Wednesday, Sept. 8th, 7:00 pm
Arts at the Olean Public Library
with David Meltzer and Michael Rothenberg

Olean Public Library
134 North 2nd st.
Orlean, NY 14760
1 (716) 372-0200

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Thursday, Sept. 9th, 4:00 - 5:00 pm

Poetry Class with David Meltzer and Michael Rothenberg
Liberal Arts Faculty Commons
Free and open to the public

Rochester Institute of Technology
One Lomb Memorial Drive, Rochester, NY 14623
1 (585) 475-2411

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Thursday, Sept. 9th, 7:00 - 10:00 pm

ROCKPILE AT FINGER LAKES!!

Finger Lakes Community College
with David Meltzer and Michael Rothenberg
and Fingerlake Community College Student Musicians.

ROCKPILE is a collaboration between David Meltzer — legendary poet, musician, and essayist — and Michael Rothenberg, poet, songwriter, and editor of Big Bridge Press. In the tradition of the troubadour and with the spirit of collaboration, the duo will perform poetry, composed on the road, with FLCC student musicians.

Fingerlakes C. C.
4340 Lakeshore Dr.
Canandaigua (whew!), NY
1 (585) 394-3500

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Friday, Sept. 10th, 7:00 - 9:00 pm

The Flying Squirrel Poetry Series presents An Evening of Radical Poetry with Janine Vega, David Meltzer, Sam Abrams and Michael Rothenberg featuring the jazz/blues sounds of The Overcompensator. To be followed by a poetry jam at Clarissa’s Jazz Club next door at 9 pm

Flying Squirrel Community Space
285 Clarissa St.
Rochester, NY 14608
1 (585) 415-7808

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Saturday, Sept. 11th, 2:00 pm
Wheeler Hill Poetry Reading
with David Meltzer and Michael Rothenberg
Celebrates publication of Rothenberg’s
My Youth As A Train (Foothills Publishing)
Hosted by Michael Czarnecki & Foothills Publishing

Czarnecki Homestead on Wheeler Hill

(607) 566-3881

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Tue., Sep. 14, 2010 at 7:00 p.m.
ROCKPILE AT HALLWALLS

Talking Leaves…Books & Just Buffalo Literary Center present

Visiting poets David Meltzer & Michael Rothenberg
with Buffalo’s Other Side Jazz Trio
$8 general, $6 students/seniors, $5 HW, JBLC, & TLB members

After their coast-to-coast U.S. tour in 2009 www.bigbridge.org/rockpile, poets David Meltzer and Michael Rothenberg return to Buffalo to continue their celebration and exploration of music and poetry collaboration, making and breaking new ground in an exclusive performance with Buffalo’s very own Other Side featuring Douglas Dreishpoon, Kelly Bucheger, and Danny Ziemann.

WKRG.com News

New Peck School of the Arts Programs Offer Distinctive Opportunities in Dance and Music

Milwaukee (May 19, 2010) - The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Peck School of the Arts is very pleased to announce the following new programs, approved last week by UWM’s Academic Program and Curriculum Committee.

Performance & Choreography/Africa and the Diaspora Track: This new track added to the Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) in Dance prepares students to perform and create original dance choreography for theatrical productions and positions UWM Peck School of the Arts as the only such program in the Midwest at the undergraduate level. Developed by professor and African dance expert Ferne Caulker Bronson , the curriculum has been created with a wide range of opportunities for students to infuse their dance studies with exposure and training to aesthetic, religious and cultural sensitivities that will insure their ability to move into a variety of cultural situations. Africa and the Diaspora students will complete a rigorous technical and creative curriculum with a foundation in Africa and the Diaspora techniques, with cross training in ballet and modern. Students will also study body/mind sciences, dance pedagogy, historical and cultural contexts for dance and the interactive collaboration skills necessary to bring dance to the theatre with a high degree of excellence.

Certificate Program in Rock and Roll Studies: Developed in response to strong interest from students and faculty and under the direction of renowned Rock and Roll historian and Peck School senior lecturer Dr. Martin Jack Rosenblum , this unique program will prepare students to use the tools of ethnomusicology, musicology, literature studies and cultural studies to examine American vernacular music in a way previously reserved for what is called “classical music.” Beginning in Fall 2010, certificate students will gain a solid understanding of this musical genre while deepening their knowledge of the style from an array of courses across the arts and humanities.

