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Lecture series

The university as a think tank

The musicology lecture series is a central event for the entire university. Each semester, it addresses a different overarching and relevant topic. Internationally renowned speakers present insights and outlooks in cooperation with musicology and the artistic departments at the university: on contemporary musical life, on music-historical questions, on composers, on central aspects of the history of music in Europe. Science and art enter into a dialogue, and everyone is invited to get to know the university as a place of knowledge transfer, as a thinking workshop.

Dates

  • All lecture series take place on Wednesdays from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. in the Chamber Music Hall of HfMT Cologne.
  • The lecture series at HfMT are public events. Visitors from outside the university are welcome.
  • Lectures in the field of dance studies are open to the public. Please inquire for dates.
Favorite music: From subjective experience to objective discussion
  • October 9, 2024 to February 5, 2025

Music is experienced and loved. This needs no explanation. But the initial
enthusiasm is followed at some point by questions: Why do people love
this music in particular? What exactly is so inspiring about it? What influence do
origin, living conditions, education, income, age, gender have?
What does our love say about ourselves and our socialization?
Musical experiences are as diverse as interpersonal
encounters. One is instantly deeply moved or finds it difficult to
access. In any case, music opens up new perceptions
and horizons. In doing so, it shapes our understanding of ourselves and the world.
In the current lecture series, teachers at the HfMT Cologne
present their respective "favorite music". Instead of putting their own preferences
aside with professional distance when teaching, practising,
rehearsing, performing, discussing and analyzing, the
lectures and dialogues explicitly focus on their own fascination with music.
The personal confessions to currently or lifelong loved
music thus take on the characteristics of self-portraits. And because
even subjective declarations of love cannot do without objectifying language
and reflection, one inevitably ends up in discussions
about expectations, categories of experience, selection and
evaluation criteria. It will be exciting!

  • Between Istanbul and Cologne: Post-Migrant Sound/Spaces in the Dialogue of Scientific Cultures (SoSe 2024)
  • Contacts? Music / Media / Cultures (winter semester 2023/24)
  • Original and forgery? Contested Authorships in Music, Art and Literature (SoSe 2023)
  • Metamorphoses of the human being. Interpenetrations of man, nature, art and technology (WiSe 2022/23)
  • "It's a man's world?" Female artists in Europe's music capitals of the early 20th century (SoSe 2022)
  • Into the open. The art of improvisation (SoSe 2021)
  • Beethoven under the magnifying glass. New perspectives on interpretation, analysis and reception (winter semester 2020/21)
  • Music in view. Auditory and visual cultures. (summer semester 2019)
  • Music that creates knowledge! (winter semester 2018/19)
  • Music in interior spaces. Sound, dialog and encounters in the private sphere (SoSe 2018)
  • World music: artists - concepts - perspectives (SoSe 2017)
  • Ringing Coin - The Value of Music (winter semester 2016/17)
  • Concepts of melody (summer semester 2016)
  • Musical interpretation (winter semester 2015/16)
  • "Rhythm concepts in cultural comparison" (summer semester 2014)
  • "Music in the dialog of the arts" (WS 2013/14)
  • "1813 - 2013: Wagner, Verdi and the opera" (summer semester 2013)
  • "Key works of contemporary music" (winter semester 2012/13)
  • "Music in the age of its technical (re)producibility" (summer semester 2012)
  • "Music and nature (winter semester 2011/12)
  • "Music in France (summer semester 2011)
  • "Concepts of melody in cultural comparison (winter semester 2010/2011)
  • "Cologne as a city of music: history - present - perspectives" (WiSo 2009/10)
  • "Rhythm concepts in cultural comparison" (summer semester 2009)
  • "Old music with new ears" (WiSe 2008/09)
  • "Music concepts: New Music after 1950" (SoSe 2008)
  • "Voices - Vocal Concepts" (WiSo 2007/08)
  • "History|Herstory: Other music history(ies)" (summer semester 2007)
  • "Processes of change in musical cultures" (winter semester 2006/07)
  • "Mozart" (summer semester 2006)
  • "Music and Politics" (WiSo2005/2006)
Portrait Prof. Dr. Anna Schürmer
Jun.-Prof. Dr. Anna Schürmer
Juniorprofessorin für Musikwissenschaft
Email anna.schuermer@hfmt-koeln.de
Address
Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln
Unter Krahnenbäumen 87
50668 Köln