Film and Music
June
Thursday June 6 2:00-4:00
Origins of Rock and Roll - Part 1
This Program is Sponsored By Bill and Sally Hoffmann
Join presenter Tom Dell for an exploration of Rock and Roll’s roots in Gospel, Country, Jazz, Blues, and Rhythm and Blues. Focusing on the early 20th Century to 1959, the class will explore how artists such as Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, Charley Patton, Son House, Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, Howling Wolf, and others crafted the twelve-bar blues, which became the staple of Rock and Roll. The genre came on full blast in the 1950s in songs by Roy Brown, Big Joe Turner, Ike Turner, Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Buddy Holly, Carl Perkins, and others. Through the use of audio and visual clips, attendees will see and hear how tunes from the early 1900s morphed into the sounds of Janis Joplin, Chuck Willis, and Bill Haley and the Comets, as well as how the Mississippi Delta Blues and the Chicago Blues laid the platform from which Rockabilly and Rock and Roll came. While this is a two-part series, attendance is not required at both sessions to join in the fun!
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Location: CLE Lecture Hall
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Presenter: Tom Dell has been playing Rock and Roll music since 1958. He played in rock bands during his high school and college years and still performs at small functions and reunions. Tom has an advanced degree in performing in seedy bars and for high schools and colleges in the Southeast, Juke Joints along the East Coast, and nightclubs in Florida, Georgia, and New York. He earned a BBA from Georgia State University while serving six years in the United States Marine Corps Reserve. Since retiring in 2013, he developed a series of fourteen courses for senior citizens covering the origins and history of Rock and Roll. Since 2014, he has presented his courses to senior citizens in the Emory University OLLI program, Central Dekalb Senior Center, Perimeter Adult Learning, and Brenau University’s BULLI program as well as various men’s and women’s clubs in Atlanta.
Friday June 7 10:00-12:00
Origins of Rock and Roll - Part 2
This Program is Sponsored By Bill and Sally Hoffmann
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In Part II of The Origins of Rock and Roll, presenter Tom Dell will illustrate how the following influenced the development of Rock and Roll: Chicago Blues, Swing Music, Jump Blues, Boogie Woogie, Bebop, Chitlin Circuit, Billie Holiday, Etta James, Rhythm and Blues, and Rockabilly. This presentation will surely bring back memories and give attendees an understanding of why Rock and Roll music is still around and so near and dear to our hearts. Note: While this is a two-part series, prior attendance is not required to join in the fun!
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Location: CLE Lecture Hall
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Presenter: Tom Dell has been playing Rock and Roll music since 1958. He played in rock bands during his high school and college years and still performs at small functions and reunions. Tom has an advanced degree in performing in seedy bars and for high schools and colleges in the Southeast, Juke Joints along the East Coast, and nightclubs in Florida, Georgia, and New York. He earned a BBA from Georgia State University while serving six years in the United States Marine Corps Reserve. Since retiring in 2013, he developed a series of fourteen courses for senior citizens covering the origins and history of Rock and Roll. Since 2014, he has presented his courses to senior citizens in the Emory University OLLI program, Central Dekalb Senior Center, Perimeter Adult Learning, and Brenau University’s BULLI program as well as various men’s and women’s clubs in Atlanta.
July
Friday July 5 10:00-12:00
Notable Music Encounters: Beethoven and Brahms
This Program is Sponsored By Richard and Honey Shackelford
This presentation is a museum docent’s guide to the inner workings of Beethoven’s charming Spring Sonata and the monumental G-minor Piano Quartet of Brahms, with violinist and conductor Scott Yoo. Scott is a master teacher and star and executive producer of the hit show “Now Hear This” on PBS’s “Great Performances,” the first show about classical music in 50 years. Mr. Yoo will join his fellow musicians, William Ransom, Ani Aznavoorian, and Yinzi Kong as they give an unusual behind-the-scenes look at these masterpieces. The Highlands-Cashiers Chamber Music Festival opens its 43rd Season with these musicians performing these two pieces. This class is the perfect opportunity to learn about these pieces and enjoy them more deeply.
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Location: Performing Arts Center Martin-Lipscomb Theatre. Please do not call the PAC to register.
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Presenter: American conductor and violinist Scott Yoo is the Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Mexico City Philharmonic and the Music Director of Festival Mozaic. He is the Conductor of the Colorado College Music Festival, and the founder of the Medellín Festicámara, a chamber music program that brings together world-class artists with underprivileged young musicians. Mr. Yoo has led numerous symphony orchestras in the United States, Europe, and Asia, including the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra in his Carnegie Hall debut. Mr. Yoo recently conducted the London Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra in recordings for Sony Classical. As a violinist, Mr. Yoo has appeared as soloist with the Boston Symphony, Dallas Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, Colorado Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony, New World Symphony, and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s. Mr. Yoo received a bachelor’s degree from Harvard University, studied violin with Roman Totenberg, Albert Markov, Paul Kantor and Dorothy DeLay, and conducting with Michael Gilbert and Michael Tilson-Thomas.
