Gulag Survivors’ Stories

In looking for instances of music in the Gulag, I found that most books about Russian music of the time omit tales from the Gulag. I do not know why. However, I also started reading anthologies of Gulag survivors’ stories, and they richly detail the musical life...

The Excitement over Mapping Villa-Lobos Art Songs!

Researching for my topic on Heitor Villa-Lobos has been very interesting thus far. My project will focus on his travels however focusing on his Solo Vocal Art Song works (those with voice and piano). The reason being for this narrow of a topic is because after...

Spotify Musical Cities Review

This mapping platform by Eliot Van Buskirk scrapes streaming music giant Spotify’s playback data to demonstrate the musical sounds of different countries and select cities. Clicking on a city, marked by a green dot, displays a musical playlist illustrating the...

Music in the Gulag

Since I have extensive experience with Russian culture and much interest in Soviet culture, I decided to study the composers in the Gulag during Stalin’s era. I quickly realized that the topic was too narrow, and so I broadened it to “Music in the...

Re-Imagining the Parisian Jazz Map

For my long-term project this semester, I’m revisiting some of the data and source material about jazz and music-hall performances in Paris during the 1920s. At first, I just wanted to tie up lose ends- although I finished a jazz venues map, I still have a lot...