Birmingham Conservatoire Public Research Seminar Series with Professor Michael Russ

You are warmly invited to Birmingham Conservatoire’s Spring 2016 Series of Public Research Seminars, on a wide variety of musical topics, which take place on selected Tuesday afternoons, 3.30-5.00 pm. Presenters include Conservatoire staff, doctoral students and external speakers.

These seminars are open to all, including members of the general public. Members of the University should show their staff or student card for free admission. The seminars are held in Birmingham city centre, just a five-minute walk from New Street Station, in the Conservatoire’s Arena Foyer (see map: http://www.bcu.ac.uk/about-us/maps-and-campuses/birmingham-conservatoire/map-and-directions).

1 March 2016, Professor Michael Russ (University of Huddersfield)–  ‘Musorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition and the Subject of Art in Music’

Professor Michael Russ, Emeritus Dean of Music, Humanities and Media at the University of Huddersfield, brings his substantial expertise on Musorgsky to address issues surrounding the iconic and highly individual Pictures at an Exhibition (1874), not least the remarkably underresearched subject of art in music.

The rhetorical device of ‘ekphrasis’, the vivid description of a work of art in another medium – usually poetry – emerges as a useful starting point. The seminar is illustrated with art works from Hartmann (the subject of Musorgsky’s composition) and others, together with recordings of performances of the original score and a few of its many transcriptions.

Professor Michael Russ’ published work has largely focused on analytical, theoretical and historical questions in late nineteenth and early twentieth-century music. He is the author of a book on Musorgsky ‘s Pictures at an Exhibition, analytical articles on Bartók, Musorgsky, Ravel and Webern and articles on theoretical and analytical topics. He has also published work on teaching and learning in higher education and Irish composers. 

Russ’s current research has three points of focus. At the moment he is working on a project to examine the nature of the influence of Beethoven on Bartók, he is working on the completion, extension and application of the late Anthony Pople ‘s Tonalities analysis software and is also developing his work on parsimonious voice-leading in chromatic and extended tonal music.

Tickets available on the door (free entry for BCU students and staff).