23rd Annual Student Research Conference
"Tintinnabuli": Arvo Pärt and Mystic Minimalism
Alexander W. Monroe
Prof. Shirley McKamie, Faculty Mentor
Estonian Arvo Pärt is, in many ways, a composer in the wrong era. Although it is composed in a fast-paced, technology-driven world, his music begs at the eternal peacefulness of thirteenth-century Gregorian chant. During a period of compositional silence, Pärt's musical mind was reawakened by a 1960s breakthrough in music and visual art: Minimalism. Through this innovative, reductive approach to art, Pärt found his musical individuality and created his own musical style: tintinnabuli, from the Latin tinnabulae, of bells. By infusing his Russian Orthodox religious background with his new tintinnabular compositional style, Pärt was able to transform religious music in the late twentieth century, offering a calming, spiritual experience to a frantic generation.
Keywords: Russian Orthodox, Estonia, Philosophy, New Music, Composition, Minimalism, Postmoderism, Hesychast
Topic(s):Music
Philosophy & Religion
Presentation Type: Oral Paper
Session: 6-2
Location: VH 1010
Time: 8:15