“Music often plays a central role in our lives,” said Professor Matteo Magarotto, a member of the Frost School's musicology faculty, and co-organizer of the Frost Public Lecture Series: The Music of Diasporas, now called Cooper Lecture Series, in honor of musicologist, Frost Emeritus Professor Frank Cooper.
For many people, home—one's country, for example—is a given: they “belong” to where they are born, and they are seen by others as belonging there,” explained Magarotto. “But for many others, the experience of identity and belonging is more complicated. This happens when origin and identity are tied to a place and culture one has left behind—more often than not, unwillingly.”
Trauma, oppression, and discrimination, he observed, often accompany the lives of diasporic peoples. The term diaspora was originally synonym with the Jewish diaspora, but we now use it for all collective and sustained experiences of displacement. This series looks at three diasporas—African, Cuban, and Romani—featuring Frost and invited speakers.
Given Miami's proximity to the Caribbean, it was only natural to invite scholars who work in the area, he said. Ethnomusicologist Lauren Eldridge Stewart delivered her lecture "Giving Music: A Classical Music Education in Haiti" on September 22. Musicologist Iván César Morales Flores tuned in from Spain on September 29 to talk about "A New Vanguard in Cuban Art Music (1990–2020)" or more precisely, "Compositores en diáspora: Una nueva vanguardia en la música de arte cubana (1990-2020)." As a nod to our bilingual community, this talk was presented in Spanish, with English captions.
The series will conclude on October 6, with a lecture on "Music of the Romani Diaspora in Europe" by Magarotto. When asked how this series relates to the recognizable sounds to move past a generic exotic perception and explore a musical and cultural Romani identity, he said, “The terms "Gypsy" and "Gitano" are familiar to English and Spanish speakers. A generally positive, if reductive, association of the "Gypsy" musician with virtuosity and passion coexists with negative stereotypes and the reality of ongoing discrimination of the Romani people around the world.”
In this lecture, participants will find out how the Romani people identify themselves. Rom means human being, person, man, or husband in the Romani language. This talk aims to explore the musical practices of the Roma in Europe, past and present, and to highlight their richness and diversity, as well as issues of identity. The goal is to undo the exoticization of Romani music as mere "ethnic color" and instead situate Roma's music-making in specific contexts of multi-cultural and multi-musical interactions.
This series extends a tradition that Professor Cooper started years ago of offering insightful, thought-provoking, and entertaining lectures on music to the general South Florida community. Cooper delivered his final talks in 2019, with a remarkable series on the life and legacy of Beethoven.
Magarotto continued that legacy through talks on Mozart in 2020, and Fanny Mendelssohn and Clara Wieck in 2021. “Our decision to present this series online was initially motivated by necessity, as the COVID-19 pandemic veritably eliminated in-person events,” explained David Ake, Professor and Chair of Frost Department of Musicology.
“We have opted to continue the online format here by choice, believing that it will allow us both to offer a wider range of speakers (Professor Iván César Morales Flores lives in Spain, for instance) and invite audiences from a wider geographical area,” said Ake.
In this way, the fall Cooper Series differs from the Robert Kelley Memorial Lecture Series, which runs in the spring and, aside from one COVID year, has always and will remain in-person, said Ake. That difference aside, both the Copper Lectures and the Kelley Lectures have the same goal: to offer people new perspectives on how and why people make music.
As audiences are already experiencing, this series is endlessly fascinating. It is also a supremely timely and important topic. After all, music is one of the most powerful means humans have developed for exploring, celebrating, and expressing who they are as individuals and communities.
To register for this free public event on October 6, visit Frost Events.
