Date: Friday, December 6, 2024
Time: 4:00 PM
Location: Harkness Chapel, Classroom
Free – open to the public
Our weekly Friday afternoon colloquia feature current research presentations by distinguished visiting scholars, as well as by our own faculty and graduate students in musicology, historical performance practice, and music education.
Following each session, receptions offer a valuable opportunity for social interaction, helping to foster a strong sense of community, camaraderie, and mutual support within the department.
About the Talk
"UPA and the Modern(ist) Cartoon Score."
The United Productions of America (UPA) animation studio, which came to prominence on big and small screens in the years following World War II, profoundly changed animation from the dominance of Disney's naturalistic approach to a more modern, even avant-garde style, with cartoons like Gerald McBoing-Boing, Rooty Toot Toot, and the Mister Magoo series. In my talk I discuss the atypical approach UPA took to music in the animation soundscape, which included music taken from a variety of genres and styles, composers coming from widely differing backgrounds, and a general disavowal of the Hollywood approach to cartoon scoring. The lasting effects of UPA’s cartoons can still be seen and heard; scoring practices throughout the industry soon moved away from the larger orchestral styles to more varied ensembles and idiosyncratic compositional voices.
About the Speaker
Daniel Goldmark is the Head of Popular Music Studies, Director of the Center for Popular Music Studies, and a Professor in the Department of Music at the College of Arts and Sciences. His research focuses on American popular music, film and cartoon music, and the history of the music industry. He is the author or editor of several books, including Tunes for ‘Toons (2005) and Korngold and His World (2019). Goldmark has worked as an archivist at Spümcø Animation, a music coordinator on animated shorts, and a research editor at Rhino Entertainment, where he produced music collections such as the anthology Courage: The Complete Atlantic Recordings of Rufus Harley.
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