The case of John Adams
and le Minimalisme américain

Lunedì 11 aprile 2011, Salone Marescotti, ore 17-19
The case of John Adams and le Minimalisme américain

The Cité de la musique and the Salle Pleyel in Paris recently dedicated March 16 to 27th 2010 to an important overview of the works of John Adams. Entitled Domaine privé: John Adams, le Minimalisme américain, the programs included several emblematic works from the composer’s early works and included a stage version of his most recent opera A Flowering Tree.  Adams generally accepts the categorization as a “minimalist,” but it is clear that whatever this style might once have represented for him, it is certainly no longer useful or appropriate to try to fit his music into this frame of reference. Through an overview of his five operas, ending with A Flowering Tree, another possible interpretation of Adams’s compositional intentions may be suggested.


Martedì 12 aprile 2011, Aula Dioniso Fanciullo, ore 17-19
Two historiographical issues in the music of Charles Ives: biography and score editing

Abstract: Two fairly recent articles published in the Journal of the American Musicological Society shed light on the way historical context plays and upsets the notion of objective truth in the study of music. The first, by David Paul, traces the evolving perception of Ives’s achievements in the writings of his first biographer, Henry Cowell.  Paul’s chronological study allows us to see in what ways at least part of Cowell’s portrait of Ives depends on Cowell’s preoccupations of the moment.  The second, by Drew Massey, shows in detail how editorial choices in the scholarly editions of Ives’s work may be influenced by conceptions of what Ives’s music is considered to represent. The glose of and juxtaposition of these two studies is a useful case study in the need for distance and self-reflection in the study of music that is considered iconic.

References: Paul, David C. “From American Ethnographer to Cold War Icon: Charles Ives through the Eyes of Henry and Sidney Cowell,” in JAMS, vol 59, no. 2 (Summer, 2006): 399-458. Massey, Drew. “The Problem of Ives’s Revisions, 1973-1987,” in JAMS, vol. 60, no. 3 (Fall, 2007): 599-646.


Mercoledì 13 aprile, Salone Marescotti, ore 15-18
Analysis, Musicology and Interpretation : an interactive chamber music workshop

Using the familiar format of the masterclass, this workshop proposes to deal with the multiple relationships between musicological reflection and interpretive choices.  Various strategies which are often considered antithetical – i.e. structural analysis and hermeneutics - are juxtaposed in order to enrich the possibilities and effectiveness of musical expression.  Students are encouraged to propose chamber music repertoire of any period and for any instrumentation for performance and collective exchanges, and should be prepared to deal with esthetic, historical, and analytical aspects of their selections.


Evan Rothstein has published articles ranging from various aspects of American music to the experimental music theater of Georges Aperghis. In 2008 he wrote a video interview with Steve Reich for the Cité de la musique, and in 2009-2010 has written program notes for both the Cité de la musique and the Théâtre de Châtelet. He completed degrees in violin performance at the Eastman School and Indiana University, including the Doctor of Music in violin; he also completed graduate degrees at the University of Paris 8 – Saint Denis, where he is currently an instructor in musicology.  Since 2005 he has been Chargé de mission for pedagogy at the ProQuartet-Centre européen de musique de chambre in Paris, and in 2009 was elected chairman of the European chamber music teachers association. Since 1997 he is professor of chamber music at the Summer String Academy of the University of Indiana (Bloomington).