Course Catalog

Exploring More of the Many Worlds of Chamber Music

John Prescott This course will explore the treasures of chamber music of the past three centuries. We will begin with the chamber music of J.S. Bach and his musical sons. We will end with chamber music by living composers. In the last session, I am hoping to bring in a composer to talk about her chamber music. We will discuss some of the technical aspects of how the music works as well as the social and cultural place of chamber music during each time period. No previous musical experience is necessary. Besides the below, you'll be invited to participate behind the scenes at our Chamber Music Intensive on Saturday 2/25. More details to come Week 1. Family Legacy: the chamber music of Johann Sebastian Bach and his sons. Week 2 More treasures of Beethoven’s chamber music. Week 3. Schubert’s Cello quintet: a musical world contained in one work. Week 4. From Faure to Dvorak: nineteenth-century chamber music outside of the German speaking world. Week 5. Music of the mind: twentieth-century modernism in chamber music. Week 6. Wet Ink: More chamber music by living composers. [The Chamber music course offered in first Fall 2016 session is not a prerequisite.] John Prescott received his Ph.D in Music History and Literature from the University of California, Berkeley. He wrote his doctoral dissertation on John Stanley, the 18th-century blind organist, conductor, violinist, and impresario. His academic honors include post-graduate study in music as a Marshal Scholar at St. John’s College, Cambridge University, England. In addition to delivering pre-concert lectures, program notes, and for musical performance groups throughout the Bay Area, he has taught at UC Berkeley and at The Crowden School in Berkeley, OLLI at UC Berkeley as well as OLLI at SF State, and was the musicologist for the San Francisco Elderhostel Arts and Humanities Program.

This class is not available at this time.

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