What’s it all about?
500 years of music history in just over an hour, and all whilst looking at some pretty paintings!
Sometimes we forget that ‘classical music’ was the Bey, One Direction, or Tay Swift of its time. Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven were all popular musicians, and their music is reflective of time and place. By exploring visual art, architecture, and world history, we can understand why classical music sounds the way it does.
What will we cover?
This class is designed for classical music novices, art lovers, history nerds, and everyone in between. A sightseeing tour of world events and the arts throughout different periods of European history will give us an insight into the main periods of classical music – Bach does actually sound different to Brahms, and we will explore why. We’ll be listening to lots of music, looking at lots of art, participating in a ‘guess that style!’ pub quiz and building a timeline from the Renaissance to now. Hopefully after this class, you might know whether you’re listening to the 1500s or the 1950s when you accidentally flip to Classic FM.
Not your average night at the opera – raucous audience behaviour most welcome.
Who will be teaching?
Anna van Veldhuisen is a musician and educator. With a percussion degree from the Victorian College of the Arts, she now teaches music history, theory and analysis to gifted young musicians at the VCA Secondary School, and is a Masters of Education candidate at the University of Melbourne. Anna is passionate about exploring classical music in accessible, engaging and relevant ways with young people and new adult audiences. She always scores excellently in the music rounds at pub trivia and hopes that after this session, you will too!