The Classical Alternative

Welcome to The Classical Alternative! I’m Doug Shadle, a musicologist and professor at Vanderbilt University’s Blair School of Music.

Orchestral music is my jam. Over the past decade, I’ve researched and written about the past, present, and future of American orchestras. And I have much more to share.

Since the pace of publication is far slower than the flow of ideas, I’ve decided to start a newsletter that fills in those gaps. Each issue will include material related to my ongoing research projects, my teaching at Vanderbilt, or current events in the world of classical music. And I’ll use this space to put the spotlight on other folks doing work that inspires me.

My ultimate goal is to tell new stories about Western classical music that disrupt elitist standard narratives. Hence The Classical Alternative—where the word “great” will always appear in scare quotes!

Other Material by Doug Shadle

Books:

• Antonín Dvořák's New World Symphony (Oxford, 2021).

• Andrew Patner, A Portrait in Four Movements: The Chicago Symphony Under Barenboim, Boulez, Haitink, and Muti, ed. w/ John R. Schmidt (Chicago, 2019)

• Orchestrating the Nation: The Nineteenth-Century American Symphonic Enterprise (Oxford, 2016)

Web:

• “When the New York Philharmonic Fought Over Santa Claus” (2020)

• “5 Questions to Wu Fei (composer, vocalist, guzheng virtuoso)” (2019)

• “Plus Ça Change: Florence B. Price in the #BlackLivesMatter Era” (2019)

• “Florence Beatrice Price: A Closer Look with Musicologist Douglas Shadle” (2019)

• “Systemic Discrimination: The Burden of Sameness in American Orchestras” (2018)

• “Honoring the ‘Thankless and Unending Toil’ of Composing Music” (2016)

• “Policing Concert Hall Patriotism: Consequences” (2015)

• “Policing Concert Hall Patriotism: Causes” (2015)

• “How Santa Claus Became a Slave Driver: The Role of Print Culture in a Nineteenth-Century Controversy” (2014 — Paywalled: contact me for access)

• “Nothing Ordinary About It: The Mass Proper as Early Music Jigsaw Puzzle” (2012)

• “Louis Moreau Gottschalk’s Pan-American Symphonic Ideal” (2011 — Paywalled: contact me for access)

Broadcast:

• “Notes on Notes,” Podcast w/ Leah Broad, Oxford, UK (2019)

• “WDR3 TonArt,” WDR3, Cologne, Germany (2019)

• “KPBS Midday Edition,” KPBS Public Media, San Diego, CA (2018)

• “Orchestrating the Nation,” New Books Network w/ Kristen Turner (2018)  

• “Performance Today,” 270 NPR stations nationwide (2017)

• “The Unheard” w/ Sara Soltau, WUOL 90.5, Louisville, KY (2017)

• “The Unheard” w/ Sara Soltau, WUOL 90.5, Louisville, KY (2016)

• “Made in the U.S.A” w/ Sara Soltau, WUOL 90.5, Louisville, KY (2016)

• “The Early Struggle of American Classical Composers” w/ Judlyne Lilly-Gibson, KMFA, Austin, TX (2016)