The Well-Tempered Ear

Classical music: Explore how modern and contemporary piano music uses bird songs

By Jacob Stockinger

Kyle Johnson (below, in a photo by Peter Jakubowski), a talented pianist who is studying at the UW-Madison and who has contributed reviews to this blog, sends the following information:

Hi all,

You’re receiving this email because you collaborated with me on my ongoing Messiaen podcast production, helped me in a small way, are on my doctoral committee, or are simply someone whom I’ve told about the project in recent weeks.

I’ve great news: Edge Effects, a magazine out of the Center for Culture, History and Environment (within UW’s Nelson Institute) picked up knowledge of the project and decided to feature it!

The feature is a full-length preview episode of the podcast series, specifically created for Edge Effects. That episode is currently available for streaming or download HERE.

I hope everyone can get a chance to listen to it and enter the world of birdsong (below), contemporary piano repertoire, composition, ornithology and performing. (You can hear Messiaen’s use of birdsong in the YouTube video at the bottom.)

Podcasting, itself, is a great, relatively new medium for education, storytelling, and informing — all attributes I hope you’ll take away after hearing it.

Happy listening,

Kyle

Kyle D. Johnson, Mead Witter School of Music

Dissertator, Doctor of Musical Arts

www.kyledjohnson.weebly.com