Don Fre­und: Teacher and Lec­turer

 

 — “My dri­ving con­cept is that there is no oppo­si­tion between the heart and the mind — art is about how think­ing and under­stand­ing makes us feel more deeply. There are ways of think­ing about art (music in par­tic­u­lar) that don’t lead to an emo­tional involve­ment, but I’m not inter­ested. I want to inves­ti­gate why things that hap­pen in music engage and move lis­ten­ers. I want to help lis­ten­ers hear music as a cre­ative process, appre­ci­at­ing the choices com­posers make in cre­at­ing a piece.” — Don Fre­und

 

——————————————————————–

 


A Dif­fer­ent Look: Don Freund’s “Spec­trum of 5ths”

In response to an ear­lier mas­ter­class lec­ture done at Cal­i­for­nia State Uni­ver­sity, Don dis­cusses his unique take on tonal rela­tion­ships and the con­ven­tional “cir­cle of fifths” with Dr. Ben­jamin Boone, pro­fes­sor at Cal­i­for­nia State.

 

——————————————————————

 

Essay: Guid­ing Young Composers

 

 This essay, “Guid­ing Young Com­posers,” exam­ines how com­po­si­tion can be uti­lized to unlock cre­ativ­ity in all lev­els of music edu­ca­tion, as well as devel­op­ing fur­ther ideas on how to guide and coun­sel bud­ding new composers.

 

pmecoversmall

 

    Read the Abstract here on ProjectMuse

                                    or

 Read the prior-to-publication ver­sion here

 

 

 

This arti­cle is pub­lished in the Phi­los­o­phy of Music Edu­ca­tion Review, Vol. 19, No. 1, Spring 2011, fea­tur­ing arti­cles by and about com­posers David Ward-Steinman, Joan Tower, Elliott Schwartz, Libby Larsen, Don Fre­und, and Ellen Taaffe Zwilich.

 

 

————————————————————–

 

Com­po­si­tion Lessons with J.S. Bach

 

In this fas­ci­nat­ing 32-part video lec­ture series, Don uses color-coded scores and piano excerpts to make Bach’s WTC Book 1 a liv­ing cre­ative experience.

Lis­ten to an inter­view with Don about the project here. For expla­na­tion of terms used in these lec­tures, here is a link to the pdf file.

 

 

Instru­men­ta­tion Stud­ies for Eyes and Ears

Instru­men­ta­tion Stud­ies for Eyes and Ears is an inter­ac­tive score/video/commentary project cov­er­ing every­thing from the pic­colo to the celesta. Please note: This ISFEE web­site is fully func­tional, and free to any­one with inter­net access.  When you get to the site, run your cur­sor over the instru­men­tal fam­ily, then choose the instru­ment, and then the page. Or you may click on “DEMO” for a guided tour.