Electronic Chamber Music Concert in Detroit

Electronic Chamber Music Concert in Detroit

Grant:
Instructional Development Fund (IDF)
Academic Year:
2014 - 2015 (June 1, 2014 through May 31, 2015)
Funding Requested:
$500.00
Project Dates:
-
Applicant(s):
mdgurev
Overview of the Project:
The goal of Electronic Chamber Music (PAT 413) is for students to gain understanding of important movements in the history of electronic music. Each year, the course focuses on a musical theme, with which students engage through reading, listening, composition, and performance. The theme for 2015 is "Techno"—students will explore the technologically mediated dance music that originated in urban centers in the U.S. and Europe, including Detroit. For this project, the class will hold a free, public concert in Detroit, for which students will compose, perform and produce all the music. Detroit being the birthplace of Techno, this is a natural fit, but the concert offers significant educational opportunities. Performing in front of a large, public audience will foster a different kind of engagement with the subject. Listening, reading, and composing are important modalities for learning about music; active engagement with the music through performing will be an invaluable complement to promote experiential, embodied learning. The event will also use music to broach a number of complex and vexing cultural, social, and aesthetic topics. In preparing for the concert, we will inevitably discuss questions of race, class, poverty, privilege, urban renewal, and gentrification. These issues are inherent in the music the students are studying, but producing a concert in Detroit will bring them to the fore in ways that would not otherwise be possible. The process of creating, composing, and presenting music will offer an outlet for students to creatively and critically express themselves on these subjects beyond discussion.
Final Report Fields
Project Objectives:

The project facilitated a student-produced concert of electronic music in Detroit. This project was designed to provide a mechanism for students to engage with Techno, a form of electronic dance music that was first created by African Americans in Detroit, but that is typically excluded from the academy. By addressing Techno experientially—through making music—I sought to explore both artistic and social/cultural questions about the music, as well as to introduce a marginalized music to our curriculum in order to empower marginalized students. Producing a concert was intended to teach students what is involved in such an endeavor, as well is to prompt them to attach real-world significance to their work.

Project Achievements:

The concert was successfully produced on April 4, 2015, with approximately 100 people in attendance. The students managed nearly all aspects of the production and performance. Moreover, the project raised awareness and the profile of Techno music in our School and our Department. I was personally not especially familiar with the art form, and through the preparation and execution of the project learned a great deal that I was able to add to my teaching repertoire. We have seen the topic of Detroit Techno emerge in various other courses and contexts since. Holding the concert in Detroit also gave us the opportunity to engage with local concert venues, the UM Detroit Center, and a local audience.

Continuation:
The theme of Detroit Techno was so incredibly popular among our students that they essentially demanded we continue the theme for the following year. As a result, we produced a second Techno show in the new Chip Davis Technology Studio in SMTD, which ran for two nights in April 2016 to large audiences. The music and the overall production were far more sophisticated this year as a resulted of students’ sustained engagement with Detroit Techno and experiences in producing the concert last year. Independently of my courses, two of our students worked with a local filmmaker to make a documentary film about the Detroit Techno pioneer Juan Atkins, and the Performing Arts Technology Department seminar series featured Detroit musician Carl Craig as a speaker this year. It is safe to say that the music and its significance have become ingrained in our Department’s culture.
Dissemination:
The concert was attended by nearly all of my colleagues from the PAT department and several others from across the school. Video recordings from the concert were edited by students under the supervision of a colleague, and several have been uploaded to the Department’s YouTube channel. Given the small nature of our department, all colleagues were well informed as to the project’s activities, outcomes and impacts. Generally, the project has elevated the level of ambition in our department with regard to student-produced concerts.
PRINTER VERSION
SEND BY EMAIL