In 2015, the Yale School of Music suspended its jazz program, and the Dean of the school told the New York Times that jazz fell outside of the school's mission "to teach the canon." Why is this narrow definition of the "canon" such a big problem for our art form? Ellen McSweeney talks to Austin Wulliman, Eliza Brown, and Michael Lewanski about how schools of music are shaping what we allow ourselves to create.

Episode 1: The Enlightened Music School

This episode focuses on a body of repertoire that I’m going to call “post-instrumental” music: pieces that use found instruments, broken instruments, makeshift instruments, human bodies -- pretty much anything but traditional orchestral instruments. What's drawing composers and performers to make this kind of art? To find out, I talked to members of the Chicago contemporary music ensemble Mocrep: trombonist Nick Meryhew, bassist Zach Moore, and cellist Lia Kohl.  

Episode 2: The Radical Liberation of Musical Instruments

Episode Three features musicologist and ethnomusicologist John Pippen.  His musicological research focuses on musical work and labor -- the behind-the-scenes stuff makes new music possible. He's also written about powerful ideas that shape contemporary performance, such as talent, virtuosity, and struggle. You can often find John working as a fly on the wall, or an embedded musicologist, sitting with his laptop and taking notes as he listens to rehearsals and meetings. He has studied several contemporary music ensembles, including eighth blackbird, Alarm Will Sound, yarn/wire, Third Coast Percussion, and ensemble dal niente. I caught up with him in Chicago, where he’s visiting several times this year to lecture at the Museum of Contemporary Art. 

Artist's Huddle