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.