Music Enrichment Classes
If you love music and want to gain a broader understanding of your favorite or a new genre, music enrichment classes are for you. These lecture-based classes let you explore music without having to play an instrument. Music enrichment classes offer the opportunity to refine listening skills, deepen your awareness of the intrinsic beauty of music, and explore the history, key figures, and the cultures from which it emerged. In a relaxed format, outstanding instructors lecture on various topics in Western music and guide explorations of music from different areas of the globe.
Our mission
In the Division of Continuing Studies, we offer a variety of lecture-based classes for those who want to pursue a broader and deeper understanding of music. We strive to present the most knowledgeable and enthusiastic instructors for these enrichment classes, whose professional experiences as scholars, historians, musicians, writers, teachers, and public speakers are sure to engage the musical mind.
Fall 2012
- Bach’s cantatas
- The Broadway musical
- Great composer series: Gabrieli, Shostakovich, Verdi, Weber
- NEW Latin American musical traditions
- The truth about the “Renaissance” as revealed by its music
Winter/Srping 2013
Contact us by calling
608-265-5629 or email: music@dcs.wisc.edu.
Mailing list: Join
the mailing lists for the music program that interests you most!
Tell a friend: Tell a friend about these music programs.
Bach’s cantatas
Many music lovers consider Johann Sebastian Bach’s church cantatas the pinnacle of his achievement. “The cantatas are the heart of him,” writes John Eliot Gardner. In this six-session class we listen to and analyze several of the most important cantatas in their historical, textual, theological, and musical contexts. Familiarity with Bach’s music is not required.
Instructor: Richard Ringler is emeritus professor in Scandinavian Studies and English at UW-Madison.
Date: Wed, Oct 10-Nov 28, 7:30-9 pm,
(no class Nov 7 and 21)
Location: Lowell Center, 610 Langdon St
Details: 0.9 CEU,
Program #5702
Cost: $65
To register call 608-262-2451, print and mail a registration form, or register online.
Great composer series: Gabrieli, Shostakovich, Verdi, Weber
Presented in a style light on jargon and rich in listening, this nine-week course is for anyone interested in learning more about the major composers of Western classical music. Come learn about and experience the lives and music of four great composers: Giovanni Gabrieli, Dmitri Shostakovich, Giuseppe Verdi, and Carl Maria von Weber.
Instructor: Steve Kurr (MM in musicology, UW-Madison) has taught continuing education music courses for over a decade. He conducts the new Middleton Community Orchestra and teaches orchestra and music history at Middleton High School.
Date: Mon, Sept 17-Nov 12, 7-8:30 pm
Location: 1703 Middleton High School,
2100 Bristol St, Middleton, WI
Details: 1.4 CEU,
Program #3726
Cost: $130
To register call 608-262-2451, print and mail a registration form, or register online.
NEW Latin American musical traditions
Taught in Spanish, this course explores the rich heritage of traditional music cultures of Latin America. Through audio and video examples, we take a journey to explore the roots, social contexts, and aesthetics involved in vocal and instrumental performances of Latin American genres. You don’t need a musical background—just curiosity about the ways people make music in different cultures.
Instructor: Raquel Paraiso (PhD candidate in ethnomusicology, UW-Madison) researches and lectures on the politics of music and ethnicity in Latin American traditions. She actively performs classical and Latin American music.
Date: Wed, Sept 19-Nov 14, 6:30-7:45 pm,
(no class Oct 31)
Location: Centro Hispano, 810 W Badger Rd
Details: Limit 15, 1.0 CEU,
Program #3734
Cost: $50
To register call 608-262-2451, print and mail a registration form, or register online.
The truth about the “Renaissance” as revealed by its music
The cliché of the “Renaissance” as a historical period of cultural rebirth after medieval darkness is one of the greatest absurdities of popular historical mentality. This four-session course traces music’s place and development from the 14th to 16th centuries, offering a refreshing reassessment of all aspects of what the Renaissance was and was not.
Instructor: John W. Barker is a UW-Madison professor emeritus of history and a specialist in medieval and music history. He has published articles and books in both fields and is an active recording reviewer, music critic, and radio host.
Date: Tues, Oct 23-Nov 13, 7-9 pm
Location: Pyle Center, 702 Langdon St
Details: 0.8 CEU,
Program #5709
Cost: $48
To register call 608-262-2451, print and mail a registration form, or register online.
A century of country music
Join renowned country music historian Bill Malone and five-time Grammynominated producer Henry Sapoznik on a four-week tour of the last 90 years of rural American music. Using historic period recordings and live music, Malone and Sapoznik reveal the hidden narrative of old-time and modern country music, showing how it reflects and enhances the dynamic elements of popular and traditional American culture.
Instructors: Bill C. Malone is the author of Country Music, USA, compiler of the Smithsonian Collection of Classic Country Music, and a two-time Grammy Award nominee who hosts WORT-FM's "Back to the Country."
Henry Sapoznik is an award-winning author, radio and record producer, and performer of traditional Yiddish and American music. A five-time Grammy nominee, he is founding director of the Mayrent Institute for Yiddish Culture at UW-Madison.
Dates: Thursdays, April 11-May 2, 7-8:30 pm
Location: room 216 Memorial Libary, 728 State St
Fee: $90
Limit 25, 0.6 CEU, Program #3775
To register call 608-262-2451, print and mail a registration form, or register online.
Great composer series: Rameau, Schubert, Nielsen, Ives
Presented in a style light on jargon and rich in listening, this nine-week course is for anyone interested in learning more about the major composers of Western classical music. Come learn about and experience the lives and music of four great composers: Jean-Philippe Rameau, Franz Schubert, Carl Nielsen, and Charles Ives.
Instructor: Steve Kurr (MM in musicology, UW-Madison) has taught continuing education music courses for over a decade. He conducts the new Middleton Community Orchestra and teaches orchestra and music history at Middleton High School.
Dates: Mondays, Feb 11-April 15, (no class March 25) 7-8:30 pm
Location:1703 Middleton High, 2100 Bristol St,
Middleton, WI
Fee: $130
1.4 CEU, Program #3760
To register call 608-262-2451, print and mail a registration form, or register online.
What our students say about our enrichment classes
From Great Composer Series Classes (Instructor Steve M. Kurr)
“The course was full of wonderful enthusiasm and excellent preparation. The instructor revealed a sincere love and dedication to the subject.”
“I have no musical background at all but enjoyed listening to classical music – very selectively. This course enables me to appreciate a much broader selection of differing styles, listening with a better understanding (limited though it may be). ‘Hungry’ for more knowledge! This course was fun and interesting!”