Associate conductor James K. Bass interviews scholar Judah M. Cohen about the music on Seraphic Fire's November 2024 concert, "Contemporary: Jewish Voices."

Judah M. Cohen is associate dean for faculty affairs, research, and creative activity, and professor of musicology at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, as well as the Lou and Sybil Mervis Professor of Jewish Culture in the Robert A. and Sandra S. Borns Jewish Studies Program in the College. His research interests include music in Jewish life, American music, musical theater, popular culture, Caribbean Jewish history, diaspora, and medical ethnomusicology. His training as a musicologist and an anthropologist, and his professional activity within Jewish studies have allowed him to explore many aspects of Jewish culture and history. Over the course of four books and over 50 articles, Cohen has explored the idea of Jewish cultural expression as a dynamic and ever-changing process, created and recreated over time by artists, religious leaders, philosophers, and activists. He has aimed to understand this idea largely through the prism of sound and its relationship to ideas of Jewish identity.

Credits:

Host: James K. Bass

Guest: Judah M. Cohen

Producer: Alexis Aimé

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Artistic Director Patrick Dupre Quigley interviews scholar Honey Meconi about the music on Seraphic Fire's October 2024 concert, "A Brief History of Western Music."

Honey Meconi is the inaugural Arthur Satz Professor at the University of Rochester, where she is also Professor of Musicology at the Eastman School of Music. She is the founding editor of the monograph series “Oxford Studies in Early Music” for Oxford University Press. She is a specialist in music before 1600, and her many publications include Hildegard of Bingen (the first English-language book on Hildegard as composer), Pierre de la Rue and Musical Life at the Habsburg-Burgundian Court, and a continually expanding series of performing editions of Hildegard’s music, freely available online. Her research has been supported by Fulbright, Mellon, and NEH Fellowships as well as numerous other grants. A lifelong performer, she is co-recipient of the American Musicological Society’s Noah Greenberg Award “for distinguished contribution to the study and performance of early music.” Her public musicology blog, The Choral Singer’s Companion: Music History with a Soupçon of Snark, is read worldwide.

Credits

Host
Patrick Dupre Quigley
Guest
Honey Meconi

Production Credits

Alexis Aimé, producer

Watch on YouTube

On the occasion of the ensemble's 20th anniversary season, Artistic Director Patrick Dupre Quigley takes listeners on a stroll down memory lane. Enjoy never-before-released archival recordings and hear Quigley's recollections on standout concerts of the past 20 years.

The show begins with excerpts from a 2008 performance of Handel's Israel in Egypt followed by a selection from Seraphic Fire's 2011 collaboration with Jewish cantor George Mordecai. Later on, you'll hear a medley of spirituals featuring countertenor Reginald Mobley from the 2008 concert When the Saints Go Marching In – an imagined jazz funeral for Quigley's native city of New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The podcast closes with a lively encore from the 2007 program SWAY!

Welcome to the Seraphic Saturday Podcast! On this episode, we revisit our episode on Handel’s “Messiah” with features from Conductor Nic McGegan and Seraphic Fire singers. Enjoy insights about the history of oratorio, favorite moments from our artists, and special recordings of this great work.

Welcome to the Seraphic Saturday Podcast Companion. In this episode, Dr. James K. Bass leads us through the recent history of professional American choral ensembles with the help of Bass Eric Alatorre, and conductor Craig Hella Johnson. With Eric’s decades-long tenure at Chanticleer, he takes us through the ensemble’s beginnings to its award winning present, while Craig reminisces about Conspirare’s impressive path forging the way for professional choral ensembles throughout the country.

Welcome to the Seraphic Saturday Podcast Companion. This episode, we will be discussing performing Baroque vocal and instrumental music in anticipation of our second Enlightenment Festival. First, Patrick Quigley interviews the imitable soprano Dame Emma Kirkby, with well over 100 recordings spanning from chant, to madrigals, and most especially the music of the Renaissance and Baroque. Later in the show, soprano Nola Richardson talks to trumpeter Josh Cohen about the unique qualities of the Baroque trumpet. Both of these artists will be performing Bach in our Enlightenment Festival in February 2022.

Our second episode this season will delve into the tradition of choral music in America with our host Dr. James K Bass. Dr. Bass takes us through the years of tradition with music of the Shakers, Fisk Jubilee Singers, and Robert Shaw.

Welcome to the Seraphic Saturday Podcast. Our twelfth episode is a compendium of information about Hiledgard von Bingen to accompany the release of Seraphic Fire's newest recording Hildegard von Bingen: Ordo virtutum. In this podcast, Patrick is joined by Dr. Honey Meconi, noted Hildegard scholar and artistic advisor, to discuss Hildegard's life and work. We also hear from several of the recording artists of this disc, as they discuss the challenges and joys of the music and the recording process.

You can purchase Hildegard von Bingen: Ordo virtutum by visiting SeraphicFire.org/Recordings or calling our Box Office at 305.285.9060. Tickets also are available to see this historical masterpiece come to life onstage in January 2022 with the women of Seraphic Fire, led by internationally lauded opera and Broadway stage director, Francesca Zambello. Visit SeraphicFire.org for more information.

Welcome to the Seraphic Saturday Podcast Companion. Our eleventh episode is a deep dive interview with our host, Patrick Dupré Quigley, and one of our original Seraphic Fire members, Alvaro Bermudez. Though no longer singing with the group, Alvaro is an integral member as a composer and guitarist. Seraphic Fire will be premiering Alvaro’s newly commissioned “Danzas del Silencio” this May, sponsored by the Knight Foundation. Listen along as Patrick and Al recount his history with Seraphic, the Colombian musical style, and his composed pieces written specifically for Seraphic Fire.