Music

Wars, Diaspora & Music: U of T courses explores the role of music during times of war

Christopher.Sorensen — Thu, 07 Dec 2023 17:17:03 +0000

Wars, Diaspora & Music: U of T courses explores the role of music during times of war

Christopher.Sorensen Thu, 12/07/2023 - 12:17

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Simon Bikindi, right, a Rwandan singer-songwriter, is pictured with his lawyers and a United Nations guard at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in 2008 (photo by STR/AFP via Getty Images)

Cynthia Macdonald

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Our Community

Anne Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies

Faculty of Arts & Science

Faculty of Music

Global

Humanities

Music

Trinity College

Undergraduate Students

Victoria College

In the 1990s, Simon Bikindi was Rwanda’s most popular musician – a United Nations official even dubbed him the “Rwandan Michael Jackson.” A sometime wedding singer, Bikindi’s lyrics often told of love stories and his country’s beautiful landscape.

But Bikindi’s music could also be dangerous. Over the three months in which almost a million Tutsis were massacred during the Rwandan Civil War, the country’s Radio Télévision Libre des Milles Collines repeatedly broadcast the singer’s violent, inflammatory songs. In 2008, Bikindi, an ethnic Hutu, was convicted for his role in inciting war crimes.

The Bikindi story is but one of the case studies covered in “Wars, Diaspora and Music” – a ��Ƶ course in the Faculty of Arts & Science that explores the important role that music often plays in ethnic conflicts, wars, exile and displacement.

“We look at how music can be a weapon – as military music and propaganda,” says course creator Anna Shternshis, the Al and Malka Green Professor of Yiddish Studies and director of the Anne Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies.

“But we also look at songs created by people under duress – songs about love and the reclamation of humanity, when everything has been destroyed.”

Shternshis says she conceived of “Wars, Diaspora & Music” while working on Yiddish Glory, the Grammy-nominated album of Holocaust-era Yiddish songs she assembled with Russian performer Psoy Korolenko.

Anna Shternshis is the director of the Anne Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies and is the Al and Malka Green Professor of Yiddish Studies (photo by Diana Tyszko)

Yiddish Glory is part of the course’s syllabus, along with music from many other conflicts of the 20th and 21st centuries. That includes music from Rwanda, Korea, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Ukraine and Palestine.

“I decided to take this course as I had never heard of anything like it,” says Anjali Joshi-Dave, who is in her third year as a member of Trinity College. “Although I do not play any musical instruments, I adore music and was interested to see its connection to violence and diasporas from an academic perspective.”

Gabriella Batikian is a fourth-year member of Victoria College. A member of the Armenian diaspora, she grew up listening to a wealth of music from her heritage – much of which was produced around the time of the 1915 Armenian genocide.

She says the course helped her contextualize such music, as well as that from other countries.

“We do a deep analysis of the lyrics that we’re studying,” Batikian says. “And it’s really interesting to learn how music can be used for good and for bad. We’ve learned how it can be used as a propaganda tool and to incite violence. But at the same time, music is also used to comfort survivors of war. That’s the main thing – discovering the power that music truly holds.”

War invariably involves displacement – hence its connection to diasporic communities longing for home. To this end, students learn about initiatives such as the U.S.-based Refugee Orchestra Project.

Shternshis is a scholar of refugee experience and a supporter of refugees in Toronto.

“In class, we’ve discussed what kind of music is created in refugee camps,” she says. “Listening to music like this becomes a way of learning what people really care about. And I think that when students examine events in future, they will count music among the sources they use to try and make sense of them.”

By studying music produced within different conflict environments, Shternshis has drawn several unique insights. She notes, for example, that the closer a musician is to conflict, the less “martial” the music becomes. That includes war songs in which soldiers sing about their loved ones back home, or joke about inferior army food.

“A lot of soldiers also learn to play a musical instrument, because they desperately need the emotional break,” she says.

Hearts of Pine by Joshua D. Pilzer (Oxford University Press)

The course also features a unit on Hearts of Pine, a book by Joshua Pilzer, an associate professor in the Faculty of Music. The book explores how Korean women used song as a means of coping with trauma while forced into sexual enslavement during the Second World War.

“When people live through sexual violence in war, very few songs describe the violence itself,” says Shternshis, noting it was a phenomenon she noticed when interviewing Holocaust survivors who were also musicians. “They sing about everything else but that.”

Shternshis has been teaching “Wars, Diaspora & Music” since 2018 and changes the syllabus every year to incorporate music from the world’s current wars. “I keep hoping that this will become a historical course,” she says ruefully. “But it is always contemporary.”

Last year, for example, she monitored music – emerging in real time on social media – created during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This year, she and her students are keeping watch on music from the Israel–Hamas war with the help of a student translator.

While it is painful to engage with contemporaneous pain, Shternshis says it’s a valuable way of recording experiences and emotions that are easily forgotten with the passage of time.

What unites the music studied in the course is its enormous power – both to incite killing, as in the case of Rwanda’s Bikindi, but also to provide healing.

Shternshis says the latter may ultimately be stronger than the former.

“If a person who lives under extreme duress is able to enjoy music, that often gives them incredible strength to move on,” Shternshis says, adding that her course offers a glimpse of the human spirit at its most threatened – and most triumphant.

“We are asking: What are the things that people are saying, or singing, or even laughing about in conditions that are not designed for life at all?”

Afrosonic Innovation Lab: Artists and scholars explore music of the African diaspora

Christopher.Sorensen — Thu, 12 Oct 2023 17:25:46 +0000

Afrosonic Innovation Lab: Artists and scholars explore music of the African diaspora

Christopher.Sorensen Thu, 10/12/2023 - 13:25

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Assistant Professor Mark V. Campbell leads the Afrosonic Innovation Lab at U of T Scarborough (supplied image)

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Based at U of T Scarborough, the lab studies – and experiments with – Black music and sonic cultures

A growing academic space at the ��Ƶ Scarborough is offering students a meaningful outlet to engage with music from the African diaspora.

