Postmodern Music Master Lends New Voice to University as Scholar-in-Residence
By Vinny Reda
Ricardo Tacuchian
As a composer, pianist and conductor, Ricardo Tacuchian has explored the worlds of traditional and modern classical music and then emerged into postmodernism. As a son of Armenian immigrants and a life-long native of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, he has seen his work reflect an inspection of cultures, first nationalistic and historical, and finally urban and cosmopolitan.
Tacuchian brings this wealth of musical scholarship and culture not only to his music, but also into his teaching as a full professor at two Brazilian universities. And this semester, as the University�s Fulbright scholar-in-residence, he has lent it to the Department of Music.
"One class I teach here is on the both the music and people of Brazil," said Tacuchian. "It�s a musical approach from a more sociological point of view. Another course is on the different trends in classical music in general, something I am very familiar with from the course of my own career."
Tacuchian also teaches musical composition with five students in one-on-one settings.
"I think the students have enjoyed him very much," said Max Lifchitz, chair of the departments of music and Latin American & Caribbean studies. "Ricardo brings a new perspective on music to many of our students. He is a prominent composer in his own country that is getting to be known in this country and Europe very well. And he is a respected scholar."
Tacuchian was also a Fulbright scholar in Los Angeles from 1987 to 1990, where he earned a doctoral degree in composition from the University of Southern California. By that time his career had evolved in several stages.
"For most of the 1960s, my work followed the path of (Heitor) Villa-Lobos, the legendary classical giant of my country," said Tacuchian. "My work was very national and traditional in the musical scales it used, and in the musical themes it drew from.
"But in the �70s, I followed a new, modernistic avenue. I concentrated on atmosphere and ambience, the colors of sounds and textures in music, instead of on melody and harmony. But then, in the 1980s, I turned back again. The avant- looked for a void in the contact with the traditional. Their only concern was for new sounds, and the audience was largely averted from the theaters.
"In the �80s and �90s, I have been mixing the traditional with the experimental without any prejudice. It is what I call �the overcoming of the extremes.� In my country, it is called the �post-modern movement.� It is very experimental in nature, with elements of pop, classical, jazz, folk � but folk before nationalistic movements.
"I had come back to be concerned with the audience. I always experiment with my material. After every concert, I listen to what the musicians, the audience and the critics have to say. Then I go back and listen to the concert tapes, and think about what opinions might enrich the music."
From 1980 on, his musical approach has most values texture, density, timbre, and dynamic parameters within a contrasting context of precipitous rhythms, lyric expression, and a cosmopolitan and urban flavor. Aiding this approach was his development of the �T-System,� a form of pitch control employing a nonatonic scale. His thesis on the method was completed in 1995.
"My music carries with it the sounds of the big cities, which I believe is a common culture for all of us now," he said.
Tacuchian finds little problem in relegating his own musical directions to the background when he works with young University composers.
"The composition teaching is difficult, but rewarding in its own way," he said. "In other classroom subjects � harmony, counterpoint, and orchestration � you can say to the class, �This is right� or �this does not work.�
"But with my composition students, I have time to respect the individuality of each. I give them the options they should know about, but then ultimately I know they must choose what is right for them. Eventually, I show my own music to them, but four months is really not enough time to absorb my style � and it�s not my concern if they do. I am much happier if a student finds his own way."
Those directions will be heard on May 4, at 7 p.m. in the Recital Hall, when the five students present a recital of their finished compositions.
Meanwhile, there has been time enough for Tacuchian�s own musical way to find expression. As a Fulbright scholar, he has accepted invitations from around the country to talk about different aspects of Brazilian music, recently at Winona St. College in Minnesota, at the University of Hartford in Connecticut on April 15, and at South Puget Sound Community College in Olympia, Wash., on April 23. He is also scheduled to present a paper on post-modernism in Brazil at the College Musical Society when that national organization meets in Albany in May.
"The Fulbright has also allowed me to present my own music in this area, including seven concerts in Albany and one in New York City," said Tacuchian. The University music faculty has included his music in their recitals this semester. The University Orchestra will complete the University�s tribute to Tacuchian on May 3, with a performance beginning at 7 p.m. of his Dia de Chuva ("rainy day") on the Main Stage of the Performing Arts Center.
A Midwife's Tale
By Vinny Reda
Midwife Martha Ballard, as portrayed by Kaiulani Lee in "The Midwife's Tale."
