Fall 1999 Volume XXIX, No. 1

Copland's Hope for American Music by Howard Pollack spectral frequencies by Martha Mockus Demythologizing the Blues by David Evans New Music Notes by Carol J. Oja Behind the Beat with Mark Tucker ISAM Matters Reviews Rethinking Race in 19th-Century Blackface Minstrelsy by Maya Gibson Amy Beach: Passionate Victorian by Laurie Blunsom ISAM Home

ISAM Matters At a luncheon for new faculty members that I attended in September, conversation soon turned to our areas of research. After I mentioned that I work in American music, one of my lunch companions exclaimed: “Oh, you mean the music of John Philip Sousa?” My colleague’s innocent question demonstrates that there is still a pressing need for a research center that champions American music of all kinds. I am delighted to become Director of ISAM, an organization I have long admired, and look forward to guiding the Institute into the next millennium. In the hands of H. Wiley Hitchcock, its founding director, and of Carol J. Oja, his successor, ISAM has carved out a significant and lasting legacy as a research center energetically promoting American music through the stimulating events it has sponsored and the many publications it has fostered. I am eager to ensure that it continues to flourish in the twenty-first century with the help of ISAM Associates Ray Allen, to whom the Institute is indebted for serving as Acting Director for the past two years; Jeff Taylor, who is familiar to Newsletter readers as a contributor and editor; and Michael Salim Washington, who will join the Conservatory faculty in January 2000. With the bright-eyed optimism of someone only three months into the job, I would like to share with our readers a few visions we are currently developing for ISAM’s future directions: As we leave the twentieth century, we want to maintain ISAM’s historical commitment to contemporary composers and to the music of our time by sponsoring symposia, seminars, concerts, and festivals featuring recent music. We will continue our mission of exploring music throughout the Americas while also spotlighting the music of New York City, including new music, jazz, blues, gospel, ethnic musical traditions, folk music, pop, rock, and musical theater. We want to encourage contributions to the Newsletter and, in due course, research presented at our symposia and conferences that explore the cultural contexts and social effects of music, offer analytical perspectives, and bring new research from other disciplines to bear upon American music studies. Of particular interest is work that presents insights drawn from cultural studies, critical theory, American studies, ethnic studies, critical race theory, feminist theory, gender and sexuality studies, and postcolonial theory. Given the dire conditions of the job market and the attendant intense competition to publish, we would like to underscore ISAM’s commitment to providing a forum for research that presents bold new perspectives, especially from the work of younger scholars and from independent scholars. In these tough times, it is critical that they receive our support and recognition—especially in the crucial early years of their careers—through publications, performance opportunities, and residencies. We welcome your ideas for future ISAM projects and initiatives. Please email us at or write us an old-fashioned letter. ISAM welcomes J. Graeme Fullerton as Managing Editor and Webmaster. A Ph.D. candidate at the CUNY Graduate Center, he holds degrees from the University of British Columbia and the Royal Conservatory of Toronto and is writing his dissertation on the grotesque in twentieth-century opera. —Ellie M. Hisama Remembering Friends Just as the Fall 1999 issue was about to go to press, we learned of the death at 42 of K. Robert Schwarz, who was Research Assistant at ISAM from 1988 to 1992. Rob was a beloved member of the ISAM family. With a percolating wit, generous heart, and razor-sharp intellect, he was a dear friend and much-respected colleague. To the greater musical world, Rob was best known for his active career as a music journalist, first for his articles in Musical America and later for those in a score of publications, including most consistently the “Arts and Leisure” section of the New York Times. His Minimalists (Phaidon, 1996) is a readable and abundantly informative survey of a group of composers whose music he felt passionate about. He repeatedly spoke out in print about gay issues and their impact on the American compositional scene, and in the last several years, he was at work on a book about the composer and novelist Paul Bowles. Through it all, he kept playing the violin. Rob earned an undergraduate degree at Queens College, where his father Boris Schwarz was an eminent member of the faculty; he also had an M.A. from Indiana University and completed course work toward a Ph.D. at the Graduate School of the City University of New York. We will miss him acutely—both in print and in person—and we send condolences to his mother Patricia. Contributions in his memory may be made to the K. Robert Schwarz Archive of Music, in care of the Queens College Foundation, Queens College–CUNY, 65-30 Kissena Blvd., Flushing, NY 11367-1597. We also note with sadness the death of Carolyn Lott, wife of R. Allen Lott, another former ISAM Research Assistant. Carolyn entered Allen’s life after he had left New York and returned to his native Texas. She was a harpist. Our love and deep condolences go to Allen and their son Andy. —Carol J. Oja