Cost and Registration Information

Early Registration Price (April 17 at 10 am – May 4 at 4 pm): $130
Regular Registration Price (May 4 at 4 pm – first day of class): $143

Members, seniors, and students get a 10% discount.

Excuse our dust!

The Newberry is undergoing an extensive first floor renovation in 2018. This project will be ongoing during the Summer 2018 seminar term. The Adult Education Seminars Program still has use of the basement classrooms, but please check this link frequently for the latest conditions - which exterior doors are open or closed, where to find an accessible entrance, which restrooms are available, etc.

Because of the renovation, the Newberry Bookstore will be closed during the Summer 2018 term. As such, seminar participants will be responsible for acquiring all required texts for their seminars on their own. We apologize sincerely for the inconvenience, and appreciate your understanding. We have put together a list of helpful resources that should make it easy to find the books you need.

Seminar Description

American music has always been engaged with the catch-22 of cultural assimilation versus cultural diversity. By examining the fusion within American music, we will consider American cultivated and vernacular music from pre-colonial times to the present while listening to and discussing compositions that make up the soundtrack of U.S. history and social development. If you don’t care for rap but love Hamilton, this seminar attempts to explain why and how that is possible. One session.

Dr. David Pituch is a musicologist and a performer of the classical saxophone. He has been a Fulbright Scholar, director of an NEH Seminar for College Instructors, has taught university level music courses, and leads seminars at the Newberry Library.

Materials List

Required:

• There are no required materials for this class.

First Reading:

• For the first class, please read the following article https://nmbx.newmusicusa.org/what-do-you-expect-to-hear-when-someone-says-american-music-david-nicholls-professor-of-music-and-research-dean-of-the-faculty-of-humanities-keele-university-staffordshire-uk/

This class is part of the Newberry’s Adult Education Seminars Program. Learn more about our registration procedures.