RC Music Program
The RC music program is energetic, vibrant and constantly evolving. It offers performance, music theory and musicology classes, and concentrates on the kinds of classes that the School of Music does not offer for non-music majors. The RC Music classes count for both the LSA music concentration and the RC Arts and Ideas Concentration. The performance classes also fulfill the LSA Creative Expression and RC Arts Practicum requirements.In true RC style, the RC Music program is especially interested in developing collaborations, interdisciplinary classes and projects.
The performance faculty consists of two School of Music faculty members, percussionist Michael Gould, DMA and trumpeter/composer Mark Kirschenmann, PhD as well as cellist Katri Ervamaa, DMA (the Head of the RC Music Program). The three also form E3Q, an eclectic jazz influenced trio whose premiere recording “Songbook I” was released on Block M Records.
Other RC Music faculty include Susan Walton, also a School of Music faculty member, who teaches both performance and musicology of the music of Southeast Asia, often in one, interdisciplinary class. The University of Michigan is a major center for Southeast Asian studies and it houses one of the oldest and most beautiful Javanese instrumental ensembles (gamelan) in the U.S. The gamelan, Kyai Telega Madu, (the Venerable Lake of Honey) is directed by the RC’s Susan Walton and the RC students have the opportunity to learn both Javanese dance and music which ranks among the great art forms of the world. For the past four years, the RC has been host to a series of distinguished artists-in-residence from the islands of Java (and Bali) who have offered classes in Javanese dance, music, and shadow puppetry. The classes usually build to a major performance put on by the artists in residence and their students.
Musicologist Naomi Andre is the most recent addition to the RC music faculty and shares her appointment between the RC and Women’s studies. Additionally, Graduate Student Instructors from the School of Music teach the rotating “Topics in Music History” class and the RC Singers.
Click here for a more detailed description of course offerings.