Art, culture, material goods and ideas flowed both ways, along several routes collectively dubbed The Silk Road—a storied network that connected East Asia to the Mediterranean for at least three millennia (1500 BCE-1500 CE.) Not only did it move arts and music; but rather, in a kind of streaming globalization, it also spurred their development along its routes. We'll home in on regions of Greece, Persia, Turkey, India, Central and East Asia and Mongolia. There we'll examine sacred and secular art; the design and spread of musical instruments (Persian oud, Chinese pipa); musical traditions (Byzantine chant and Arabic-Persian music); Chinese musical influence on Korean and Japanese court traditions; shamanism and music in ritualistic practices (Siberian, Mongolia and Korea.) We'll also learn how politics and geography were inevitable influencers.
Ju-Yong Ha is an ethnomusicologist and composer with a distinguished career in both academia and performance who has introduced traditional and contemporary Korean and Asian music to audiences around the world. An assistant professor of Ethnomusicology at the University of Hartford, Ha has lectured widely and taught at Seoul National University and Korea National University of Arts. He has also worked with the Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism as a cultural attaché, and published extensively on Korean music and immigrant culture in The World of Music, Asian Music, and Review of Korean Studies. Ha holds a PhD in Composition and Ethnomusicology from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY).
Fran Altvater (PhD, Boston University) is associate dean of student academic services and an associate professor of art history. Her research focuses on medieval art and architecture, museum studies and issues in collegiate teaching. Her book, Sacramental Theology and Baptismal Fonts: Incarnation, Initiation, and Institution was published in 2017.
Thursdays, March 6, 13, 27 | 3 p.m.–4:30 p.m. | Shaw Center/Hillyer Hall | $60
This course is made possible in part by the generosity of the Richard P. Garmany Fund at the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving.
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