As we work from home and reckon with COVID-19 in a thousand different ways, it may help to recollect the activities of the previous month, when “social” was not inevitably paired with “distancing.”

The graduate students in musicology, theory, and composition collaborated beautifully through their hosting of the 2020 Midwest Graduate Music Consortium.

The conference drew together researchers, composers, and performers from around the country. Keynote speaker Dr. Naomi André (University of Michigan) offered a thoughtful and hopeful talk titled “Engaging Opera as Popular Culture and Social Justice.” The conversation throughout the weekend was robust; the concert performances, provocative; the catered refreshments, rejuvenating.

Nathan Platte and undergraduate researcher Anastasia Scholze cohosted a mini-course at FilmScene titled “Contenders and Composers of the Fifties.” 

The sold-out series featured four films that paired iconic antiheroes of the screen with composers writing their first Hollywood film score (On the Waterfront, East of Eden, I Want to Live!, and Odds Against Tomorrow). The weekly meetings included introductory remarks on each film, a screening, and impassioned group discussion. Before sheltering in place became necessary, Nathan enjoyed running into community members from the course around town.