Senior Seminar

Senior Seminar synthesizes all the techniques you've learned throughout your Davidson career in our department: historical inquiry, analytical methods, and performance practice along with techniques of music research, writing, and close listening.

We then apply those techniques to a specific topic chosen by the course instructor(s).

Past Topics

• Video Game Music (2014; cross-listed with MUS 385 & FMS 385) - Neil Lerner
• Musical Cultures of the 1980s (2013) - Ross Fenimore (visiting faculty)
• Music of Scandinavia (2012) - Tara Villa Keith
• Music and Meaning (2011) - Sandra Graham (visiting faculty)
• Leonard Bernstein (2010) - Bill Lawing
• The Legacy of Beethoven (2009) - Ray Sprague
• Nationalism and Music (2008) - Mauro Botelho
• Music and Contemporary Cultural Studies (2007) - Neil Lerner
• Award-Winning Composers and Pieces 1985-2003: The Pulitzer Prize in Music and Grammy for Best Classical Contemporary Composition (2005) - Jennifer Stasack
• Music and War (2004) - Neil Lerner
• Hitchcock and Herrmann (2003) - Neil Lerner
• Allusion, Borrowing, and Collage: Appropriation Techniques in 20th Century Music (2002) - Mauro Botelho 
• Music and Gender (2001) - Neil Lerner

If you are interested in learning more about Senior Seminar contact Professor Mauro Botelho, chair of the Music Department.