Feb 22
Visiting Scholar Lecture: Chelsea Burns
Chelsea Burns presents her lecture on Heitor Villa-Lobos's Chôros No. 4 and the 'Uplift' of Música Popular in Brazil.
In the late 1920s, Brazilians faced a contradiction between discourse and practice, one that focused on the use of popular music (música popular) within art-music works (música erudita). While critics - particularly modernist icon and tastemaker Mário de Andrade - argued for a use of folkloric and rural materials set deep into the fabric of classical textures, composer like Heitor Villa-Lobos incorporated urban popular music prominently, creating a friction between critical guidance and composerly choices. I'll discuss how Villa-Lobos's Chôros No. 4 handles this issue, as well as touching briefly on two other Brazilian composers who face the same decision, Francisco Mignone and Luciano Gallet.
Chelsea Burns is an Assistant Professor of Music Theory at the Eastman School of Music. She completed her PhD in the Theory and History of Music at the University of Chicago in 2016. Her research interests include U.S. old-time, blue-grass, and country musics; Latin American modernisms; popular music of the Americas; and the historiography and pedagogy of music theory.