KUTZTOWN UNIVERSITY
KUTZTOWN, PENNSYLVANIA
DEPARTMENT OF MUSIC
COLLEGE OF VISUAL AND PERFORMING ARTS
MUP 287: NEW MUSIC ENSEMBLE
Approved by Department: Oct. 6, 2009
I. Course Description
The New Music Ensemble provides students with the opportunity to perform experimental and
important twentieth and twenty-first century repertoire. It allows the student to study, from a
performance perspective, historically important works of the twentieth century, and deepens the
student's understanding of current trends in contemporary music. The course develops skills in
improvisation, extended techniques, analysis and interpretation, and knowledge of the
relationship between world music and contemporary music. No experience with new music is
mandatory for participation, but all participants will be held to the highest possible performance
standards.
Prerequisite: Permission of the Instructor
1 semester hour credit
1 clock hour minimum
II. Course Rationale
Musical performing organizations provide opportunities for students to develop their technical
and interpretive skills by exposing them to various styles of music literature. The actual
performance of music also allows students to develop a greater sensitivity to and understanding
of the elements, techniques, and stylistic concepts of the musical score. Students will develop an
aesthetic and intellectual awareness through the rehearsal and performance experience.
The artistic and academic values experienced by students belonging to a musical performing
organization are commensurate with the artistic and academic values of studio courses in other
art areas. This equation is valid since the studio course format involves creative and interpretive
aesthetic applications that elicit psycho-motor responses--the very type of creative and
interpretive responses realized by the participants of a musical performing organization.
Participation in a musical organization, with its academic and artistic orientation, is analogous to
the curricular orientation of laboratory, practicum, and studio courses.
III. Course Objectives
Upon completion of this course, the student will be able to:
1. Present to the public polished, energetic performances of new repertoire.
2. Demonstrate improved music reading ability.
3. Demonstrate advanced ensemble performance skills.
4. Demonstrate extended instrumental and vocal techniques.
5. Perform the highest quality recent ensemble literature.
6. Serve as a resource to support student composers.
7. Commission and perform works by living composers.
8. Work together as a flexibly formed musical ensemble.
IV. Assessment
Assessment of each student’s level of accomplishment with reference to the course objectives
will be based upon a subset of the following:
1. Regular classroom participation and performing.
2.
Level of preparation of the music performed during class.
3. Regular attendance at classes.
4. Attendance at all performances.
V. Course Outline
1.
Introduction of specific chamber music literature.
2. Regular rehearsal and preparation of chosen pieces of music.
3. Presentation of live musical performance.
VI. Instructional Resources
Primary References – New Music Ensemble
Actual music being performed, plus material derived from these sources:
Bernstein, Leonard. The Joy of Music. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1959.
Burkholder, J. Peter; Donald Jay Grout, and Claude V. Palisca. A History of Western Music,
Seventh Edition. W. W. Norton & Company, 2005.
Cage, John. Silence. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1961.
Cook Nicholas, and Anthony Pople, ed. The Cambridge History of Twentieth-Century Music.
Cambridge University Press, 2004.
Cope, David H. New Directions in Music. Dubuque, Iowa: William C. Brown Company,
Publishers, 1976.
Cope, David H. Techniques of the Contemporary Composer. New York, NY: Schirmer Books,
1997.
Cope, David H. New Directions in Music. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press, 2000.
Fineberg, Joshua. Classical Music, Why Bother?: Hearing the World of Contemporary Culture
Through a Composer’s Ears. New York, NY: Routledge, 2006.
Gagne, Cole. Soundpieces 2: Interviews with American Composers. Metuchen, NJ:
Scarecrow Press, 1993.
Gann, Kyle. American Music in the Twentieth Century. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing
Company, 2005.
Green, Barry. The Inner Game of Music. New York, NY: Doubleday, 1986.
Green, Barry. The Inner Game of Music Workbook. Chicago, IL: GIA Publications, Inc., 1991.
Green, Elizabeth A.H. The Modern Conductor. 6th Edition. Englewood Cliffs, NJ:
Prentice Hall, 1996.
Griffiths, Paul. Modern Music and After. New York, NY. Oxford University Press, 2007.
Harvey, Jonathan. The Music of Stockhausen. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press,
1975.
Hitchcock, H. Wiley, Music in the United States. 4th ed. Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River,
NJ, 2000.
Howard, John. Our Contemporary Composers – American Music in the Twentieth Century.
Oakland, CA: Pierce Press, 2007.
Hughes, Rupert. American Composers – A Study of the Music of This Country and of its
Future. Hughes Press, 2007.
Kennan, Kent and Donald Grantham. The Technique of Orchestration. 5th
Edition. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1996.
Kostelanetz, Richard. John Cage. New York: Frederick A. Praeger, Inc., Publishers, 1970.
Machlis, Joseph. Introduction to Contemporary Music. New York: W.W. Norton & Company,
1979.
Magee, Gayle. Charles Ives Reconsidered. Champaign, IL; University of Illinois Press, 2008.
Martin R. Wilbai and Julius Drossi, Music of the Twentieth Century. Englewood Cliffs, NJ,
Prentice-Hall Inc., 1980.
McCalla, James. 20th Century Chamber Music. Taylor & Francis, Inc., 2003.
McGill, David. Sound in Motion. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2007.
McHard, James. The Future of Contemporary Music. Livonia, MI: Iconic Press, 2006.
Nyman, Michael. Experimental Music. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
Reich, Steve. Writings on Music, 1965-2000. Cambridge: Oxford University Press, 2004.
Ross, Alex. The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century. Farrar, Straus, and Giroux,
2007.
Salzman, Eric. Twentieth Century Music: An Introduction. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: PrenticeHall, 2001
Schwartz, Elliot. Composers on Contemporary Music. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo press, 1998.
Strickland, Edward. American Composers: Dialogues on Contemporary Music.
Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1991.
Tawa, Nicholas E. American Composers and Their Public. Metuchen, NJ:
Scarecrow Press, 1995.
Whittall, Arnold. Serialism. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2008.