words

From time to time I write some words and give talks.

selected words

On Sardine, by Freya Waley-Cohen (listen here)
Program notes to recitals on 18 Sep and 9 Oct 2019

storytelling and the voice: a lecture-recital

In June of 2018, I gave a lecture-recital at the Royal Academy of Music where I talked about narrativity, examining how the story is told in music. In this talk I give a close reading of Roland Barthes' "The Grain of the Voice" and use some tools in Barthes' essay to figure out just what the hell we are doing when we play music (with nods to my Harvard literature professor, John Hamilton; and dear colleague and violinist Keir GoGwilt who introduced to me these inquiries several years ago, and also plays/writes on music with such intensity and originality).

Full text here, and also the lecture handout with full quotes and further reading.