CWRU Historical Performance Program

DMA Lecture Recital, Mikhail Grazhdanov

📍 Florence Harkness Chapel | Free & Open to the Public | In-Person or Livestream.

Livestream: https://case.edu/artsci/music/harkness-live-stream

DMA Lecture-Recital: Bruno Lunkes, Baroque Violin

(Gut) String Theory:

Measurements of Acoustical Properties of Gut Strings, a DMA lecture-recital offering a unique opportunity to hear and compare historical string types in performance. Featuring works by Dario Castello, Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber, Jean-Féry Rebel, Johann Sebastian Bach, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the program examines the acoustical properties of gut strings, highlighting how variations in their construction shape tone, color, and articulation.

Livestream:

https://case.edu/livestream/harkness

Cecilia Young, Hester Stantlow, and the making of English opera & Dance in Eighteenth Century London!

MA Lecture Recital, Sophia Duray

Florence Harkness Chapel | Free & Open to the Public | In-Person or Livestream.

Whose music is this? For three centuries, Indigenous communities in the Bolivian Amazon copied, preserved, and transformed European Baroque music — keeping thousands of pages of manuscripts alive, on their own terms, without anyone telling them to.”

This Saturday, May 2nd at 7:30 PM, baroque violinist Liz Loayza presents her MA Lecture-Recital, The Empire’s Music, The Indians’ Voice, a journey tracing three centuries of musical sovereignty through the manuscripts, melodies, and living oral traditions of the Bolivian missions.

Florence Harkness Chapel | Free & Open to the Public | In-Person or Livestream.

Strains so Sweet: Birds in Song from the Trouvères to Handel
Who were the original singers? My money is on the birds.

Certainly, human musicians have long found inspiration in birdsong. References to birds are present in lyric poetry of every era throughout the world, and citations of birdsong appear over the entire history of notated music, from early examples such as the 13th-century rota Sumer is icumen in, to postmodernist works which incorporate recorded birdsong. Facing such a wealth of options, this recital is limited to just a few of the many bird and birdsong depictions found in vocal music of the 13th-18th centuries.

Due to its association with love, the nightingale is the most commonly depicted bird in this repertoire, but the program features a broader sample of the wide variety of birds represented in song, exploring the specific associations each species and its call would have brought to mind for historical audiences. These songs fall into three broad categories: those about birds, those sung to birds, and those ostensibly sung by birds in human languages. A song in any of these categories might imitate birdsong in the voice and/or accompanying instruments using techniques like onomatopoeia, call and response, and extended vocalises.

Live stream: https://case.edu/livestream/harkness

We had a truly inspiring day of masterclasses and a bow yoga session with Rachel Podger this week! 🎻✨

We are delighted to welcome renowned Baroque violinist Rachel Podger to the HPP Department at CWRU for a masterclass, along with a special session on her “bow yoga”.

These events are free and open to all students, with special encouragement for stringed instrumentalists. Students are welcome to audit the masterclass and participate in the Bow Yoga session—no prior experience with Baroque violin is required. It’s a wonderful opportunity to gain insight into the technique and possibilities of the Baroque bow in an engaging and accessible way.

Congratulations to our Early Music Singers and Collegium Ensemble on a fantastic performance yesterday evening! ✨

Congratulations to the EMS and Collegium ensembles on a wonderful concert tonight!