More detailed information about each program will be communicated in the coming months. For immediate information, please contact Ellen Friebert Schupper at 414-229-6771 or schupper@uwm.edu .

Certification Program in Rock and Roll Studies.

I. Description of Request:

To establish, through specific courses that are related to America’s musical oral tradition, a pedagogy culminating in an advanced understanding of the sophistication involved with the Rock and Roll idiom after 1965, in the period when this form achieved literary significance.

II. Title of Program:

Certificate in Rock and Roll Studies.

III. Relationship to mission of institution:

This program relates to the mission of the institution in that it documents and preserves an original American art form that had received canonical significance in music as well as broader culture by the end of the twentieth century.

IV. List of Courses:

Core Curriculum (15 credits)
American Popular Music, Music 102, 3 cr.
The Literary Aspects of Rock and Roll, Music 300, 3 cr.
American Folk and Popular Music, Music 309, 3 cr.
Folk Music in Contemporary Culture, Music 409, 3 cr.
Certificate Program in Rock and Roll Studies, Music 509, 3 cr.

Elective Curriculum (To be selected from following list - 9 credits)
American Music, Music 317, 3 cr.
Rock and Roll Criticism, Music 409, 3 cr.
The Art Of Songwriting: Rock and Roll Idiom Lyrics, Music 489, 3 cr.
Fingerstyle History and Performance, Music 478, 3 cr.
Media Archeology, Film 115, 3 cr.
Entertainment Arts: Film, Television, and the Internet, English 111, 3 cr.
Writing Poetry: Forms, Styles, Voices, English 235, 3 cr.
Literature and Contemporary Life, English 248, 3 cr.
Literature and the Other Arts, English 274, 3 cr.
Rock and Roll Cinema, English 383, 3 cr.
Intermediate Topics in Film Studies, Film Studies 212, 3 cr.
The 1960s in the United States: A Cultural History, History 271, 3 cr.
Blues History and Culture, History 272, 3 cr.
Hip-Hop History and Culture, History 404, 3 cr.
Popular Culture in America, 1800 to Present, History 449, 3 cr.
Mass Media and Black Self-Images, Africology 369, 3 cr.
Media and Popular Culture, JMC 114, 3 cr.
Television and Radio in American Society, JMC 142, 3 cr.
Anthropology and Popular Culture, Anthro 302, 3 cr.

V. Cost implications:

None, salary Certificate Program Coordinator is already in place along with salaries for those teaching core and elective coursework. Courses included in the program are already being offered on a regular rotation (some with Special Topics numbers).

VI. Rationale:

The pedagogy of Rock and Roll studies involves an evolutionary leap from the vernacular into art, from low to high culture, and represents a trajectory by which the outsider moved from the periphery of American culture into the mainstream. It involves a dialogue between the many cultures that make up the patchwork of American society. Rock and Roll music tells the story of a music idiom as a quest for new sounds that amplify the quickening pace and changing texture of modern life; paradoxically, the rush into the future was often an exploration of the past as young musicians eagerly embraced the chameleon of authenticity that is based on music that was part of an oral tradition. Rock and Roll followed the path set forth by earlier vernacular forms of cultural expression.

The roving troubadours of medieval England, for example, led to Marlowe and then Shakespeare, just as Mississippi Delta Blues and Southern Mountain Music produced, respectively, Robert and Charlie Poole and then further inspired Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen.

Shakespeare, as far as his creative life can be reconstructed, drew from a wider palette than his predecessors; likewise, Dylan, the singular artist who forever changed what Rock and Roll context was to be with his complex narrative, was not content to cultivate Blues and Country music. Instead, his artistry transformed music that was already known by the fifties, changing it from within in the course of the sixties, and infusing it with imagery and meaning influenced by modernist poets. These developments, in turn, led to new definitions of recording semiotics and a redefinition of the form itself. Rock and Roll changed forever, dividing into complicated categories that musicology and literary criticism are continuing to explore in ways unimaginable to both music and literature disciplines prior to the 21st Century.

