Southeastern instructor honored by Society for American Music

Southeastern Louisiana University Instructor of Double Reeds and Historical Musicology Everette Scott Smith has been selected by the Society for American Music to give a lecture on an aspect of his American music research.

Smith’s selection is part of SAM’s “Sounding the Nation at 250,” a nationwide series of lectures, recitals, and exhibits celebrating the rich and diverse musical heritage of the Americas. The organization selected only one music historian from each state.

Timed to coincide with commemorative events surrounding the U.S. Semiquincentennial, Sounding the Nation at 250 highlights the essential role music and the arts have played in expressing the hopes, struggles, identities, and aspirations of communities across time. The series honors the artists, musicians, and creators whose work has shaped American culture, while also looking forward to a future in which the arts continue to foster creativity, connection, and shared civic life.

The event is scheduled Sept. 17, at 5 p.m., at the Hammond Regional Arts Center, located at 217 E. Thomas St., in Hammond, and is titled “John Cage’s Rock Music: Ryoanji and the Art of Graphic Notation.”

Smith said the lecture-performance introduces audiences to the visual art of graphic musical notation, environmental listening, and participatory music-making through a collaborative performance of John Cage’s ‘Ryoanji’ (1983) for oboe and percussion obbligato.

“The event begins with a brief presentation on graphic notation, showing how 20th century composers transformed the musical score into a visual field that invites interpretation and heightened awareness of sound,” Smith said. “Building on this context, the talk turns to ‘Ryoanji,’ Cage’s work inspired by the rock garden at the Ryoan-ji temple in Kyoto.”

Drawing on Cage’s correspondence and performance practice, the lecture culminates in a participatory realization of the percussion part, while Smith plays the solo oboe part. Following Cage’s suggestion that the obbligato may be performed by a single player, a group, or even an orchestra, audience members will be invited to contribute sounds using simple percussion instruments provided at the event.

“In this way, listeners become collaborators, transforming the performance space into an immersive sonic environment surrounding the oboe soloist and echoing the spatial experience of the Ryoan-ji garden,” Smith explained.

Following the lecture-performance, visitors may view a select display of graphic notation scores created by students in Smith’s graduate music history seminar on Modernism.

For more information about Sounding the Nation 250, visit www.sam250.org. For more information about the lecture-performance, contact Smith at [email protected].