Chas Helge’s career in musicology began at Indiana University as the recipient of 2013 Austin B. Caswell Award for a topic after 1750. The paper, "Beatrice Harrison and Jacqueline du Pre: Misrepresentation and Mythology and the Elgar Cello Concerto", deals with themes of historiography, gendering, and the consequences of misrepresentation and myth. During his senior year, his independent research class supervised by Dr. Ayana Smith produced the lecture “Classical Music and the Role of the Audience” which was presented to students of Prof. Constance Cook Glen’s MUS-Z100, The Live Musical Performance course.
After leaving Indiana University, Chas earned his Master of Music degree from Western Michigan University with a Cognate in Musicology. Now, as a Graduate Assistant at The University of Oklahoma, he serves Dr. Michael Lee, MUSC-3333 Post-Romantic Period to the Present, and Dr. Sanna Pederson, MUSC-2323 Late Baroque through Romantic. In 2016-17, Chas will present lectures at Bay View’s Summer Chatauqua Scarrow Lecture Series (Hildegard von Bingen) in Petoskey, MI, and The University of Oklahoma School of Music’s Norton Lecture Series (Beatrice Harrison and Jacqueline du Pre).
After leaving Indiana University, Chas earned his Master of Music degree from Western Michigan University with a Cognate in Musicology. Now, as a Graduate Assistant at The University of Oklahoma, he serves Dr. Michael Lee, MUSC-3333 Post-Romantic Period to the Present, and Dr. Sanna Pederson, MUSC-2323 Late Baroque through Romantic. In 2016-17, Chas will present lectures at Bay View’s Summer Chatauqua Scarrow Lecture Series (Hildegard von Bingen) in Petoskey, MI, and The University of Oklahoma School of Music’s Norton Lecture Series (Beatrice Harrison and Jacqueline du Pre).
The Austin B. Caswell Award
"The Caswell Award Honors the best papers written during the previous calendar year for an undergraduate music history class. There are two prizes, one for the best paper topic before 1750, and one for the best paper after 1750. Each prize consists of a certificate and $250. The committee that chose the winners this years was composed of Musicology Professors Michael Long and Kristina Muxfeldt.
This year's prize for the best paper on a topic after 1750 goes to an essay about performers. It begins like this: "The infinitesimal silence between the final notes of a piece and the roaring wave of applause that takes its place, while no more than a millisecond, is the dividing line between a performer's statement and the persona that is created by the forces surrounding him or her." In this beautiful opening, an unforgettable sonic moment is captured as if it were a still photograph. When the reel begins to roll, we are drawn into a probing account of how the reputation of one legendary cellist, Jacqueline du Pre, so closely associated in the minds of critics and admirers with Elgar's cello concerto, came to eclipse that of Beatrice Harrison, who had recorded it under the composer's baton. Among the many causes explored is how after du Pre's untimely death at the age of 42, in the words of the essay's writer, "the deafening silence left by her early retirement and passing was immediately filled, not by the sounds of her music, but by the biographers... and the writers of widely published newspapers." By countering this verbally constructed reputation with photographic and sonic records, the author of "Beatrice Harrison and Jacqueline du Pre: Misrepresentation and Mythology and the Elgar Cello Concerto" restores for both Harrison and du Pre a truer sense of their achievements as performers."
Peter J. Burkholder
Distinguished Professor of Musicology; Chair- Department of Musicology
Indiana University: Jacobs School of Music
Saturday May 4th, 2013
This year's prize for the best paper on a topic after 1750 goes to an essay about performers. It begins like this: "The infinitesimal silence between the final notes of a piece and the roaring wave of applause that takes its place, while no more than a millisecond, is the dividing line between a performer's statement and the persona that is created by the forces surrounding him or her." In this beautiful opening, an unforgettable sonic moment is captured as if it were a still photograph. When the reel begins to roll, we are drawn into a probing account of how the reputation of one legendary cellist, Jacqueline du Pre, so closely associated in the minds of critics and admirers with Elgar's cello concerto, came to eclipse that of Beatrice Harrison, who had recorded it under the composer's baton. Among the many causes explored is how after du Pre's untimely death at the age of 42, in the words of the essay's writer, "the deafening silence left by her early retirement and passing was immediately filled, not by the sounds of her music, but by the biographers... and the writers of widely published newspapers." By countering this verbally constructed reputation with photographic and sonic records, the author of "Beatrice Harrison and Jacqueline du Pre: Misrepresentation and Mythology and the Elgar Cello Concerto" restores for both Harrison and du Pre a truer sense of their achievements as performers."
Peter J. Burkholder
Distinguished Professor of Musicology; Chair- Department of Musicology
Indiana University: Jacobs School of Music
Saturday May 4th, 2013
| chas_helge_caswell_award_paper.docx |
"Classical" Music and the Role of the Audience
Written for a live performance demo at Indiana University, this paper examines the origin of "classical" music in order to understand our modern performance practice. What is the role of the audience? Have we always been a passive force in the music hall? And where is the performance of live "classical" music going?
| classical_music_and_the_role_of_the_audience.pdf |
