Serious and Popular Muciсs in Their Attractions and Antinomies

How to distinguish — or to demarcate — serious and popular music? Should we be guided by dismissive attitude — as Adornian school — or to seek the new ways to interpret popular music? If yes, what guidelines would be appropriate for the determinations of these? How can the domains of 'popular' and 'serious' be visualized — as two separate pools, or the same music strata, divided only artificially and from an outside view?

Following most popular motto today to draw everything closer to each other, the course is aimed at establishing links between – and common places for – the popular and serious music. The course, therefore, will cover different topics ranging from injections and borrowings from classical music, to the investigation of adjacent areas and fields with common presence. Rock and symphonic orchestra, operatic drama and comedian Broadway musical, jazz and dodecaphony, the general aspiration to reach the maximal sublimity — or accessibility — will be discussed with reference to music created by professional composers and wide-ranging music makers, DJs, or songwriters. Thus, among the distinctive features of the course are not only the discovery of unified methodology that embraces contrasting and uneven music and cultural traditions, but also the focus on underrepresented and scarcely researched aspects of music history, such as avant-garde, musical, and (yes) rock opera.

The course is heavily relying on Western theoretical concepts and approaches to academic and popular music, as well as on teacher's own professional experience, such as his contacts with renown musicians. The lectures and seminars will imply reading and listening (or viewing) music by the students; videos, music examples.