Led by Assistant Professor Mark V. Campbell, the Afrosonic Innovation Lab explores – and experiments with – Black music and sonic cultures from across the African diaspora.

“The mission around the lab is to be open and experimental around creating music, and working with soundscapes and sound in ways that can connect theory to practice,” says Campbell of the department of arts, culture and media.

“We also illuminate the very rich and multifold ways that sound and music have been critical to the sustenance, the survival and the thriving of populations of Africans forcibly displaced from the continent.”

Launched in 2021, the lab encourages students to not only create music but conduct research to gain and mobilize knowledge about the role of music in the African diaspora. It also fosters a collaborative environment where researchers can think beyond their individual disciplines.

It hosts a variety of events and programming throughout the academic year, including a speaker series and an artist residency. The idea behind last year’s programming was to bring new voices to Toronto through the musical world of the Spanish-speaking Caribbean. Events were held in both Scarborough and downtown Toronto.

Guests from last year’s speaker series included Grammy-nominated artists Yosvany Terry and percussionist Magdelys Savigne – who are both from Cuba – as well as Welmo Romero Joseph, an Afro-Puerto Rican poet and rap artist. This year’s guests include hip-hop scholar Shanté Paradigm Smalls and poet M. NourbeSe Philip.

A 10-month artist residency program gives creatives an opportunity to experiment and challenge themselves by building a project that uses academic research and creation – which can range from performance to new music or archival research. The lab also takes up artist residencies to advance creative projects based on sound, music or performance in both local and international contexts.

For Campbell, creating a space for music and academic research through the Afrosonic Innovation Lab connects his two career paths.

Campbell’s career started as a DJ – and later community radio host and curator – in the early 1990s. He is the co-founder of Northside Hip Hop – a growing digital archive that works to preserve Canadian hip-hop history.

Meanwhile, in addition to teaching several graduate-level courses at U of T Scarborough, Campbell is the principal investigator for a research project about hip-hop and knowledge production that received support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

“I needed a space where I could continue to be who I was before entering the academy, but also remix that experience with research creation methodologies with some of the discourses that I find in places like cultural studies and musicology,” Campbell says.

Looking forward to the next academic year, the lab is working on forging international partnerships with other universities. It will continue to support its graduate students and amplify the work of local artists.

In November, the Afrosonic Innovation Lab will also host an international conference that coincides with the launch of Campbell’s forthcoming co-edited book, Hip Hop Archives: The Politics and Poetics of Knowledge Production and the 50th celebrations of hip-hop culture. The event will bring several archivists, curators, hip-hop enthusiasts and scholars to campus from the U.K., Brazil, U.S. and South Africa.

“We are thinking critically about what the lab’s work looks like across the planet – the kinds of innovations that have had long-lasting reverberations globally in the music scene, in the technological and digital space and in DJ cultures.”

Infants prefer live music over recorded version, study finds

lanthierj — Mon, 17 Jul 2023 19:22:00 +0000

Infants prefer live music over recorded version, study finds

lanthierj Mon, 07/17/2023 - 15:22

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Research found that babies' heart rates synchronized and they were more engaged when watching live music, compared to a recording of the same performance (photo by Envato Elements)

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Research & Innovation

��Ƶ Scarborough

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New research from U of T's TEMPO Lab suggests that even babies feel the impact of being at a live show, through both musicians’ interactions with an audience and the social experience of being in a crowd

You don't have to be an adult to feel the power of live opera – even babies prefer to attend in person, a new study suggests.

When infants watched a live performance of a baby opera, their heart rates synchronized and they were significantly more engaged than babies who watched an identical recording of the show, researchers say.

Laura Cirelli (supplied image)

“Their heart rates were speeding up and slowing down in a similar fashion to other babies watching the show,” says Laura Cirelli, assistant professor in the department of psychology at the ��Ƶ Scarborough and co-author of a new study published in the journal Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity and the Arts.

“Those babies were dealing with all these distractions in the concert hall, but still had these uninterrupted bursts of attention.”

The findings suggest that even babies feel the impact of being at a live show, through both musicians’ interactions with an audience and the social experience of being in a crowd. Cirelli recalls moments during the performance when a calm would sweep over the babies, and other times when a change in pitch or vocal riff would excite them all.

She says this may offer insights into why humans are hardwired to consume music and attend live shows.

“If there’s something happening that we collectively are engaging with, we’re also connecting with each other. It speaks to the shared experience,” says Cirelli, director of the TEMPO Lab, which studies how infants and children respond to music.

“The implication is that this is not necessarily specific to this one performance. If there’s these moments that capture us, then we are being captured together.”

It’s well established that socialization is crucial during early childhood development – an infant’s brain is laying the groundwork for future life skills and abilities as it grows. Cirelli says music can play a powerful part in making those important bonds. She points to research finding infants are more likely to socialize with someone after hearing them sing a familiar song or dancing to music with them, and that infants have strong emotional reactions to music and song even before their first birthday.

“We consistently find that music can be a highly social and emotional context within which infants can foster connections to their caregivers, other family members and even new acquaintances,” she says. “This audience study shows that even in a community context, infants are engaging with the music and connecting to their fellow audience members.”

Babies watched a selection of songs from The Music Box, an operatic performance designed for infants
(submitted photo)

For the study, researchers examined 120 babies ages six to 14 months as they watched a children’s opera performed at a concert hall that doubles as a research facility at McMaster University (61 babies watched in person, while the other 59 watched a recorded version).

