Classes Fall 2012

“SHH! The Social Construction of Silence” with Ron Cohen

A social psychology class. I’m focusing on the formation and perpetuation of the cultural boundary through silence between the American North and South regions.

“Vocal Chamber Ensemble” with Tom Bogdan

Basically a choral singing class. We’ve been doing sacred and secular pieces from lots of different time periods. My favorite part is that we’re singing compositions by Bennington professor (a one of my personal inspirations) Kitty Brazelton.

“Battle of the Bands: Blackface, Brass, and Civil War” with Kitty Brazelton

A music history class that focuses on the time period in American history from the late 1800s to the mid 1900s from the perspective of the band.

“Art History Tutorial” with Andy Spence

This class has only four students in it! It’s for advanced art history students who are working on independent long-term projects. Mine is about a sculpture called “The Sphere” by Fritz Koenig and the way in which the artwork changed into an artifact after September, 11th.

“Special Projects in History” with Eileen Scully

Another independent projects class, but this one is to prepare for my final Field Work Term. I’m going to be travelling through several states in the American South with fellow senior Jessieh Johnson-Cunningham. We’re planning to collect individual histories from as many people as we can and then create a performance piece in our last term using these stories. 

Classes Fall 2011

Beginning Composing with Allen Shawn (my advisor)

In this class, we learn to create short pieces of music for various instruments. The cool thing is that our completed pieces are often played for the class by Bennington professors. Hearing music that I wrote being played by amazing musicians is such a thrill!

Making and Writing Group Music, a tutorial with Kitty Brazelton

A group of friends learning to write music together. It’s a tutorial, which means that it wasn’t on the curriculum. We created the class ourselves!

Art in America Since WWII with Andy Spence

An art history class that covers art in America… since World War II… self explanatory but still amazing.

Jazz Vocal Workshop with Tom Bogdan and Bruce Williamson

In this class, we sing jazz standards while learning microphone-singing technique, vocal improvisation, phrasing, and transposition among other things. It’s such fun, and the music is amazing.

Sacred Harp Singing School

A group of students singing together in an American tradition that is centuries-old. More on this in a future post!

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I know that this is a lot of music classes for one term. This is uncommon at Bennington, but since my knowledge of music is slightly lower than most music-concentration Bennington students, I felt the need to catch up.

Plus, I’ll be starting an independent project soon!! More on that later.

Introductions and Junk

My name is Leah. I’m a senior (yikes!) at a pretty nice and awesome place called Bennington College in Bennington, Vermont.

I concentrate in American Studies and focus in social psychology, art history, and music history. I love my school work so much, and I never would have been able to study in quite this way at any other school.

My favorite artist is J.M.W. Turner, a pre-Impressionist (some may call him Romanticist, but I sort of disagree) painter. Images to come.

I love American folk music, and I especially love taking part in an American folk tradition called Sacred Harp Singing (or shape-note singing). 

I also do a lot of research on cultural and ethnic boundary formation and perpetuation within the United States.

If you have any questions about Bennington or my life as a student there, contact me at leahd@bennington.edu

Cool!