Popular music is subject of program

Charles Keil and Horace Clarence Boyer will be featured in public programs as part of the UW School of Music’s May 11-13 symposium on popular music, “Around the Sound: Popular Music in Performance, Education, and Scholarship.” Both programs are free and open to the general public.

Keil will talk on Moving and Grooving: Popular Music in the Lives of Children on Thursday, May 11, at 7 p.m. in 120 Kane on the UW campus. A reception will follow. Keil is the author of Urban Blues, Music Grooves, Tiv Song, Polka Happiness, and other influential works on popular music and culture.

Boyer will speak on The Old Ship of Zion: African-American Gospel Music on Friday, May 12, at 4:30 p.m. in 120 Kane. He is an internationally renowned gospel singer and the author of How Sweet the Sound: The Golden Age of Gospel.

Keil is an ethnomusicologist and professor of American Studies at the State University of New York at Buffalo. Keil is the president of Musicians United for Superior Education - MUSE, Inc. (http://www.musekids.org). Keil formed MUSE as a way to give elementary school children opportunities to discover and master drumming and dancing of diverse cultures.

Boyer holds a doctorate in music theory from the Eastman School of Music and is professor emeritus of music at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. His talk will include detail on the development of gospel music, augmented by vocal and pianistic illustrations. ¶