Researchers meticulously broadcast the recording so that the performers were at the same size, distance and volume as the live version. The babies’ responses were tracked through heart monitors and tablets mounted on the backs of concert seats. Later, student research assistants combed through the footage to note when babies looked at the stage and when they looked away.

The live performance captured the babies' attention for 72 per cent of the 12-minute show while the recording held their attention for 54 per cent of the time. The live show also had infants continuously watching for longer bouts of time.

“Even little babies who may or may not have experienced music in a community context before are already engaging more when it’s delivered this way,” Cirelli says.

“That’s one question we have as music cognition researchers: What is it about the live experience that's worth it? Why would people go if there’s not something fundamental about that live music experience that's above and beyond listening to music by yourself?”

That’s not to say babies find virtual performances boring. After the onset of the pandemic, the researchers virtually studied one group of babies as they watched the same recording in their homes over Zoom. Those babies paid about as much attention as the ones who attended the live show – watching about 64 per cent on average – but they were more likely to become distracted and have shorter bursts of attention.

“The babies watching at home didn’t have the distraction of being in a new place – they were in their comfort zone,” Cirelli says. "But even without distractions, the quality of their attention was still not nearly as strong as the audience in the live condition.”

The study – which was co-authored by former TEMPO Lab postdoctoral researcher Haley Kragness, now an assistant professor at Bucknell University – will also feed into some of Cirelli’s other work.

In a different study, she and a team of researchers are exploring whether a live performance over Zoom has the same impact on engagement as a live performance in person, and whether musicians’ interactions with an audience can play a similarly powerful role in capturing attention.

Yet another study will investigate whether live performances affect their memory of the event and how watching a live performance versus a recorded version affects how they feel about the performer.

“If a baby is frequently brought to these kinds of events, will that shape their foundation for engaging in music and the community later in childhood?” Cirelli asks.

“It speaks to why we even engage with music at all.”

The study was funded by the U of T Connaught New Researcher Award and by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC).

U of T Scarborough grad creates spaces where equity, mental health and music thrive

Christopher.Sorensen — Fri, 09 Jun 2023 18:34:40 +0000

U of T Scarborough grad creates spaces where equity, mental health and music thrive

Christopher.Sorensen Fri, 06/09/2023 - 14:34

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New U of T Scarborough graduate Delicia Raveenthrarajan is a mental health advocate, public speaker and music educator (supplied image)

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'Star on the rise': Delicia Raveenthrarajan has won awards for her advocacy and efforts to make music accessible to all

Delicia Raveenthrarajan always loved singing and making music – until that passion waned when she was in high school.

Raveenthrarajan, who is now graduating from U of T Scarborough with a bachelor of science, was recovering from surgery after transferring to a performing arts program at 16. Post-op complications and other health issues caused her to miss music rehearsals, and she was told she was "too sick to be a performer" – so she stepped away from the arts.

“There are some spaces where well-being is second priority to the quality of music. Some people think that to be excellent you have to sacrifice personal values and well-being, but that's a really ableist notion,” Raveenthrarajan says.

Even her non-musical peers were forgoing well-being in pursuit of high grades, and just as the music world seemed focused on everything Western and classical, she found mental health supports skewed the same way.

So Raveenthrarajan became a staunch activist for student mental health and culturally responsive care – she joined clubs, advocated at the G7 Summit, became a public speaker and penned an article published in Teen Vogue, landing the Governor General’s Sovereign’s Medal for Volunteers in 2016 for her work.

She eventually returned to her original high school, and when her former teacher asked her to conduct the school choir, she took up the baton. While conducting at a spring concert, she unwittingly impressed members of the leadership team at Sistema Toronto, a free after-school music program for students living in underserved communities. They offered her a job as teaching-artist-in-choir, and for the past four years, she’s led classes where well-being is the purpose – not the price – of making music.

“It’s really important that all of the students I work with are seen as whole human beings first. Their well-being takes top priority," Raveenthrarajan says.

Raveenthrarajan was a panelist at the launch of Soundlife Scarborough, a new centre for music-making at U of T Scarborough that she was instrumental in developing (photo by Alexa Battler)

In warmups, Raveenthrarajan asks students to stand only if they’re able. She invites them to speak with her any time. She teaches not only how to perform pieces from a range of genres, but the social, cultural and political context behind them – classes on Indigenous music, for example, are grounded in talks about Truth and Reconciliation, and for an upcoming performance of a song about social justice, her students wrote their own final verse. She was inducted into the Scarborough Walk of Fame in 2018 by winning its Rising Star Award for her impact as an activist and educator.

Upon graduating high school, Raveenthrarajan recognized a familiar teaching approach in U of T Scarborough’s music and culture program – the curriculum delves beyond Western classical music into a spectrum of genres, and balances lessons on performance with those on culture, socio-political concepts and community engagement. She double-majored in mental health studies and music and culture – programs she says are both ultimately “about the human experience.”

During her undergrad, she took part in several music and arts clubs and initiatives, and played cello in the U of T Scarborough string orchestra. She also worked for years as a research assistant with the music and culture program, and helped conduct a landscape review of music programs across North America that guided the development of Soundlife Scarborough (SLS), a new centre for creating music-making opportunities on and off campus.

“She was instrumental in the creation and development of Soundlife Scarborough,” says Lynn Tucker, SLS lead and associate professor, teaching stream, in U of T Scarborough's department of arts, culture and media. “I don't think we would be where we are today without her energy, insight and the work ethic she brings to the project.”

In 2019, Raveenthrarajan attended a conference of the Ontario Music Educators Association, and while she was struck by the vibrancy of the community, she noticed a Eurocentric focus on music creation and knowledge. She wrote a letter to the organization’s board and became its equity, diversity and inclusion director in her second year at university.

“A lot of the time, social justice work is trauma-centered, and it's important to address those issues – but it's also important to centre well-being and spend time intentionally building the things that move toward joy, liberation, community,” she says.

