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Music

The University of Pennsylvania Libraries acquires archives of The Philadelphia Orchestra and the Academy of Music
worker reviewing orchestra archives

Dillalogue views photographs by Adrian Siegel at the archives at the Academy of Music ahead of the material being moved to Penn. Siegel served as the unofficial photographer at The Philadelphia Orchestra while a cellist from 1922-1959, and then official Orchestra photographer during his retirement, from 1959 to the mid-1970s.

The University of Pennsylvania Libraries acquires archives of The Philadelphia Orchestra and the Academy of Music

The historic partnership provides the public access to nearly 175 years of Philadelphia’s rich musical history.
Poet Wes Matthews combines writing, music, research, and service
Wes Matthews leaning in a doorway at the Kelly Writers House

Matthews says he plans to write poetry throughout his life, and hopes someday to collaborate on a poem or book with his mother. 

Poet Wes Matthews combines writing, music, research, and service

College fourth-year Wes Matthews is combining writing, music, research, and service during his Penn experience. A former Youth Poet Laureate of Philadelphia, the anthropology major and religious studies minor works at the Kelly Writers House and is a Wolf Humanities Center fellow.

Louisa Shepard

Listen on repeat: Exploring medieval refrain songs
Mary Channen Caldwell and the cover of her book titled Devotional Refrain in Medieval Latin Song.

Listen on repeat: Exploring medieval refrain songs

Music professor Mary Channen Caldwell brings together over 400 devotional Latin refrain songs from the Middle Ages in her new book, the first to explore the medieval refrain in song outside of vernacular contexts.

From Omnia

‘In These Times’ explores the intricate riddles of life through art
Illustration resembling a cosmic square with stars.

Image: Marina Munn

‘In These Times’ explores the intricate riddles of life through art

Episodes 6 and 7 of the latest season of the OMNIA podcast explore how art like music and dance have been the pulse of social movements, and how individual artistic experiences impact mental health and well-being.

From Omnia

Singing, speech production, and the brain
A person standing up adjusting a headset over a person sitting in a soundproof room. Barely visible in front of the sitting person is a computer screen and keyboard. A fire alarm sits above a window behind both people.

Eiffert situates a headset on participant Maggie Compton. The metal contraption holds an ultrasound probe in place under Compton’s chin, to capture images of her tongue placement in the mouth.

Singing, speech production, and the brain

This summer, rising second-years Audrey Keener and Nicholas Eiffert worked in the lab of Penn linguist Jianjing Kuang studying vowel articulation in song, running an in-person experiment and built a corpus of classical recordings by famous singers.

Michele W. Berger