"I am at Mrs Howards watching with her son. Went out about day, discovered our saw mill in flames. The men at the fort went over. Found it consumed altogether with some plank & bords. I tarried till evinng. Left James Exceedingly Dangerously ill. My daughter Hannah is 18 years old this day. Mrs Williams here when I came home. Hannah Cool gott Mrs Norths web out at the Loome. Mr Ballard complains of a soar throat this night. He has been to take Mr gardners hors home."
So wrote midwife Martha Ballard in August of 1787. Her cryptic, 27-year, nearly day-by-day diary was deciphered by author Laurel Ulrich so expertly that Ulrich�s book, A Midwife�s Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard Based on her Diary, 1785-1812, won the 1991 Pulitzer Prize for history.
Screenwriter/producer Laurie Kahn-Leavitt was enthralled with the work, and turned it into a film adaptation not only of Ballard�s life, but also of the meticulous work of Ulrich. The result, A Midwife�s Tale, was the premiere showcase on PBS-TV�s "The American Experience" series in 1997.
On Tuesday, April 14, the Department of history�s History and Media Project will present the film and a discussion with the filmmaker, Kahn-Leavitt, beginning at 7 p.m. in Page Hall. The event is free and open to the public.
The History and Media Project has been developing in the department for just over a year, with professor Gerald Zahavi at the forefront in his role as chair of the department�s History and Media Committee. He has been assisted by graduate student Susan McCormick, who said "This is first time the department has done any presentation in media of this magnitude.
"The object of the project is to develop a history in media field encompassing film, video, the Web, and CD ROM that will not only be available to the scholarly community, but to the public at large. There is now a History and Media Project homepage, accessible from the department�s homepage that will be used by secondary school teachers to aid in their curricula.
"In addition, the project is beginning the Journal of Multimedia History, which will be the premiere journal in the field, and which has already drawn national attention."
The documentary, which has received numerous awards itself, says that it "tells the true tale of two women, � Ulrich and Ballard � two hundred years apart, linked by the diary one left behind."
"Traditional accounts of the past leave out the lives of ordinary people because they left so few written records behind, especially the women," said McCormick. "But Ballard�s diary gives incredible insight into her own life, the life of her community, and the conditions of her medical practice over that entire period from 1785 to 1812. It�s a remarkable document.
"And the film is also a study of how an historian uses primary sources to bring history to light, and create such an important work as Ulrich has." By cataloging diary entries and cross-referencing other documents that mentioned the people Ballard encountered and events she experienced on her constant travels as midwife and healer, Ulrich painstakingly recreated Ballard�s world.
For five years, Kahn-Leavitt and Rogers collaborated with Ulrich to craft an innovative film that combines dramatic scenes of Martha Ballard�s life with interviews of Ulrich at work as historian. A Midwife�s Tale follows Ulrich as she deciphers the massive diary of Ballard, and it recreates Ballard�s experience as the primary healer in her community, coping with births, deaths, epidemics, her unruly son and the judge who has raped the minister�s wife. It tells the story of Martha�s struggles to survive in a period of great social change, religious conflict, and economic boom and bust.
Kahn-Leavitt conceived, raised the funding for, and developed the film�s innovative structure over a five-year period of research, workshop development, shooting, and editing. Before founding Blueberry Hill Productions, an independent film production company, she worked on many award winning historical documentary film and television series � including "Eyes on the Prize: America�s Civil Rights Years 1954 - 1965," "Frontline�s Crisis in Central America," and "The American Experience."
A Midwife�s Tale is co-sponsored by the History Graduate Student Organization. For further information about the film and the history department�s multimedia projects visit its website at https://www.albany.edu/history.
Visitors on Campus
SUNY Chancellor John Ryan praised the University for its numerous examples of "forging partnerships with local municipalities and the private sector" and finding "ways to better serve each other�s needs," when he spoke to the Rotary Club at the Recreation & Convocation Center on Thursday, March 19. The Chancellor also said he believed that each SUNY campus must "re-define or re-confirm its character." Mission review "is essential to effectively address the realities of public higher education: limited resources, commitment to excellence, avoidance of . . . unnecessary duplication, and relevance to social and economic goals of society."
Ambroise Kom of Cameroon, center, who holds the O�Leary Chair for Francophone Studies at the College of Holy Cross, discussed the significance of the pervasive presence of European colonial languages on the African continent today, when he spoke in the Humanities Building on March 11. The presentation was cosponsored by the French Studies Program in the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures and the Department of Africana Studies.