“When your identity is argued, excluded or marginalized, existing, taking up space, creating and doing the things that bring you joy are also acts of revolution. I think well-being is at the centre of that.”

This year, Raveenthrarajan was shortlisted for a Rhodes Scholarship and a Fulbright Scholarship, two of the world’s most recognized and prestigious grant programs. She’ll begin pursuing her master’s in music education at U of T’s Faculty of Music in a few months, and is considering dabbling in the French horn when she's not in class.

“She's quite inspiring,” Tucker says. “She's such a bright light. Her star is definitely on the rise.”

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Soundlife Scarborough

U of T’s Faculty of Music partners with community group to mentor young pianists

mattimar — Mon, 05 Jun 2023 17:48:48 +0000

U of T’s Faculty of Music partners with community group to mentor young pianists

mattimar Mon, 06/05/2023 - 13:48

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Elizabeth Afeworki, a Grade 10 student, performs Nocturne in G Minor by Frédéric Chopin during a recital at U of T's Faculty of Music (photo by Mariam Matti)

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Dixon Hall community members have been receiving mentorship from Faculty of Music graduate students

Jessica Lui remembers her childhood piano lessons being very technical – so much so that she quit playing at age 13. “It wasn’t very fun as a kid, being forced to practice all the time,” she says.

Now, Lui – a master’s student in the piano performance and pedagogy program at the ��Ƶ’s Faculty of Music – is teaching piano to a new generation after rediscovering the instrument as a young adult.

She says she wants to make sure her students have a great experience.

“I wanted to do something different than my early teachers, to make it more fun,” Lui says.

Since September, U of T piano pedagogy graduate students such as Lui have been mentoring and giving virtual piano sessions to young pianists through the Faculty of Music’s partnership with Dixon Hall, a multi-service agency in downtown Toronto that provides music lessons to children and other community members in Regent Park, Moss Park and the St. Lawrence community through the Dixon Hall Music School.

Grade 12 student Ryan Tran takes a bow following his performance (photo by Mariam Matti)

The partnership has provided valuable mentorship opportunities for young pianists like Elizabeth Afeworki and Ryan Tran.

“When you’re a student and another student is helping you, it feels better,” says Afeworki, who is in Grade 10. “It was a relaxed and calm environment.”

Tran, who is in Grade 12, says he picked up new techniques during his sessions.

“They taught me to sing the melody in my head,” he says.

The partnership with Dixon Hall was forged last spring when Associate Professor Midori Koga, faculty supervisor of the piano pedagogy program at U of T, served as a practice partner for the students from Dixon Hall as part of a pilot program.

“I was Zooming from my own home into their living rooms,” says Koga. “We were having informal conversations about practice and the challenges they’ve faced. It was an opportunity for me to catch a lovely glimpse of music in their homes and family lives.”

Midori Koga, who launched the partnership with Dixon Hall, delivers opening remarks at the Piano Festival (photo by Mariam Matti)

In the fall, Koga officially launched the Practice Partners Program with Dixon Hall with a donation by Charles and Janet Lin. Charles taught in U of T’s department of physics in the 1980s. He and Janet also support the Paul and Celestine Lin Graduate Scholarship at the Faculty of Music. The scholarship was named after Charles' parents.

"Supporting Dixon Hall through music education is one of the actions we take to reduce inequities in our community,” Charles and Janet said in an emailed statement. “The young people are our future."

Students from Dixon Hall signed up for 20-minute coaching sessions designed to support their regular piano classes every week. They consulted the Faculty of Music graduate students on technique, how to practice new pieces and how to polish up their performances.

“The idea was that our role wasn’t as their teachers, but as mid-week supports for their practice,” Koga says. “It was valuable for the graduate students to experience working with a broader community, and helpful for the Dixon Hall students to receive support and encouragement between their lessons.”

The program culminated with a Piano Festival in late May. The Dixon Hall pianists visited the Faculty of Music on the St. George campus for a combination of master classes for more advanced students, individual lessons, assessments and a showcase recital at the end of the day in front of family and friends.

Program participants hold up thank you signs for Charles and Janet Lin (photo by Mariam Matti)

Jingyi Zhou, a piano pedagogy student at U of T, introduced off-bench activities such as chanting and singing to the pianists from Dixon Hall during her sessions.

“I would ask them to find something that resembles a drum, and they’d bring a pot from the kitchen,” says Zhou, adding that the idea is “to feel the music with your body instead of just your fingers.”

For students Afeworki and Tran, it was their first visit to U of T’s Faculty of Music.

Afeworki participated in one of the masterclasses and played Nocturne in G Minor by Frédéric Chopin at the recital. Tran, meanwhile, completed a mock assessment, played Interlude by Martha Mier at the recital and said he found the practice sessions informative.

“I was getting advice from another student,” he says. “It was really helpful.”

As for Lui, she says her experience at U of T so far has been “well-rounded” and applies the techniques she’s learned when she’s teaching.

“Right now, we’re building a foundation for them to be able to do anything they want.”

Dixon Hall students received certificates from the Faculty of Music following the recital (photo by Mariam Matti)

U of T Scarborough launches new centre for music and community engagement

Christopher.Sorensen — Tue, 23 May 2023 15:55:01 +0000

U of T Scarborough launches new centre for music and community engagement

Christopher.Sorensen Tue, 05/23/2023 - 11:55

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A new music centre at U of T Scarborough recently hosted its first symposium (photo by Alexa Battler)

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SoundLife Scarborough will collaborate with local community groups on ways to remove barriers to making music

A new centre launched by the music and culture program at the ��Ƶ Scarborough is removing barriers to making music – and not just for students.

Called SoundLife Scarborough (SLS), the research centre is teaming up with local organizations to create more opportunities for music-making on and off campus.

