Monday, Tuesday, Thursday
3.00 – 4.15 pm or 4.45 – 6.00 pm
James Cuskelly

James Cuskelly‘s Musical Listening workshops are being run on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday afternoons as optional classes on the Kodály Summer School. Students beginning this course on Monday will be expected to attend all three sessions and the Friday afternoon session will be Singing Games with Lucinda Geoghegan. Each workshop will be offered twice: first in Session Two with a repetition of the material in Session Three each day.

Monday

In this session participants will look at a range of activities based around listening to the Afro-American spiritual “Sinner, please doan let this harvest pass”. Essential characteristics of the genre will be explored through a range of song materials and singing games. The ongoing sequential development of aural musicianship skills will be embedded in the overall outline and guided listening segments will be incorporated. The activities in this session would be suitable for upper primary or lower secondary students.

Tuesday

Listening activities within the Kodály approach are usually centred on a piece of Art Music, taken from the historical academy. In this session participants will look at a range of activities based around listening to the music taken from the 1993 movie, “Schindler’s List”. In the modern world, many composers consider film score writing as both a practical means of earning a living as well as a platform to push compositional boundaries. The ongoing sequential development of aural musicianship skills will be embedded in the overall outline and guided listening segments will be incorporated. The activities in this session would be suitable for secondary students.

Thursday

While this session is a follow on from the ideas canvassed in the Session 2, this is also a stand-alone session and all are welcome to attend. This session will focus on the second movement of the Gorecki “Symphony of Sorrowful Songs” and will consider the musical materials in the historical context as well as exploring the specific compositional devices relevant to the piece. The ongoing sequential development of aural musicianship skills will be embedded in the overall outline and guided listening segments will be incorporated. The activities in this session would be suitable for more advanced secondary students.