Saturday July 20 10:00-12:00
From the Prison Camp to Reflections on Eternity: Olivier Messiaen and the Quartet for the End of Time
This Program is Sponsored By Richard and Honey Shackelford
This course will explore a unique work in music history: a composition for clarinet, violin, cello, and piano first performed in a German prisoner-ofwar camp on 15 January 1941 before several thousand prisoners. While incarcerated, the thirty-one-year-old Messiaen ruminated on the abyss, the angel announcing the apocalypse, and the end of time in an astonishing musical creation. This magnificent and haunting piece will be performed at the Highlands-Cashiers Chamber Music Festival the weekend of July 20-21. If you plan to come to the concert, this class will immeasurably enhance your enjoyment of this performance.
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Location: CLE Lecture Hall
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Presenter: Ben Arnold, a musicology professor at the University of Kentucky, specializes in the music of Franz Liszt (The Liszt Companion, Greenwood Press) and the topic of music and war (Music and War, Garland Press). He serves as the Journal of the American Liszt Society editor and frequently performs as a collaborative pianist with soprano Elizabeth Packard Arnold.
Tuesday July 23 10:00-12:00
Inside Out: Reimagining What it Means to be Outdoors
This Program is Sponsored By Al and Martha Pearson
Most of us grew up with the classic narrative of the outdoors, that untamed place where brave men go to conquer mountains, jungles and ice flows. But recently, something funny happened on the way to the wilderness: we started to see the outdoors in a whole new way. Not just as the place you go to test your mettle but as a realm that intersects with our lives on multiple levels—a place that’s vital to our physical and mental health. A place we need to save, because it has the power to save us. In this session we’ll explore this fascinating transformation, what’s driving it, and what it means to our outdoor lives. We’ll discover that going outside is not just snowshoes and turkey hunting. It’s about climate change, water rights, Native American perspectives, and the power of history to shape how we see the great outdoors. Our guide on this journey is documentary filmmaker and television executive Michael Rosenfeld, who’s covered the outdoors since his days as a writer and producer at National Geographic. More recently he was the executive producer for the critically acclaimed PBS series America Outdoors with Baratunde Thurston, which investigates what our outdoor lives are like today. With video clips and vivid stories from the field, this presentation will show you the outdoors through a very different lens.
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Location: CLE Lecture Hall
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Presenter: Michael Rosenfeld is an awardwinning producer, writer and television executive with extensive experience in documentary film production and digital media. He has produced and written films on a broad sweep of topics, from anthropology to history to volcanology. Prior to his current role as an executive producer for PBS, he served as president of National Geographic Television and head of television and film at Tangled Bank Studios. In a career spanning network broadcast, cable and public television, he has won numerous awards, including 11 News & Documentary Emmys.
Tuesday July 30 2:00-4:00
Music and the Movies: Function, Genre and Brain Training
This class investigates the function of music in film, television and video games. Even before the advent of synchronized sound, Hollywood was hard at work developing music that communicated genre--place, time, and vibe. This session will dive into musical techniques for action, drama, science fiction, romance, horror, and comedy and how they marry with picture.
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Location: CLE Lecture Hall
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Presenter: Scott Stewart is the Music Director and Conductor of the Atlanta Youth Wind Symphony. He holds Bachelor of Music Education and Doctor of Music degrees from Indiana University and a Masters Degree in Music Education from the University of Texas at Austin. He has served as Director of Wind Studies at Emory University and was on the Instrumental Conducting Faculty at the Westminster Schools (Atlanta, GA). He specializes in wind band/ ensemble, symphony orchestra, conducting, and film music.
Wednesday July 31 10:00-12:00
Music and the Movies: Bernard Herrmann
This class investigates the function of music in film, television and video games. One of the most important connective tissues of film composition from the Golden Age to the present was the fiery and cantankerous Bernard Hermann. His influential collaborations with directors Orson Welles and Alfred Hitchcock put him on the map, and his challenging personality put him in the gossip columns! In this session, we’ll take a look at Herrmann classic soundtracks, including Vertigo, Psycho, North by Northwest, Citizen Kane, and The Day the Earth Stood Still.
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Location: CLE Lecture Hall
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Presenter: Scott Stewart is the Music Director and Conductor of the Atlanta Youth Wind Symphony. He holds Bachelor of Music Education and Doctor of Music degrees from Indiana University and a Masters Degree in Music Education from the University of Texas at Austin. He has served as Director of Wind Studies at Emory University and was on the Instrumental Conducting Faculty at the Westminster Schools (Atlanta, GA). He specializes in wind band/ ensemble, symphony orchestra, conducting, and film music.
