Professor Carol

Free Webinar on Russian Music

admin — Sun, 19 May 2013 12:51:38 +0000

From ancient bells and chant to the Romanticism of Tchaikovsky, a look at Russia’s distinctive sound. This 1-hour webinar is an introduction and overview of the course on Russian music taught by Professor Carol. Learn the key factors that influence Russian culture and see what’s in store for the full course. Thursday, May 30, 4:00 p.m. EDT The course will explore the color and sounds of Imperial Russia, its literature and history, folklore and fairy tales, paintings and architecture. Carol has been a Russia specialist ever since she discovered the Cyrillic alphabet in Junior High. She studied Russian, focused on [...]

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Podcast Sampler

admin — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 13:57:51 +0000

Have you missed the more than 70 podcasts created by Professor Carol over the past few years? This series of brief clips will give you a flavor of the programs, with Carol’s unique commentary, interviews with composers and performers, and musical examples. Most of the programs were created for specific concerts, but the focus is on the music to be performed and its artistic and historical significance. It’s all searchable, so if you’re looking for something specific, just type it into the search box at the top of the page. In this sampling, you’ll hear composer John Corigliano, conductor Jerry [...]

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Prague in Cultural History

Carol Reynolds — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 13:28:45 +0000

The classroom keeps getting bigger! My association with The Smithsonian in Washington D.C. has led to opportunities I couldn’t have envisioned a few years ago. These include taking groups of Smithsonian travelers to Eastern Europe and Russia as well as speaking on ships in places as diverse as Israel and the Caribbean. The newest step will be presenting day-long symposiums for them in Washington, D.C., with one coming up on Prague in June. They recently conducted an interview with me about Prague, and I thought I might share it with you.

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Ongoing Webinars

admin — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 05:37:18 +0000

Our webinars are hosted by Webex. You can find a list of the scheduled sessions and register here. Three of our courses will be taught as webinars: America’s Artistic Legacy, Imperial Russia, and Tools for Academic Success. These sessions will be scheduled on Tuesdays exclusively for members of the Circle of Scholars. Watch for specific times. Other webinars will be offered periodically on a variety of topics, some for members only and some free to the public. I have had a lot of people asking about my workshop of hymns, and I will be dealing with the subject in some [...]

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The Crashing of the Sea

Carol Reynolds — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 13:13:00 +0000

I saw my first seascapes by Ivan Aivazovsky (1817-1900) in 1982, when my Russian-language tutor at Leningrad Conservatory brought a thin book of his paintings to our session. She intended for me to write an essay on his style. She was horrified that I didn’t know his name, much less his art. Meanwhile, my jaw was dropping at my first glimpse of Stormy Sea at Night and Strong Wind. Even in poor quality reproductions, these paintings were ravishing. Their dynamism, danger, and depth confused me, as I searched for a print I recognized. In Discovering Music, we show the steady [...]

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My Second Favorite German Painter

Carol Reynolds — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 02:19:22 +0000

Adolph Menzel (1815-1905) is not a household name, that’s for certain. So may I tell you why he’s my second favorite German artist? Menzel captured my imagination with two paintings. The first, A Flute Concert with Frederick the Great in Sanssouci presents a glittering, semi-imagined gathering of Frederick the Great playing the flute for his courtiers in the music salon at his Palace Sanssouci in Potsdam. I say “semi-imaginary” because the painting shows men and women pressed into this sumptuous room, rapt with attention as the flautist-King dazzled them with yet another virtuoso performance. Indeed, Frederick was documented as one [...]

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The Ring Around Quartet

Carol Reynolds — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 17:31:56 +0000

It’s freezing in San Gervasio, a 15th-century church outside Milan where we’re spending three days filming the singers of Ring Around Quartet. Today is devoted to Renaissance motets, so they’re wearing white gauze sheaths and trousers reminiscent of Pantelone from Commedia dell’arte. Their feet are bare. How can they sound so luscious in this cold air? I’m wrapped in a coat, hat, scarf, and gloves, and I’m still shivering. But they stand graciously, singing like angels, with an ensemble so tight the ear cannot separate the parts. Being here is a testament to modern technology and human trust. Technology? We [...]

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Foreword

admin — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 23:07:45 +0000

I commend you for including Discovering Music in your learning plan this year! An inspiring and informative journey awaits you, for I consider Dr. Reynolds to be one of the most effective teachers I have ever known. How I wish that such a resource had been available during the years my wife and I were homeschooling our five children, or, for that matter, in the many times I have taught introductory music history courses on the college level! During the eight years Dr. Reynolds and I served as colleagues at Southern Methodist University, our office doors stood a few feet [...]

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A Glad Hymn for the New Year

Carol Reynolds — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 19:08:24 +0000

We’ve just left a season of Advent Hymns, with nearly a week of Christmas hymns to enjoy. But what about New Year’s Hymns? We can start with a collection of New Year’s Hymns (1749) by Charles Wesley. They are filled with energy and reflect a mid-18th-century movement joined by English Moravians to enhance worship services for January 1. Indeed, Wesley’s journal from 1748 describes a 4 a.m. service on New Year’s Day filled with “joy and thanksgiving.” Imagine if we, today, were to attend a pre-dawn service on New Year’s Day! What would we be singing? We could start with [...]

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Tweet Seats

Carol Reynolds — Fri, 28 Dec 2012 20:27:02 +0000

The Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis has set aside a section for people who can’t make it to intermission without their iPhones. According to the Daily Mail, they have formalised a growing trend in theatre audiences to use their phones from within auditoria by giving obsessive tweeters a section of their own. Long a refuge from daily tribulation, the theater is now “connected.” A ticket-holding tweeter can broadcast everything from the status of his digestion to play-by-play commentary about the production. But at least he’ll have to do it from a separate seating area. The Guthrie is probably right to do [...]

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