“The centre supports community partnerships and community-engaged research excellence grounded in the principle of reciprocity,” says Laura Risk, SLS co-lead and an assistant professor in U of T Scarborough’s department of arts, culture and media. “We're trying to help facilitate connections and really think about how we can contribute to the already vibrant musical world in Scarborough.”

SLS co-lead Laura Risk and symposium attendees participated in a session that traced the history of the steelpan (photo by Alexa Battler)

SLS faculty member Roger Mantie calls the centre “the glue” that will hold together the music and culture program’s partnerships, initiatives, research projects and programming. Professors in the program have frequently engaged local organizations as part of their courses and research, but the centre will allow U of T Scarborough to maintain and build these relationships beyond individual courses or projects, he says.

“Now we have a hub that can create stability and sustainability,” says Mantie, an associate professor in the department of arts, culture and media. “And organizations have a point of contact beyond a singular faculty member.”

The centre will find new ways to use the university’s resources and strengths to support those pursuing their love of music. Risk says new partnerships and programming will begin with the question: “What’s in it for the community?”

“SLS is meant to be a very porous interface between the university and the community,” says Lynn Tucker, SLS lead and associate professor, teaching stream, in the department of arts, culture and media.

SLS co-lead Lynn Tucker (left) and community members got hands-on at the Mapping Music Pathways symposium (photo by Alexa Battler)

All programming is meant be free and accessible. It already includes pop-up and weekly music-making events for hand-drumming and ukulele, along with Brazilian Maracatu sessions with Juno-nominated master percussionist Aline Morales.

“The age range for some of those Maracatu sessions is eight to 80,” says Tucker. “We have families coming in with their kids. We've had people come in for date night. People drive up from downtown on a Thursday evening to attend.”

Music program marching to a new beat

SLS is just one of the ways the program is rethinking the ways music is studied at university. Students don’t have to audition to get into the program, and any student can join its bands, choirs, string orchestra and small ensembles – no matter their course load or field of study. The program evolved in response to students’ interests and goals. In 2015, it adopted three new areas of focus that guided what would be taught and who would teach it: community music, music and society, and music creativity and technology.

“The main thing that differentiates it from almost every other university music program in Canada is that there's no audition to get in. Different and diverse musical backgrounds are celebrated in the curriculum and you get people from all walks of life,” says SLS research associate Lloyd McArton, a PhD candidate in U of T’s Faculty of Music who is an assistant professor of music education at the University of Lethbridge. “The focuses are really special – music and technology isn't really prominent in a lot of music programs in Canada.”

SLS research associate Lloyd McArton was one of several symposium attendees to try out the steelpan (photo by Alexa Battler)

The refocusing involved four new staff hires and several new courses, including ones on DJ cultures and digital music creation, as well as others that explore music’s intersection with health, movies, society and technologies. A suite of courses dedicated to community music were also introduced so students could observe and interact with local organizations’ music programming.

One of the community music courses’ culminating projects is to write a mock grant proposal for a new community music project in collaboration with an existing organization and then pitch the idea to the class and community partners. Fourth-year student and SLS research assistant Delicia Raveenthrarajan had previously acted as a teaching-artist-in-choir with Sistema Toronto, a free music program for students in underserved communities –so she proposed a new staff role dedicated to community engagement. The organization has since used her proposal to inform their systems and practices.

“It was really cool because I got to interact with them through my studies and in my professional life,” says Raveenthrarajan, who is double majoring in music and culture and mental health studies. “It's important to de-centre the university at some points so we’re going out into the community and amplifying the voices of community partners.”

U of T and McGill collaborate to stage North American premiere of banned Haydn opera

siddiq22 — Wed, 17 May 2023 15:55:01 +0000

U of T and McGill collaborate to stage North American premiere of banned Haydn opera

siddiq22 Wed, 05/17/2023 - 11:55

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The cast and creative team behind a new production of Orfeo gather for rehearsal in the Geiger-Torel Room at U of T's Faculty of Music (supplied photo)

Tabassum Siddiqui

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Austrian composer Joseph Haydn may have been known as the “Father of the Symphony,” but he also penned a number of operas – including one that was declared contraband and shut down before its premiere in 1791.

Caryl Clark

Now thanks to a collaboration between the ��Ƶ and McGill University, that opera – L’anima del filosofo (or Orfeo: The Soul of the Philosopher) – will be staged in North America for the first time. The production, which includes students and professional artists, will be performed on May 26 and 27 at the MacMillan Theatre at U of T’s Faculty of Music, alongside an academic symposium about the opera at Walter Hall on May 27 supported by U of T's Jackman Humanities Institute in the Faculty of Arts & Science.

Based on the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, the opera was never performed during Haydn’s lifetime after “authorities in London, fearing that the new plot resonated too closely with liberal Enlightenment ideals advanced in revolutionary France, shut down the production during rehearsals in May 1791,” says musicologist and Haydn scholar Caryl Clark, a professor of music history and culture in the Faculty of Music who spearheaded the project.

To stage the opera – which lay dormant in Eastern European archives until the Cold War – Clark and fellow musicologist Dorian Bandy, a professor of early music and music history at McGill who will serve as conductor for the production, brought together a cast and crew from both universities along with award-winning theatre practitioners from Canada and the U.S.

Clark and Bandy told U of T News about the challenges of mounting a long-lost opera for the first time and why such an ancient tale still resonates onstage today.

What is the story behind Orfeo?

Clark: With his great musical powers – he’s a singer and lyre player – Orpheus gains entry to the Underworld to rescue his beloved who died of a snake bite on their wedding day. Warned not to look back at her on their journey out of Hades, his passions overtake his rational mind – he looks at her, and she vanishes forever, leaving him to lament into eternity.

How are U of T and McGill working together on the production?

