ISAM Matters

Brooklyn College will long remember Robert Starer as musician, teacher, and friend. Our heartfelt sympathies go to Gail Godwin and Daniel Starer. Contributions to endow the Robert Starer Performance Award, established by Robert to promote the performance of music by living composers, may be made payable to the Brooklyn College Foundation (memo: Robert Starer Fund) and sent to the Conservatory of Music, Brooklyn College, 2900 Bedford Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11210.

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In anticipation of the conference Ruth Crawford Seeger: Modernity, Tradition, and the Making of American Music to be held on 26-27 October 2001 at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center, we are delighted to be publishing Judith Tick’s article “Ruth Crawford Seeger’s ‘Different Tunes.’” Professor Tick will deliver the keynote address at the conference. We deeply appreciate the support of the New York Council for the Humanities and the Baisley Powell Elebash Endowment. For further information, see the schedule on p. 13 or visit the Ruth Crawford Seeger Conference announcement.

As part of our ongoing colloquium series produced in cooperation with the Ethyle R. Wolfe Institute for the Humanities, Robin D. G. Kelley packed the house in February with his lecture “‘Let’s Call This’: Monk’s Challenge to Bebop.” Professor Kelley will return to Brooklyn College on 11-15 March 2002 as the Robert L. Hess Scholar in Residence. During his residency, he will deliver a college-wide lecture, give several talks on his research, meet with students and faculty, and be honored at a formal dinner. Professor Kelley’s article on Ken Burns’s ten-part Jazz documentary, shown nationwide on PBS in January 2001, appears in this issue of the Newsletter.

If you missed our spring conference Local Music/Global Connections: New York City at the Millennium, you can still catch the music of New York’s ethnic and immigrant communities at the annual Smithsonian Folklife Festival on the National Mall held in Washington, D.C. on 27 June–1 July and 4-8 July. For information on the Festival, call (202) 633-9884 or visit www.folklife.si.edu. To order the new Smithsonian Folkways CD set that captures the polycultural sounds of New York, please see the announcement on p. 15.

This year’s winner of the ISAM student composition award is Antonio Massa Viana’s Macumba, scored for keyboard percussion, timpani, and piano. Antonio is studying composition with Douglas Cohen.

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During Mark Tucker’s battle with cancer, he kept writing for the Newsletter—he didn’t miss a single one. This issue contains a set of remembrances and appreciations of Mark delivered at St. Peter’s Church in New York last February. The Institute will be publishing a selection of his Behind the Beat columns and Newsletter articles as a booklet, and we would be grateful to our readers for assistance in funding this project. Please send contributions to the Institute payable to the Brooklyn College Foundation (memo: Mark Tucker Fund).

—Ellie M. Hisama

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