August
Monday August 12 2:00-4:00
Politics and Film
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It has often been said that we are what we eat. Similarly, we are in some ways what we pay to see. Popular movies and television shows reflect contemporary social and political trends. To be profitable, movies and television shows must be responsive to the market. They must not only satisfy our desire to be entertained, but they must also tell stories we are willing to buy. In this talk I will examine not only what popular (top grossing) movies and television say, but what they say about us. Almost any movie or television series can be deconstructed, and they don’t have to be overtly political. Think about offerings as varied as I Love Lucy and The Mary Tyler Moore Show to Ted Lasso and Barbie. The purpose of this talk is to provoke a fresh perspective on the interpretation of television and film.
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Location: CLE Lecture Hall
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Presenter: Daniel Franklin is Associate Professor of Political Science, Emeritus at Georgie State University. His areas of specialization were American Chief Executives, Film and Politics, Georgia State Politics, and Budgeting and the Legislative Process. He is the former Director of the Georgia Legislative Internship Program and a former Distinguished Honors Professor. He is the author of seven books, numerous articles and reviews. His latest book on The Politics of Presidential Impeachment (with Robert Caress, Robert Sanders and Cole Tarratoot), was published by the SUNY University Press (2020) and included in their American Constitutionalism Series. He is also currently the doorkeeper at the Georgia Senate.
Tuesday August 27 2:00-4:00
Evolution & History of Dance in Film Part I : 1900s - 1950s
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Dance in film has always helped enliven the proceedings, bringing physical movements with rhythmic variety to the genre as stand-alone examples of virtuosity or integrated into the narrative. Like song, art/lighting/costume design, and the other collaborative art forms that go into musicals, dance has evolved with the development of cinema from its earliest stages near the beginning of the 20th century through today. With historical context and guided discussion, Part I of this course will present famous and rare DVD/YouTube excerpts from the evolution of dance in film from its start in the silent and early sound era through the Golden Age of Hollywood Musicals, the 1930s – 1950s. Performers and choreographers such as Busby Berkeley, Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Gene Kelly, Michael Kidd, Agnes DeMille, Jack Cole, and others will be featured.
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Location: CLE Lecture Hall
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Presenter: Marc Strauss, Ph.D., is Professor Emeritus in the Dobbins Conservatory of Theatre and Dance, Holland College of Arts & Media, Southeast Missouri State University. Dr. Strauss has taught all levels of studio ballet, jazz, ballroom dancing, and various courses on the history of the musical, dance, and the aesthetics of movement. His specializations include Broadway and Hollywood musicals, dance criticism, dance on film, aesthetics, Balanchine, Astaire and Rogers, and Hitchcock. Dr. Strauss is the author of several books, most recently Discovering Musicals: A Liberal Arts Guide to Stage and Screen.
THIS PROGRAM HAS BEEN CANCELLED
Wednesday August 28 10:00-12:00
Evolution & History of Dance in Film Part II : 1960s - 2020s
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Dance in film has always helped enliven the proceedings, bringing physical movements with rhythmic variety to the genre as stand-alone examples of virtuosity or integrated into the narrative. Like song, art/lighting/costume design, and the other collaborative art forms that go into musicals, dance has evolved with the development of cinema from its earliest stages near the beginning of the 20th century through today. Using historical context, video clips, and guided discussion, Part II of this course will present famous and rare dance excerpts from the second wave of dance in film, from the 1960s through present day. Choreographers such as Jerome Robbins, Bob Fosse, Onna White, and Patricia Birch will be explored, as well as dance styles such as jazz, modern, tap, break dancing, and Vogue. (It is not necessary to have attended the first class to enjoy the second).
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Location: CLE Lecture Hall
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Presenter: Marc Strauss, Ph.D., is Professor Emeritus in the Dobbins Conservatory of Theatre and Dance, Holland College of Arts & Media, Southeast Missouri State University. Dr. Strauss has taught all levels of studio ballet, jazz, ballroom dancing, and various courses on the history of the musical, dance, and the aesthetics of movement. His specializations include Broadway and Hollywood musicals, dance criticism, dance on film, aesthetics, Balanchine, Astaire and Rogers, and Hitchcock. Dr. Strauss is the author of several books, most recently Discovering Musicals: A Liberal Arts Guide to Stage and Screen.
THIS PROGRAM HAS BEEN CANCELLED
September
Sunday September 15 1:00-6:00
Fourth Annual Highlands Porchfest (Free to attend music festival)
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