📅&Բ;Date: Friday, October 31, 2025
🕒&Բ;Start Time: 4:00 PM
📍&Բ;Location: Harkness Chapel, Classroom
👥&Բ;Who: Free | Open to the public
Our weekly Friday colloquia showcase current research by distinguished visiting scholars alongside our own faculty and graduate students in musicology, historical performance practice, and music education. All are welcome!
A brief reception follows each talk to keep the conversation going.
About The Talk
“Interrogating the Paradoxes of 'Empowerment' in Women’s Chorus: A Critical Inquiry”
Repertoire for women’s chorus has been described as a focus on subjects for singers to connect on a “personal, emotional, and intellectual” level (Wahl, 2011, p. 56). Often, these pieces are written by women composers for women, targeting specific vocal ranges that allow for comfortable, explosive sounds to emerge. More specifically, a portion of this body of repertoire centers around the stories, struggles, growth, and power of women, what one might term a “feminist,” or “empowered” piece of music (Roma, 2018). However, what does it mean to truly be “empowered”? Is engaging with repertoire around themes of strength and power actually empowering?
To query, I interrogate the paradoxes of empowerment in a high school women’s chorus setting, including “the conditions—materials and ideological—that foster, constrain and erode it” (Bookman & Morgen, 1988, p. 4). Drawing from a feminist conception of empowerment (Hicks, 1990), I examine my own experiences as a conductor-teacher engaging in this body of repertoire. I argue that, in order for transference to occur outside of the classroom, intended moments for empowerment must be linked to actionable items, where students develop a sense of authorial agency (Matusov, von Duyke, and Kayumova, 2016). Using repertoire as a basis, I describe projects and conversations with singers, first drawing attention to the performative, cultural expressions of empowerment exemplified through heroes and icons; then placing oneself as a locus of power; and locating quiet spaces of power where one may employ agency. These experiences demonstrate how instructional aspects of pedagogy as well as the emphasis on feminist empowerment may be performed, routinized, and challenged (Gore, 2003; James, 2015), particularly within the current sociopolitical climate.
About The Speaker
Cara Bernard is Associate Professor of Music Education at the University of Connecticut in the Neag School of Education, where she teaches courses in choral and elementary methods, curriculum, and supervises student teaching.
Dr. Bernard currently serves on the editorial committees of Music Educators Journal, Arts Education Policy Review, Journal of Music Teacher Education, Journal of Popular Music Education, and serves as associate editor of Visions of Research in Music Education. She has served on the CT State Education Department’s Arts Equity Incentive Committee and the National ACDA Diversity Initiative Sub-Committee, where she created policy, curriculum, and outreach to make the Arts accessible and equitable for all students. Currently, she is President of CT American Choral Directors Association (ACDA).
Dr. Bernard’s research areas include music teacher evaluation and policy, teacher education, choral music education, urban music education, and diversity and access. She was a recipient of the 2015 Outstanding Dissertation Award from the Council of Research in Music Education and the 2013 Yale Distinguished Music Educator Award. She is the co-author of the recently released book Teacher Evaluation in Music: A Guide for Teachers in the US, published by Oxford University Press.
Venue
Harkness Classroom, located inside Harkness Chapel, serves as both a lecture hall for large classes and a backstage area during events. It is also the meeting location for the CWRU Music Colloquium Series.
Health + Safety
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