My work in the history of science probes the porous boundaries between science and culture over the past two centuries. Much of it gestures toward the role of history in public policy. I am interested in having the historian at the table while a...
In this public lecture, Artist-in-Residence David Lang gives an overview of the concerts he has curated for the 2017–18 Edward T. Cone Concert Series season. Lang continues the programming concept introduced last season, which emphasizes the use...
In this video, David Lang, Institute for Advanced Study's Artist-in-Residence, speaks about musical structure, conventions, and those who push the boundaries of...
On the second Sunday after Trinity in 1724, the congregation at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig heard Johann Sebastian Bach’s new cantata that began with the words Ach Gott. Bach set the word Gott to the most dissonant triad known at the...
There are glimpses of truths that don’t immediately make sense, that are puzzles, that we see only vaguely from a distance, or that we can see just one facet of, and they may remain puzzles for our lifetimes and several more after; we may only catch a dim impression, a shadow of what they imply.
When I arrived at the Institute last September, I thought I knew exactly what I would accomplish as a Member in the School of Historical Studies—I would complete my book, Extreme Exoticism: Japan in the American Musical Imagination, and...
Derek and I had several conversations during lunches about the potential for “The Symplectic Piece.” And he continued to attend occasional lectures on the subject, searching for a way to map symplectic geometry onto a musical score.