Explore the relationship between hearing, seeing, and the imagination at the 35th Annual Humanities Day

When a teenage boy is castrated before the onset of puberty, his voice produces an extraordinarily unique sound with incredible range. Moreover, according to Martha Feldman, a Mabel Greene Myers Professor of Music and the Humanities in the College, these voices of castrated male singers from the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries are indeed lost, or at least, unappreciated. Professor Feldman will nevertheless discuss how to train the mind’s ear in order to rediscover the “unique timber” of the lost castrato voice purely through imagination in her talk, “How to Hear and Unheard Voice: Explorations in Improbable Hearing.” This unusual presentation about unheard sounds and registers will ultimately provide the necessary outlet for navigating the acoustic phenomenon of a castrato’s performance. Continue reading →