Bandy: Collaborations of this nature are usually between individuals – in this case between me and Caryl. However, both of us have gotten many other people from our respective universities involved in the production. The performances are taking place at U of T, and U of T students are making up most of the cast and chorus. U of T colleagues have also been helping with many behind-the-scenes aspects of the production – from choral preparation and vocal coaching to elements of lighting and design. McGill’s Early Music program, meanwhile, is responsible for the period-instrument orchestra that will be playing in the pit during the production. The performances will really embody an ideal synthesis of the strengths and energies of each university.

What made you want to take on this opera for the first time – and what challenges did you face in mounting a production that’s a North American first?

Bandy: Haydn’s lost Orfeo opera has been on Caryl’s radar for more than three decades! Caryl first learned of this opera as a graduate student at Cornell University, and she spent much of her career working on it – publishing articles, presenting papers at conferences and even delivering pre-concert lectures at productions in Europe. In late 2019, we met at a musicology conference and both agreed that launching a production at one of our universities would make for a stimulating project.

Clark: The challenges of putting together a production of this opera are not unique to Haydn. Opera is expensive, so many of the primary hurdles have involved fundraising. However, equally crucial has been the assembly of a keen and visionary creative team, including our energetic young director Nico Krell, who has taken a leading role in shaping the look, feel and underlying message of our production.

Although the lack of a North American staging tradition for this opera might seem an obstacle – after all, most members of the creative crew were not already familiar with this work when they signed up to be a part of the show – this also affords us a huge amount of artistic freedom and flexibility. The audience will not be entering the theatre with the baggage of preconceptions about the music, memories of favourite past productions and the like – and this means that we will have the pleasure of presenting this piece to many listeners for the very first time, and shaping their expectations and experiences more actively as the performances unfold.

(L-R) Orfeo performers Asitha Tennekoon (who plays the title role) Parker Clements (Creonte), Lindsay McIntyre (Euridice) and Maeve Palmer (Genio) (supplied images)

What can attendees expect to learn at the corresponding symposium on May 27?

Clark: Along with colleagues from Northeastern University and Brown University, we will discuss the intellectual context for the opera and the process of mounting this production – and students from both U of T and McGill will present their experiences of preparing the opera for public performance.

Opera and politics are inextricably intertwined. Music, art and literature have the power to shape the thoughts and minds of listeners, readers and audiences, so governments and politicians are particularly sensitive to the potential of theatrical representation and other forms of artistic expression to destabilize society and undermine government authority. Indeed, Haydn’s Orfeo was to have premiered a few months after the statesman Edmund Burke penned his Reflections on the Revolution in France in 1790. There are many historical precedents for banning works of art deemed too politically sensitive for their times. Our production focuses on the extinguishing of Enlightenment values and delivers a powerful contemporary environmental message by staging “nature’s revenge.”

How does Spotify know what you like? Expert sheds light on 'recommender' systems at U of T event

Christopher.Sorensen — Wed, 03 May 2023 13:14:48 +0000

How does Spotify know what you like? Expert sheds light on 'recommender' systems at U of T event

Christopher.Sorensen Wed, 05/03/2023 - 09:14

Cutline

Mounia Lalmas, senior director of research at Spotify, and with U of T Assistant Professor Ashton Anderson recently took part in an event hosted by the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society (photo by Marco Monteiro Silva)

Topic

Our Community

Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society

Artificial Intelligence

Computer Science

Faculty of Arts & Science

Music

Streaming giant Spotify’s popularity is due in part to its uncanny ability to sift through a library of more than 82 million tracks to match the tastes of each of its 500 million monthly active users.

How does it do it? The answer lies in the platform’s recommender machine learning algorithms, which develop custom content individual users based on their past behaviour.

Mounia Lalmas, senior director of research at Spotify, shed light on some of the techniques used by the world’s largest music streaming platform at a recent event hosted by the ��Ƶ’s Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society (SRI).

She emphasized the importance of “creating personalized listening experiences” and delved into how Spotify processes data to match users and tracks, providing insight into the types of data used, which includes not only the taste preferences of users, but also their interactions with the app, including time of day and history.

“Really, what is important for Spotify are two sides: the artists and creators, and the listeners and users,” said Lalmas, who leads a team of interdisciplinary researchers at Spotify who are working on personalization. “We focus on both, and how we view things is really a symbiotic relationship where each side matters equally.”

Rather than seeking to predict the next click, Lalmas – who holds an honorary professorship at University College London and is a distinguished research fellow at the University of Amsterdam – said the goal is to develop algorithms that guide users’ long-term journeys, and that this necessarily shifts what factors determine a “good recommendation.” She rounded out her presentation by sharing recent methods her team has developed, including how the platform is supporting users to explore diverse content and helping to connect users with new artists.

The event, held at the Rotman School of Management, also featured SRI Research Lead Ashton Anderson, an assistant professor in U of T’s department of computer science in the Faculty of Arts & Science. Anderson’s research in the field of computational social science led him to Spotify in 2018 – and a collaboration with Lalmas – to explore how algorithms impact user journeys.

Creating personalized listener experiences

At the heart of Spotify’s listening experience lies a sophisticated recommendation engine composed of three layers: data, models, and experience.

Beginning with data, Lalmas highlighted the role of user playlists and listening history, as well as instrumentation – the actions taken on the platform – in shaping recommendations. For instance, a user who spends a lot of time scrolling is likely seeking out new content rather than something they are already familiar with, she said, adding that Spotify uses metadata provided by the music label, as well as the audio profile of the song to further factor into its recommendations.

(photo by Dan Browne)

Next, user and track data are mapped onto an embedding space that enables the platform to assess relationships between content. In natural language processing, embeddings enable systems to grasp the relative proximity between words – for instance, the word “dog” would be closer to “cat” than to “tree.” Every track, artist and user can be represented in this space, which serves as a backbone for the platform’s models, while proximity within these spaces determines similarity and cohesion.

