Music Appreciation
Learn to love music from the Baroque to the Modern from Handel to Hendrix. Let WEA take you into the world of music to understand its beauty, rhythms and soul. You will find fun, enlightenment and fulfilment in the joy of music.
Available Classes
The Great Falsettos of the 50s and 60s
<p>Come along to hear the high-pitched and unique sound of the 1950s and early 1960s. Beginning with the Post-War Doo-Wop craze, young men turned to adding shrill high notes to their harmonies. It was
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Available Classes
Elgar's Enigma Variations
<p>This short course takes a deep dive into the much-beloved orchestral work by Edward Elgar, the Enigma Variations. We will discuss how the work is structured, how the ‘Enigma’ theme is developed in
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Music in England, France and the Netherlands - Peter Philips to Fauré
<p>England’s main cultural ties with the Continent historically have been with France and the Netherlands. This course will examine the relationships and contrasts between the music of these countries
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The Intriguing World of Franz Schubert
<p>Franz Peter Schubert (1797 – 1828) was an Austrian composer whose life straddled the late Classical and early Romantic eras. Despite his short life, he was 31 when he died, he left behind a huge
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The Largest Instrument, the Orchestra
<p>The orchestra is a large and very complicated instrument which has grown since Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos. Beethoven and Wagner enlarged the orchestra and Mahler in his Symphony No. 8 pushed the
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The Symphonies of Beethoven
<p>Beethoven’s nine symphonies are as beloved as they are ubiquitous. You would be hard-pressed to find someone that hasn’t heard the opening to the dramatic Fifth Symphony, or the choral sublimity of
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Female Composers from Bingen to Beach
<p>In the great pantheon of Western art composers, where are the women? We may be ultimately familiar with Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms, but what do we know of Bingen and Beach? Historically, women
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Disco Revolution @45rpm
<p>Disco music was long considered the poor cousin of rock and roll. However, disco’s roots are steeped in counterculture 1960s New York. Early underground clubs were the haunts of blacks, latinos and
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The Operas of Richard Strauss
<p>Between 1892 and 1941, Richard Strauss wrote some of the world’s most important operatic masterworks amidst several periods of national and global upheaval. Tracing the evolution of Strauss’s
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A Beginner's Guide to the Symphony
<p>What is a symphony? For more than two centuries the symphony has represented the summit of a composer’s ambition. But what actually defines a symphony, and how do you listen to one? Learning more
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