Jonathan Bailey Holland, dean of the Bienen School of Music at Northwestern University, to answer these crucial questions. (Accessible only to those registered for the conference)Friday, Nov 15, 8pm: A hang for friends and fans of the pod, at 2Twenty2 Tavern right by the conference hotel. Come by anytime between 8 and 9:30 or so and say hi, and also goodbye!

Election Day is approaching, and both presidential candidates have been foregrounding music, from Kamala Harris walking out Beyoncé's "Freedom" to Donald Trump...dancing for 30 minutes to "Memory" from Cats. It's been a weird, and terrifying, campaign season. But music can help us make sense of it, according to musicologist Dana Gorzelany-Mostak, who runs the project "Trax on the Trail." In this conversation, we discuss the sound and spectacle of this turbulent moment: how do Harris's playlists and Trump's dance parties define the candidates to voters, and what do they say about the state of American democracy?Dana Gorzelany-Mostak is an Associate Professor of Music at Georgia College & State University.Show notes and more over at soundexpertise.org!Questions? Thoughts? Email [email protected] or tag Will on Instagram/Twitter @seatedovationALSO, we're going to be at the American Musicological Society conference in Chicago soon!Friday, Nov 15, 11:45am: Sound Expertise LIVE! The American Composer and the Future of the Conservatory with Jonathan Bailey Holland.What does it mean to compose in America today, while overseeing a major cultural institution in flux? For this special live taping of the podcast Sound Expertise, host Will Robin interviews composer Jonathan Bailey Holland, dean of the Bienen School of Music at Northwestern University, to answer these crucial questions. (Accessible only to those registered for the conference)Friday, Nov 15, 8pm: A hang for friends and fans of the pod, at 2Twenty2 Tavern right by the conference hotel. Come by anytime between 8 and 9:30 or so and say hi, and also goodbye!

Florence Price was exceptional, but she was not singular. In the fascinating new book "South Side Impresarios," musicologist Samantha Ege situates Price amidst multiple generations of Black women who transformed Chicago into a Black classical metropolis. In this conversation, we discuss the city and community that built Price, including the pivotal figures Nora Holt and Maude Roberts George, as well Dr. Ege's own work as a scholar, pianist, and advocate for this powerful lineage.Samantha Ege is an award-winning researcher and musicologist, internationally recognized concert pianist, and popular public speaker.Show notes and more over at soundexpertise.org!Questions? Thoughts? Email [email protected] or tag Will on Instagram/Twitter @seatedovation

Welcome to Season 4 of Sound Expertise! Opera is a four-hundred-year-old genre, and it often looks and sounds that way: despite opera's revolutionary merging of artistic disciplines, its administrators and musicians are often stuck in the past. But in his visionary productions, the director Yuval Sharon has imagined many potential futures for the art form; this conversation, about his new book, reveals where he thinks opera needs to go next, and why. Plus, a discussion of his highly-anticipated Ring cycle for the Metropolitan Opera!Show notes and more over at soundexpertise.org!Questions? Thoughts? Email [email protected] or tag Will on Instagram/Twitter @seatedovation