Jennifer Walker – författare

Military defeat, political and civil turmoil, and a growing unrest between Catholic traditionalists and increasingly secular Republicans formed the basis of a deep-seated identity crisis in Third Republic France. Beginning in the early 1880s, Republican politicians introduced increasingly secularizing legislation to the parliamentary floor that included, but was not limited to, the secularization of the French educational system. As the divide between Church and State widened on the political stage, more and more composers began writing religious--even liturgical--music for performance in decidedly secular venues, including popular cabaret theaters, prestigious opera houses, and international exhibitions. This trend coincided with Pope Leo XIII's Ralliement politics that encouraged conservative Catholics to "rally" with the Republican government. But the idea of a musical Ralliement has largely gone unquestioned by historians and musicologists alike. Sacred Sounds, Secular Spaces provides the first fundamental reconsideration of music's role in the relationship between the French state and the Catholic Church in the Third Republic. In doing so, the book dismantles the somewhat simplistic epistemological position that emphasizes a sharp division between the Church and the "secular" Republic during this period. Drawing on extensive archival research, critical reception studies, and musical analysis, author Jennifer Walker reveals how composers and critics from often opposing ideological factions undermined the secular/sacred binary through composition and musical performance in an effort to craft a brand of Frenchness that was built on the dual foundations of secular Republicanism and the heritage of the French Catholic Church.

Hector Berlioz's Requiem (Grande Messe des Morts, 1837) remains a fixture in the repertoire of choirs and orchestras today. Since 2003, it has been performed in its entirety over one hundred times and has appeared on concert programs spanning the globe: from Russia to the United Kingdom, Finland to the United States, and many locations in between. These performances have, for the most part, been received positively but critics have not always been this kind to Berlioz and his Requiem. Romantic grandiosity, empty dramatic effect, religious insincerity: such are the descriptors that undergird many modern understandings of Berlioz's now-canonic work. Nineteenth-century critics and audiences, however, heard the Requiem in different and compelling ways. This book presenting a broad new musical and social context for understanding the Requiem as Berlioz conceived it and his contemporaries heard it. It asks what, if anything, did nineteenth-century listeners find to be notable about the work, and why? The answers to these questions lie in detailed explorations of Berlioz's relationship to the aesthetics of French sacred music, the theological sublime, and aural architecture. Theatrical as they may have appeared, Berlioz's innovative orchestrations and colossal choral configurations in the Requiem may now be heard as an embrace of the aural possibilities offered by the sounding of the sacred sublime, the physical architecture of French churches, and the interplay between the sacred and the secular.

Hector Berlioz's Requiem (Grande Messe des Morts, 1837) remains a fixture in the repertoire of choirs and orchestras today. Since 2003, it has been performed in its entirety over one hundred times and has appeared on concert programs spanning the globe: from Russia to the United Kingdom, Finland to the United States, and many locations in between. These performances have, for the most part, been received positively but critics have not always been this kind to Berlioz and his Requiem. Romantic grandiosity, empty dramatic effect, religious insincerity: such are the descriptors that undergird many modern understandings of Berlioz's now-canonic work. Nineteenth-century critics and audiences, however, heard the Requiem in different and compelling ways. This book presenting a broad new musical and social context for understanding the Requiem as Berlioz conceived it and his contemporaries heard it. It asks what, if anything, did nineteenth-century listeners find to be notable about the work, and why? The answers to these questions lie in detailed explorations of Berlioz's relationship to the aesthetics of French sacred music, the theological sublime, and aural architecture. Theatrical as they may have appeared, Berlioz's innovative orchestrations and colossal choral configurations in the Requiem may now be heard as an embrace of the aural possibilities offered by the sounding of the sacred sublime, the physical architecture of French churches, and the interplay between the sacred and the secular.

One of the major domestic policy issues of our time is whether our nation can provide a more effective educational experience for our children. Economists have stressed that the quality of our educational system eventually defines the ability of our workforce, which in turn affects our competitive position in the world market. This issue has earned increasing attention in light of recent reports that students in many nations perform at higher levels of educational competence than children in America's schools.Inspiring Greatness in Education describes the 21st Century Schools program (21C), a whole-school reform model developed by Edward Zigler over 20 years ago and since then has been in a constant state of testing, implementation, and scaling up. The goal of 21C is to promote optimal child development, which should become manifest in sound educational performance. In practice, 21C provides preschool education as well as good-quality child care before and during the school years, in combination with a number of other family supports. This book will provide an in-depth case study examination of the experience of the Independence School District in Independence, Missouri. The Independence School District embraced School of the 21st Century concepts in 1988, becoming the first urban school district in the nation to do so. This book reveals and documents Independence School District's success as a national model for 21C programming, as well as the experiences, testimonials and opinions of parents, students, teachers, administrators and community officials. By focusing on the impetus and history of the 21C concept, its organic evolution and its applications at the Independence School District, this book is designed to inform, educate, and inspire all who read it and to serve as a model for other school districts that want to achieve similar successes.