Case symposium to celebrate new book on songs in Shakespeare's plays
Case professor Ross W. Duffin is author of "Shakespeare's Songbook"
For immediate release: April 22, 2004
 A new book by a Case Western Reserve University professor compiling for the first time all the songs of Shakespeare's plays will be the focus of a symposium at the University.
"Shakespeare's Songbook Symposium" will celebrate Shakespeare's Songbook (W.W. Norton, 2004), an anthology of the songs found in the dramatic works of Shakespeare. The book's author is Ross W. Duffin, the Kulas Professor of Music at Case.
The symposium will take place Friday, April 23, and Saturday, April 24, at Harkness Chapel, 11200 Bellflower Road, Cleveland.
It combines the department's "Chapel Court and Countryside" concert series and its "Music and Culture" lecture series.
Symposium sponsors include the Kulas Foundation, the Department of Music and the Baker-Nord Center for the Humanities at Case. It received additional financial support from the university's Presidential Initiatives fund.
In Shakespeare's Songbook, Duffin assembles the entire repertoire of songs, including ballads and rounds that Shakespeare knew and used in his plays. In so doing he sheds new light on Shakespeare's dramatic art.
 The book is accompanied by a CD containing a significant selection of the songs in the book.
Keynoting the symposium will be Shakespeare scholar Stephen Orgel, the Reynolds Professor of Humanities at Stanford University and author of the foreword to Shakespeare's Songbook. He will speak on "Shakespeare and/or Music" at 7:30 p.m. on the April 23.
Orgel's talk will be preceded by the performance of two Elizabethan jigs (short, popular playlets), "Rowland" and "Singing Simpkin," and followed by a third, "Frauncis New Jig." They will be performed by students from the departments of music and theater and dance, accompanied by David Douglass, the world's leading Renaissance fiddler and director of the Renaissance violin band "The King's Noyse."
A reception and book signing will take place at Glidden House, 1901 Ford Drive, following the keynote lecture and jigs.
At 1 p.m. April 24, a panel discussion will focus on the performance implications of the music in Shakespeare's plays. Panelists include Duffin; Paul O'Dette, a lutenist best known for his recitals and recordings of solo Renaissance lute music and artistic director of the Boston Early Music Festival; Gerald Freedman, dean of drama at the North Carolina School for the Arts and former artistic director of the Great Lakes Theater Festival; and Ronald Wilson, the chair and Nason Professor in Case's theater department.
A 2:30 p.m. panel will look at the interpretive implications of Shakespeare's music. It will feature Anston Bosman, assistant professor of English at Amherst College and author of articles on Shakespeare and questions of dramatic performance; Thomas Bishop, associate professor of English at Case and co-editor of the Shakespearean International Yearbook; Freedman; and Orgel.
The evening will feature a Chapel, Court & Countryside concert of selected songs from Shakespeare's Songbook. Performing will be Ellen Hargis, soprano, and William Hite, tenor. They will be accompanied by O'Dette on the lute and Douglass on the fiddle. Hargis, Hite and O'Dette also perform on the CD accompanying the book.
The concert will be followed by a reception and book signing at Guildford House.
The Friday evening and Saturday afternoon events are free and open to the public. Tickets for the Saturday night concert are $20 for adults ($18 for senior citizens) and $10 for students. It is free to students with I.D. from Case, the Cleveland Institute of Music and the Cleveland School for the Arts.
For more information contact the Department of Music at Case at 216-368-2400, or visit the Web site for this event at http://music.case.edu/shakespeare.
About Case Western Reserve University
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and shaped by the unique merger of the Case Institute of Technology and Western
Reserve University, Case is distinguished by its strengths in education, research,
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