This semester at Peabody, I’m excited to be teaching a new course I’ve designed on variations. In keeping with my own thinking (and experience), we’re exploring the idea of variations from a very broad viewpoint across different styles, genres, and eras. Of course, we’ll talk about the “usual suspects” like Bach and Brahms, but also examples from Berio and Rands, minimalism and jazz, and more. This week, for example, we’re looking at sampling and layering in hip hop as a type of modular construction, including this still-recent banger from Kendrick Lamar (with credit to Mustard, Mong Higgins, and Ray Charles). Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, I give you “Not Like Us.”
Composer