MUSIC AND SPIRITUALITY:
THE INTERSECTION OF FAITH, CULTURE AND POLITICS

Keith Paulson-Thorp

DESCRIPTION: The quest for religious meaning has inevitably been linked to musical expression. This series will investigate the diverse ways that humans have used sound as a catalyst for, or expression of, religious sentiment. The lectures will consider the dominant ideas and trends as exemplified in the Western musical canon, as well as in ethnic music, and will look at significant composers and their lives and work in historical, social and cultural contexts. PowerPoint presentations and written notes to assist students in responding to the ideas presented will be included.

EIGHT LECTURES:

1. Prayer & Praise : Music’s role in religious ceremony to induce both awe and meditation
   
2. Conformity & Individualism: Monotheistic chant succumbs to a cult of personality
   
3. Conversion & Conquest: Sacred music in the cataclysmic conquest of the Americas
   
4. Priests & Puritans: The English church and its impact on modern concert music
   
5. Jews & Gentiles: The accommodation between Judaism and the Enlightenment in Europe
   
6. Hegel & Beethoven: Music itself as a religious object, the birth of modern aesthetics
   
7. Freedom & Salvation: The music of slavery and its impact on religion in America
   
8. Media & Markets: How the industry of prayer and mass media reshaped sacred music

BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION: Dr. Keith Paulson-Thorp holds degrees in performance, music theory and composition from the University of Illinois at Urbana, and has also studied at Indiana University, Cambridge University, and the University of Salamanca. He taught at Valparaiso University and was Director of Graduate Studies in music theory at the University of Louisiana, Lafayette. He is now Director of Music for St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, where he oversees an extensive concert series, and organist for Temple Sinai, both in Delray Beach . Previously, he was Music Director at Saint Ignatius Cathedral, Palm Beach Gardens, and for the Old Mission, Santa Barbara, California. He teaches regularly in the University of Miami’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute.