The Nostalgia, Music and Music Studies conference series aims to bring nostalgia studies more broadly into conversation with music and music studies. As a theoretical framework, nostalgia studies allow us to explore attitudes towards the past underlying both musicology and music composition/performance. It illuminates the ways nostalgia is used by creators and audiences, as well as the ways it affects and influences our perceptions of history, heritage, self and others. Guided by the work of Svetlana Boym and others on nostalgia types (restorative vs reflective, individual vs. collective memory), this conference aims to bring scholars and artists together to deepen our understanding of nostalgia’s powerful presence in music and music-making.
Panelists:
- Jörg Holzmann, “Evoking the old-world Violin Virtuoso: How early film documents by former Auer students define America’s taste in classical music”
- Arlan Vriens, “Reminiscences: Interpreting Nostalgia and Allusion in Three Violin Works by Kurtág and Arcuri”
- Tim Cochran, “Bernard Herrmann’s Memory Waltzes: Interiority and Nostalgia”
- John Gabriel, “Earthquakes, Zombies, and the Rending of Tonal Space: Nostalgia and Return in Mahler’s Revelge”
Moderator: Raymond Knapp
This program is made possible by the Joyce S. and Robert U. Nelson Fund. Robert Uriel Nelson was a revered musicologist and music professor at UCLA, who, together with his wife, established a generous endowment for the university to make programs like this possible.