The last layer is experience, which consists of the app that Spotify users interact with. Recommendation engines power tailored playlists in this layer, including “Discover Weekly,” and determine how content is surfaced on a user’s homepage. This layer provides crucial feedback (for example, a user who skips a suggested song), which helps the engine to continuously refine its recommendations, Lalmas said.

Balancing wants and needs

Lalmas said that recommendation systems should deliver a lifetime of content, with the goal of building trust. To do this, algorithms must be fine-tuned to strike a balance between satisfying users’ wants and needs.

Imagine, for example, that you opened a newly recommended playlist and you skipped the first five songs because they weren’t your style. Feeling frustrated, you would probably close the playlist. On the other hand, if the app continually suggests only familiar songs, you’d soon become bored. The key to engage listeners, Lalmas said, is striking a delicate balance between the two.

Diversifying listening experiences

Lalmas wrapped up her talk by sharing some of the progress her team has made towards understanding how to diversify listening experiences, including a survey of recent research publications.

In a paper presented at the 2022 ACM Conference on Web Search and Data Mining, her team proposed and evaluated a machine learning algorithm that models a user’s recent sequential listening patterns (which change quickly) and their all-time listening profile (which changes slowly). The result is a more accurate user profile developed over time, improving recommendations.

In a collaboration with Anderson, Lalmas and team modelled the evolution of user preferences over time. Their findings showed that changes in musical preferences were directional, meaning that those who listened to hard rock may eventually develop an interest in blues rock, but those who started with blues rock would not shift to hard rock. By identifying these preferential pathways, it can become possible to introduce users to new music different enough to diversify their listening – but not different enough for engagement to drop.

Another collaborative project between Anderson and Lalmas analyzed the long-term consequences of Spotify recommendations on users’ listening habits. They labelled users as “generalists” or “specialists” based on the diversity of songs they listen to, and found that recommender systems can be fine-tuned to encourage diverse listening without affecting engagement by steering consumption towards less popular content. This study highlights a common challenge with recommender systems: the tendency to promote the most popular items, which can lead to “rich-get-richer” scenarios.

The influence of algorithmic recommendations on consumption has motivated researchers to investigate their technical design and governance. Meanwhile, finding new ways to align recommender systems with social values has emerged as an important area of research.

SRI Director and Chair Gillian Hadfield is currently engaged in a multi-stakeholder project exploring how to improve user satisfaction with Facebook’s recommender systems, which proposes that partnerships between academia and Big Tech are vital to shed light on the social impacts of algorithms. Recommender systems were also the focus of a session at SRI’s 2022 Absolutely Interdisciplinary conference, which discussed the importance of policy to shape the design of algorithms in the context of democratic rights.

Lalmas noted that diversity is key when creating personalized experiences, and that “a diverse and dynamic diet” generates long-term benefits for users and platforms alike.

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Sharon Ferguson

U of T student's musical, based on an Oscar Wilde classic, to debut at Hart House Theatre

Christopher.Sorensen — Mon, 17 Apr 2023 13:22:32 +0000

U of T student's musical, based on an Oscar Wilde classic, to debut at Hart House Theatre

Christopher.Sorensen Mon, 04/17/2023 - 09:22

Cutline

Anthony Palermo wrote and directed The Gray: A Wilde Musical in Concert, which explores self-expression, generational queer trauma and what it means to find home in LGBTQ+ spaces (supplied image)

Topic

Undergraduate Students

Months before graduating, ��Ƶ Mississauga student Anthony Palermo will stage a production of his play based on Oscar Wilde's novel The Picture of Dorian Gray – but with an edgy 1970s glam-rock twist

From April 20 to 22, Hart House Theatre will present an in-concert version of a new work titled The Gray: A Wilde Musical in Concert, a twist on the Wilde classic.

First produced as an audio version (currently streaming on Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube) last year by the Victoria College Drama Society, The Gray will make its onstage debut at Hart House.

The musical is the brainchild of Palermo, executive producer of the English & Drama Student Society (EDSS) at U of T Mississauga. Palermo is an actor, director, writer and composer who is graduating from U of T/Sheridan College’s theatre and drama studies program this spring. In addition to directing the production, Palermo also created the book, music and lyrics for The Gray.

“Hart House is very special to me – a wonderful platform, Palermo says. "It has been a place of connection – I’ve been able to network with so many theater professionals and artists.”

The Gray is only the latest work in a recent string of successes for Palermo. Last year, they were invited by the Musical Stage Company to compose and direct music for One Song Glory, a musical-theatre training intensive for youth, and also were a featured artist-in-residence for Soulpepper Theatre Company's Queer Youth Cabaret. Last June, Palermo wrote and performed a one-person musical that was reprised at the EDSS Performance Arts Festival in December.

In addition to The Gray, Palermo wrote and directed another musical, Mythic Women and their Cabaret to Save Humanity, at U of T Mississauga last year. They also directed Dog Sees God (Winter 2021) and Hedwig and the Angry Inch (Fall 2022) with the Victoria College Drama Society, and are currently directing Angels in America at St. Michael’s College.

Palermo’s television work includes the CBC series Workin’ Moms and Macy Murdoch, a spinoff of Murdoch Mysteries.

Informed by real events in queer history

Inspired by Wilde’s enduring story and set in David’s Disco – a nightclub that briefly existed in Toronto’s Gay Village in the late 1970s – The Gray follows Dorian, a young singer-songwriter determined to become a star. After his photograph is taken, he becomes obsessed with the image and the power it holds. With an original, glam-rock-inspired score, the musical explores self-expression, generational queer trauma and what it means to find home in LGBTQ+ spaces.

