Starting Monday, Nov. 2, a three-part lecture series titled
The Art of Listening
is headed by Oliver Prezant, music director of the Santa Fe Community Orchestra. Prezant is set to educate audiences on how to listen more closely; no, not like you had to learn to do in high school history class. This kind of listening is deeper, more fascinating, and decidedly artistic.
Hosted by the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, the series is intended for musicians, artists, teachers, students, chefs, writers, cab drivers, elephant trainers—virtually anyone who has ever listened to a piece of music and has enjoyed it.
The first installment, "The Poetry in Music," is an introduction to listening closely through the lens of music and the way in which it relates to language. Language has its own rhythm, much like music, and while not every composer has had that Peter Frampton guitar-as-microphone toy attached to his or her instruments, language plays a large part in every human being's manner of listening to music.
For the second installment, "The Structure of Melody," Prezant delves a little deeper into the structure of music to explore how composers can create moods through music; tempo, harmony, dissonance and more can all contribute to the emotion of a piece of music, and while pretty much anyone can identify what a well-crafted piece of music makes them feel, decidedly fewer people can really delve into the mechanics of music to touch on
why
the music makes us feel that way.
In the third installment, "Themes and Transitions," Prezant explores the—you guessed it—themes and transitions of music, and how composers use and manipulate different instruments within a piece of music to convey his or her ideas more clearly.
The series promises to be a fascinating glimpse into something so commonplace—music—that we often forget to see the forest for the trees.
The Art of Listening with Oliver Prezant
"The Poetry in Music"
6-7:30 pm
Monday, Nov. 2
"The Structure of Melody"
6-7:30 pm
Monday, Nov. 9
"Themes and Transitions"
6-7:30 pm
Monday, Nov. 16
Individual class: $25, or $20 for museum members
Series admissoin: $60, or $50 for museum members
Georgia O'Keeffe Education Annex
123 Grant Ave.
946-1039
Santa Fe Reporter