Prominent musicologist, author, lecturer and designer of fine harpsichords Ed Kottick will deliver two seminars addressing connections between engineering and music on Wednesday, March 1, in Memorial Chapel.
Both talks, organized by Palma Catravas, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, and Dianne McMullen, associate professor of performing arts, with funding from an IEF grant, are open to the campus community.
At 10:50 a.m., Kottick will speak on “Gods and Mortals, Monkeys and Dolphins: The Exotic World of Early Keyboard Instruments.” The talk is geared toward McMullen's music history class, “From Beethoven to Bernstein.”
The 12:05 p.m. talk, “Wire, Wood, Air, and Ear: How the Harpsichord Makes its Sound,” is targeted at Catravas' “Engineering Acoustics” class.
Kottick, retired professor of musicology from the University of Iowa, is the author of the classic, The Harpsichord Owner's Guide, and, with George Lucktenberg, wrote “Early Keyboard Instruments in European Museums.” For many years he made regular visits to the great European museums to examine, play and listen to antique harpsichords.
His articles have been published in Scientific American, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America and other prestigious journals. His book, “A History of the Harpsichord,” covers the instrument's entire 600-year history in nearly 600 pages. Read more about him at http://kottick.com.