Marc Medwin

Marc Medwin
American University, Washington D.C.

Marc Medwin received his Ph.D. in musicology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, with a dissertation focusing on the late works of John Coltrane. He is currently an Assistant Professor in the Performing Arts Department of American University, Washington, D.C. In addition to teaching, he maintains an active schedule as a music reviewer and performing musician.

Talk Title: Tradition and Resistance: Wadada Leo Smith and the Liberation Politics of Creative “Classicism”

Wadada Leo Smith is known as a ‘jazz’ trumpeter, but his contributions to what the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians labels ‘Great Black Music’ extend that vocabulary. Just as Anton Webern realized new possibilities in Schoenberg’s twelve-tone series, Smith’s compositional system – called Ankhrasmation – has recontextualized notions of velocity, rhythm and the way pitch relates to both in the context of the individual player’s contribution. In 2011, Smith completed Ten Freedom Summers, a five-hour cycle devoted to the Civil Rights movement. While Daniel Fischlin has contributed an excellent study of the way improvisation connects with human rights issues in this multi-movement opus, Smith’s contributions to the Western Art Music tradition have been ignored.

Using Baroque tableaux, post-Schoenbergian numerology and Messiaen’s purposely non-dramatic operatic renderings as points of reference, as well as new interviews with the composer, Prof. Medwin will elucidate Smith’s unified vision of improvisation and contemporary composition which in turn fosters the freedom and equality of all individuals that constitute the Civil Rights movement’s most important legacy.

WEB LINK: http://www.american.edu/cas/faculty/medwin.cfm

 

 

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