The advent of serious Rock criticism occurred in the late sixties, a time when the music was establishing itself as a high art form with claims to contemporary cultural significance. From this time forward it has become a subject worthy of serious, academic treatment. This involves re-examining vernacular music in America without revisionist perspectives but with revised insight.

The rationale that is implicit in a Certificate in Rock and Roll studies is that this subject is worthy of being treated seriously in ways that parallel studies of what we commonly call classical music. It is no longer the case that it is well enough to merely trace a song through history without understanding the value of its musical and cultural aesthetic. Using the tools of ethnomusicology, musicology, literature studies, and cultural studies, scholars may now assign the proper academic definitions to the very nature of Rock and Roll.

VII. Bulletin Copy:

Certificate in Rock and Roll Studies

Martin Jack Rosenblum, Lecturer in Music, Coordinator

The Certificate Program in Rock and Roll Studies prepares students to use the tools of ethnomusicology, musicology, literature studies, and cultural studies to examine American vernacular music in a way previously reserved for what we call “classical music.”
The certificate program is open to all students seeking a bachelor’s degree from UWM, and to students who previously have received a degree from UWM or any other accredited college or university. Students who complete the certificate as part of their undergraduate work are awarded the certificate at the time of graduation. Students already possessing a bachelor’s degree receive the certificate upon completion of the program requirements.
To obtain the certificate, students must complete a minimum of 24 credits from the following list of courses, with a GPA of 2.75 or above. At least 9 of these credits must be at the 300 level or above, and the following requirements must be met. All courses are 3 credits unless otherwise noted.

Required Core Curriculum (15 credits)
American Popular Music, Music 102, 3 cr.
The Literary Aspects of Rock and Roll, Music 300, 3 cr.
American Folk and Popular Music, Music 309, 3 cr.
Folk Music in Contemporary Culture, Music 280/680, 3 cr.
Capstone Course, Independent Study, Music 699, 3 cr.

Elective Curriculum (9 credits)
American Music, Music 317, 3 cr.
Rock and Roll Criticism, Music 409, 3 cr.
The Art Of Songwriting: Rock and Roll Idiom Lyrics, Music 489, 3 cr.
Fingerstyle History and Performance, Music 478, 3 cr.
Media Archeology, Film 115, 3 cr.
Entertainment Arts: Film, Television, and the Internet, English 111, 3 cr.
Writing Poetry: Forms, Styles, Voices, English 235, 3 cr.
Literature and Contemporary Life, English 248, 3 cr.
Literature and the Other Arts, English 274, 3 cr.
Rock and Roll Cinema, English 383, 3 cr.
Intermediate Topics in Film Studies, Film Studies 212, 3 cr.
The 1960s in the United States: A Cultural History, History 271, 3 cr.
Blues History and Culture, History 272, 3 cr.
Hip-Hop History and Culture, History 404, 3 cr.
Popular Culture in America, 1800 to Present, History 449, 3 cr.
Mass Media and Black Self-Images, Africology 369, 3 cr.
Media and Popular Culture, JMC 114, 3 cr.
Television and Radio in American Society, JMC 142, 3 cr.
Anthropology and Popular Culture, Anthro 302, 3 cr.

Credits earned at other institutions equivalent to courses in the certificate program may be accepted in partial fulfillment of the program requirements, subject to review by the Certificate Program Coordinator.

THE ROCKPILE JOURNALS are now being compiled for publication by Big Bridge Press in 2011.

The JOURNALS will include daily postings from Rockpile on the road Blog, essential photos from the road by Terri Carrion, and some of the poetical texts performed at Rockpile events by David Meltzer, Michael Rothenberg and Terri Carrion.

We are also planning to include a DVD of some key performances and conversations recorded on the road.

Stay in touch for more publication information.

MR

Check it out!

ROCKPILE ON THE ROAD AT OTOLITHS

ROCKPILE at The Gershwin Hotel NYC from ROCKPILE on Vimeo.

have already forgot the blurry particulars of the hotel we were in; they have this way of morphing into not the same but the familiar, reinforced by deeply implicated constancy. Consistency’s vague details. Tender attempts at implicating us personally into the death of life, light in eyes, anger at surmise, face fed into electronic advertising toxins -dm