Michigan Theater Ann Arbor, MI
Dr. Mark Clague
Professor of Musicology, University of Michigan School of Music
Songcatcher— The History of Musicology
Program Description
Dr. Mark Clague discussed the history of musicology and music recording, and improvements in recording technology, including video footage of a contemporary musician using an Edison wax cylinder phonograph to record his electric guitar
Presented At
Michigan Theater Ann Arbor, MI
Film Synopsis
A musicologist travels to Appalachia and makes the discovery of a lifetime.
In 1907, Dr. Lily Penleric (Janet McTeer), a professor of musicology, is denied a promotion at the university where she teaches. Disappointed, she impulsively visits her sister (Jane Adams), who runs a struggling rural school in Appalachia. There, she stumbles upon the discovery a lifetime: a treasure trove of ancient Scots-Irish ballads, songs that have been handed down from generation to generation, preserved intact by the seclusion of the mountains. With the goal of securing her promotion, Lily ventures into the most isolated areas of the mountains to collect the songs and finds herself increasingly enchanted—not only by the rugged purity of the music, but also by the raw courage and endurance of the local people as they carve out meaningful lives against the harshest conditions. It is not, however, until she meets Tom (Aidan Quinn)—a handsome, hardened war veteran and talented musician—that she's forced to examine her motivations. Is the "Songcatcher," as Tom insists, no better than the men who exploit the people and extort their land?
About the Speaker
Dr. Mark Clague studies all forms of music-making in the United States, especially in Chicago, focusing on the functional aesthetic of music and the relationship between music and society. He serves as executive editor for Music of the United States of America (MUSA), a scholarly series of critical scores representing the diversity and excellence of composition in the United States. He has presented papers at national meetings of the American Musicological Society, the Society for American Music, the Society for Ethnomusicology, the Center for Black Music Research, and Feminism and Music Theory. His articles appear in the Black Music Research Journal, International Dictionary of Black Composers, and the Encyclopedia of Chicago History. His awards include a Mellon Fellowship in the Humanities. He was a bassoonist with the Chicago Civic Orchestra and a substitute performer with the Chicago Symphony. Dr. Clague, who joined the Michigan faculty in 1997, received a BA and MA from the University of Chicago. He received his PhD in June 2002 with a dissertation entitled: Making Music, Building Culture: Chicago’s Auditorium Theater and the Civic Imagination, 1885–1929.