“The inspiration came from events in the queer history of Toronto, with which I've always been fascinated, as well as [journalist] Justin Ling’s book Missing from the Village,” Palermo says. “I became extremely engrossed with that past as well as the queer themes in Wilde’s novel, and they sort of blended together in my mind.”

“It's significant to have [The Gray] on stage and to have queer bodies performing. This is really special.”

From left: Nick Palazzolo, Nell Khayutin, Giustin MacLean, Stevie Hook, Jacob Moro, Anthony Palermo and Liam Peter Donovan (supplied image)

From audio to onstage

The Gray was first produced as an audio drama, picking up wins at the U of T Drama Coalition Awards last year. From there, Palermo was contacted by Doug Floyd, director of theatre and performance art at Hart House, who connected him with playwright and director Aaron Jan, who helped with the stage adaptation.

Palermo recalls how his connection to Hart House goes all the way back to when he was in high school.

“In Grade 11, I wrote my first musical for the National Theatre School Festival. We went to regionals and performed on the Hart House Theatre stage,” says Palermo, who also worked at the theatre as a U of T work-study student.

Palermo credits Floyd and the rest of the Hart House Team – including education and production coordinator Gillian Lewis and marketing assistant Lindsey Middleton – for their support over the years.

“They were such grounding forces for me – they helped me build confidence,” Palermo notes.

As Palermo looks ahead to graduation, they have some advice for other students who dream of the bright stage lights.

“Get involved everywhere – work as a producer for a theatre company at U of T, gain experience as a designer … There are many different facets," Palermo says.

"Try everything at least once, because we have such a rare opportunity at U of T and at Hart House to be able to participate in so many things.”

Neurosurgeon seeks to better understand epilepsy using math – and music

Christopher.Sorensen — Fri, 24 Mar 2023 16:29:24 +0000

Neurosurgeon seeks to better understand epilepsy using math – and music

Christopher.Sorensen Fri, 03/24/2023 - 12:29

Cutline

Taufik Valiante, a neurosurgeon at Toronto Western Hospital and an associate professor at U of T, says certain music patterns may reduce the likelihood of a seizure (all images courtesy of the Krembil Brain Institute)

Peter Boisseau

Topic

Breaking Research

Institute of Biomedical Engineering

Max Planck

Temerty Faculty of Medicine

Electrical & Computer Engineering

Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

Faculty of Arts & Science

International Collaboration

Music

Research & Innovation

University Health Network

When Taufik Valiante was a child, his baseball coach’s son passed away from severe epilepsy.

“I think that left a pretty indelible mark on me,” says Valiante, a senior scientist at the Krembil Research Institute, University Health Network, and an associate professor of surgery in the ��Ƶ’s Temerty Faculty of Medicine.

Eventually, that experience in his youth led a sensitive, guitar-playing boy who hated the sight of blood to become a patient advocate, neurosurgeon and researcher studying the relationship between music and epilepsy.

Taufik Valiante

Today, he’s researching the connection between music and epilepsy with amazing results. A few years ago, his research team at the Krembil Brain Institute published a study suggesting listening to a six-minute selection of Mozart’s K448, Sonata for Two Pianos in D major every day could reduce seizure frequency in people living with epilepsy by up to 35 per cent.

The research has since grown to examine thousands of compositions from various artists and cultures.

“We're starting to expand this out really broadly and I have some collaborators now at the Max Planck Institute in Germany,” says Valiante, an alumus of U of T’s Faculty of Arts & Science who earned his honours bachelor of science from University College in 1988 as well as a PhD in physiology in 1995 and his medical degree in 1997 from U of T.

“Music is a mathematical construct and we think there are specific patterns in certain types of music that cause the brain to be less likely to go into a seizure,” he says.

“Epilepsy has provided an incredible opportunity to study the brain and a lot of credit goes to the patients who are willing to participate in studies to help us understand these things.”

As Purple Day approaches on March 26 to raise epilepsy awareness, Valiante recalls a career that started with successfully lobbying for a provincial strategy to improve care and recognition for people living with epilepsy, one of the world’s most common but nevertheless stigmatized neurological disorders.

“In my house we were raised to be social activists,” he says. “For people living with epilepsy, raising awareness is really important because the more people around them understand, the better their quality of life. And as a patient, you should hear the same thing whether it’s Purple Day or visiting my office or on the internet because it reinforces the importance of managing epilepsy.

“People often talk about a cure – and we're all hoping and working for that – but in the absence of that, it’s about, ‘How do you manage it well?’ "

A neurosurgeon at Toronto Western Hospital, Valiante co-directs the Max Planck-��Ƶ Centre for Neural Science and Technology, and CRANIA (Centre for Advancing Neurotechnological Innovation to Application). At U of T, he holds cross-appointments to the Institute of Biomedical Engineering and the Edward S. Rogers Sr. department of electrical and computer engineering in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering.

He says his mother taught her children to “be good at the things we enjoy,” which he took to heart. He often picks up his bass guitar to relax, recently sharing tracks in an audio collaboration with a long-time musician patient.

Valiante says he had an epiphany about the relationship between math, physics and the brain during a class at University College with former professor Jack Dainty – a nuclear physicist turned pioneering plant biophysicist.

“That was among my most formative periods in my life. It was my third year and I was taking his plant membrane physiology course and it blew my mind that he could show you something physically exists just by using math and physics,” he says.

“By fourth year, I had submitted a proposal on how to use math and physics to study the brain. I got an award for it and that money supported research during the summer after graduating with my bachelor of science.”

Valiante says he encourages every student to be open to exploring new subjects and interests without always focusing on how it fits their career plans.

“None of us are smart enough to know how what we do today is going to impact us in the future,” he says. “Don’t always expect something back except the experience itself. From a purely human point of view, the one behavior that can immediately increase positive emotion and happiness is giving.

“It benefits you as much as the people you help.”