Music: Music in the Iraq War and Pete Seeger

Sound Targets: American Soldiers and Music in the Iraq War (BOOK): by Jonathan Pieslak

Though a part of American soldiers' lives since the Revolutionary War, by World War II music could be broadcast to the front. Today it accompanies soldiers from the recruiting office to the battlefield. For this book, Jonathan Pieslak interviewed returning veterans to learn about the place of music in the Iraq War and in contemporary American military culture in general. Pieslak describes how American soldiers hear, share, use, and produce music both on and off duty. He studies the role of music from recruitment campaigns and basic training to its use "in country" before and during missions. Pieslak explores themes of power, chaos, violence, and survival in the metal and hip-hop music so popular among the troops, and offers insight into the daily lives of American soldiers in the Middle East.

"Sound Targets reveals just how pervasively popular music has shaped contemporary U.S. military culture.... This thoughtful and provocative study will certainly attract a wide audience concerned with music's roles in the time of war." – W. Anthony Sheppard, author of Revealing Masks: Exotic Influences and Ritualized Performance in Modernist Music Theater

To Everything there is a Season: Pete Seeger and the Power of Song (BOOK): by Allan M. Winkler

Folk music has long played a vital role in supporting reform movements in the United States. Radical activists, seeking to counter a variety of abuses in mid-to-late 20th century America, often used music to express their hopes, aims, and goals. In "To Everything There Is a Season": Pete Seeger and the Power of Song, Allan Winkler describes how folk singer Pete Seeger applied his musical talents to improve conditions for less fortunate people everywhere. This book uses Seeger's long life and wonderful songs to reflect on the important role folk music played in various protest movements and to answer such fundamental questions as: What was the source of Seeger's appeal? How did he capture the attention and affection of people around the world? And why is song such a powerful medium?

"Winkler's book is obviously a labor of love.... The book is carefully written by a scholar who identifies with Seeger and his causes.... Winkler's fine book should introduce readers to Seeger and encourage further exploration of Dunaway's scholarship. But of greater significance is the encouragement that Winkler gives his readers to listen and sing along with Seeger's music. Bonus benefits with the Winkler book include a preface by folksinger Tom Paxton and a compact disc of ten Seeger tunes."—History News Network

"Allan Winkler...has written the best brief biography of Seeger in print."--PopMatters
"Winkler pays welcome attention to how Toshi Seeger made possible her husband's life as protester and artist -- a fact that can escape Pete.... Winkler's includes a CD of 10 songs, the indispensable way, after all, of apprehending why Seeger's music sounds the chords of our national life."—The Plain Dealer

Music: Flute Chamber Music and Sonatas

French Flute Chamber Music (CD): Tournier, M., Schmitt, F., Pierne, G., Francaix, J., and Roussel, A. by the Mirage Quintet

This lineup of composers comes from Ravel's generation, except for the youngster Francaix, who is 30-40 years younger than the rest. The pieces were all written in the 1920s or 1930s, all of them for flute, harp, and strings.

Though the music exists in that same sound world, subtle differences in the personalities of the composers emerge. Francaix is playful, Roussel muscular, and Schmitt nostalgic and a bit sentimental. Marcel Tournier's Suite, Op. 34 is a special treat. I knew, and enjoyed, the piece from a Hanssler Classic CD with the Linos Harp Quintet, but the Mirage Quintet give the work a forward momentum and depth that really makes it stand out. You can get a feel for this from the Mirage Quintet's YouTube video of the 3rd Movement (Lied: Assez Lent, Avec Melancolie) filmed during the CD recording in Toronto in 2007. [...]

This recording took place under the watchful eyes and ears of the great team of Bonnie Silver & Norbert Kraft, who between them share producer, engineer, and editor functions. Kraft, by the way, is the very same guitarist who completely nailed the Villa-Lobos guitar music for Naxos in 2000. The sound on the new disc is predictably excellent, though some might argue that Robert Aitken's flute is too forward in the mix. It's hard to see how this music could be played or presented any better.

J.S. Bach Bach: The Flute Sonatas (CD): by Stephen Preston, Trevor Pinnock, and Jordi Savall

Bach, Johann Sebastian, 1685-1750

Music: Listen to Aaron Copland today!

Available in the Music Library on the 4th floor.

Tender Land, The (CD): opera in two acts by Aaron Copland, 1900-1990

Aaron Copland didn't have the theatrical instinct of a George Gershwin or even a Gian Carlo Menotti, but that didn't keep him from writing one of the best operas we have in the "American" vein. The Tender Land was composed in 1953 on a commission from Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II--who since the premiere of Oklahoma! 10 years earlier could afford such largesse--and received its premiere on April 1, 1954 at the City Center in New York.

Concerning a girl transformed into a young woman by her first experience of love, The Tender Land is set in the American Midwest during the 1930s. The libretto was inspired by photographs taken by Walker Evans of a rural, Depression-era mother and her daughter that had appeared in James Agee's book Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. The music is cut from the same cloth as that of Appalachian Spring--the melodic, easygoing, folkish vein that Copland could manage about as easily as breathing.

Music: Theater and All that Jazz

Now available on the 4th floor in the Music Library.

Highbrow/Lowdown: Theater, Jazz, and the Making of the New Middle Class - by David Savran

The arrival of jazz in the 1920s sparked a cultural revolution that was impossible to contain. The music affected every stratum of U.S. society and culture, confusing and challenging long-entrenched hierarchies based on class, race, and ethnicity. Jazz was considered the first distinctively American art form, and its dissemination across the globe served to launch the United States as a cultural force to be reckoned with.

A Central Washington University ID card or library card must be presented when checking out library materials. They are the only accepted identification for borrowing circulating library materials. Users are responsible for all materials charged on the card.The loan period for General Collection, Documents, and Children's Literature for most library patrons is 21 days. Faculty members have 90 day loans.