Saturday, September 28, 2019 • 1–3 p.m.
Professor Keith Waters
College of Music
In this lecture, music Professor Keith Waters will invite us to explore Parisian music after World War I. The music combined a wildly diverse range of artistic influences, including futurism, Dadaism and jazz, as well as popular music from the fairgrounds, circus and music hall. Musical collaborations with artists Pablo Picasso and Raoul Dufy, and poets Guillaume Apollinaire and Jean Cocteau all helped shape a musical aesthetic that fluctuated, in the words of one journalist, “between cubism and vaudeville.”
At the forefront was a group of six composers, Les Six, whose works used these popular music influences but ingeniously transformed them. The lecture will focus on the music of this group, and will include live performances of songs by Francis Poulenc, Louis Durey and Arthur Honegger, as well as Darius Milhaud’s 1923 chamber work, La Création du Monde, one of the first concert works with distinct jazz influences.
About the Presenter
Keith Waters is professor of music at the University of Colorado Boulder’s College of Music. He has two recent books on jazz published by Oxford University press; his book The Studio Recordings of the Miles Davis Quintet 1965-68 has won multiple awards. He also has published books and articles on early 20th-century French music and is a sought-after presenter at national and international conferences. Together with Henry Martin he is the co-author of the textbook Jazz: The First Hundred Years. Waters received a doctorate in music theory from the Eastman School of Music, and a master's degree in jazz piano from the New England Conservatory of Music. As a jazz pianist, he has recorded and performed throughout the United States, Europe and in Russia and South America. To find out more, visit Water's website.