Although “electronic music” tends to evoke the repetitive music we now hear from nightclubs to television commercials to department stores, the origins of electronic music date at least as far back as the late 19th century.  This lecture will trace these origins and the subsequent development of electronic music throughout the 20th and 21st centuries.  In particular, we will see how two initially parallel narratives describing the incorporation of technology into music performance make sporadic contact and ultimately begin to converge.  In one, electronic music is championed by the avant-garde as a Modernist ideal of artistic progress.  In the other, technology is framed as a democratizing force that can make music accessible to the masses.  Supplemented with rich music and media examples, diverse electronic music pioneers will be discussed with special attention to the roles that Ann Arbor and Detroit played in this history.

Please check the OLLI web site for additional lectures in the series "China's Internal and External Challenges and Opportunities" Thursdays, January , 2015 - February 12, 2015.
- See more at: http://www.olli-umich.org/lectures.html#2