INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC SAMPLE COURSE DESCRIPTION

GS- East

The Instrumental Music Program is designed to extend the boundaries of the gifted student beyond the limits of the standard high school curriculum. Thus, strong emphasis is placed in the following areas: Wind Ensemble, sectional rehearsals, private lessons, Jazz Ensembles, Chamber Music Ensembles, Ensemble X, and the Composers’ Forum. In addition, instruction in Music Theory, Composition, and Music History is made available to the interested student, all of which combine to provide a venue for the specific creative needs of both the group and the individual.

GS-West

The focus of Instrumental Music at Governor's School West is the study and performance of important music of our time for full orchestra and smaller ensembles, and the creation and performance of student works. These are all chosen to "open windows onto the future," the goal of the Governor's School curriculum as a whole.

The components of the Instrumental Music program include:

• Full orchestra rehearsals and four performances
• Presentations and group discussions on music of our time (called “Context” sessions)
• GroupComp – student group composition projects
• Wind and String Ensembles
• Faculty performances and guest recitals
• Concept performance projects
• Performance collaborations with other disciplines
• Guest soloists and composers

Instrumental music students work together in full orchestra rehearsals (in which all faculty participate), smaller sectional rehearsals, and in individual sessions with one of the six faculty, focusing on the orchestra repertoire.

The orchestra and ensemble rehearsals are devoted not only to the preparation of the work for performance, but also to the development of an understanding of the concepts behind the pieces. Several class periods per week are devoted to lecture/discussions called "Context" -- placing the music into a context of a broader understanding of 20th-21st-century musical thought and making meaningful connections with similar concepts in other disciplines.

The orchestra repertoire that is studied and performed is all 20th-21st-century, and ranges from the relatively accessible styles of Holst, Copland, and Britten to the aesthetic and technical challenges of Lutoslawski, Tan Dun, Cage, Berio, Pärt, and Reich. These pieces are selected not only with the student's technical abilities in mind, but primarily as models of contrasting theories of 20th-century composition appropriate for study by the orchestra and the entire student body. Orchestra students respond with enthusiasm to the variety of repertoire, producing notable performances for high-school players.

Group composition projects - pieces created by 6-10 students working together who also perform the piece - serve as a means for better understanding the creative process and opening ears and minds. Students work with a coach who serves as a facilitator, raising broad questions about musical elements and preconceived notions on what constitutes music and artistic expression. With the student creators as performers, little or no effort is spent on notation and all the inherent challenges.

Sample Repertoire

Sample “Context” presentations/discussion topics

The purpose of these presentation/discussion classes is to assist students in placing the music that they are rehearsing and performing into the context of a broader understanding of 20th-century musical thought, making meaningful connections with similar concepts in other disciplines. Topics vary from year to year, depending on the summer's repertoire. These are some of the topics and theories covered:

1. Introduction to thinking about music
   General assumptions about music, music theories, including functional tonality, music from other cultures -- differing pitch and rhythmic structures
2. Music and ideas of John Cage
   New sound sources, indeterminacy and chance operations, conceptual works, text pieces
3. Discovering new musical structures in detail:
   Analysis of Anton Webern's Variations for Piano, op. 27 (second movement)
4. Minimalism -- (or Pattern-Pulse Music -- or Structuralism)
   Music of Steve Reich, Terry Riley, Phillip Glass, Michael Nyman
5. Jazz and its influences: America and Europe
6. Music in a consumerist society
7. Neo-classicism and Neo-romanticism -- Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Copland, Barber, Hindemith, Stravinsky,
8. Shostakovich Symphony no. 10 -- Socialist realism in the Soviet Union and artistic expression
9. Luciano Berio's Sinfonia (1968) Stream-of-consciousness, collage, non-linearity, and quotation
10. Polish School: Lutoslawski, Penderecki, Gorecki Sound-mass compositions, limited aleatoricism
11. Simplicity and Complexity: The "new simplicity" -- Pärt, Gorecki, Ultra-complexity -- Babbitt, Carter, Boulez
12. The Music and Philosophies of Charles Ives: Polytonality, polyrhythms, quotation, multiple time frames and other significant compositional techniques decades ahead of other composers
13. Electronic/computer Music: Early electronic music experiments, tape compositions, and digital synthesis
    Social changes in the uses of music because of electronics
14. The continuing pursuit of music