Schools : Science & Music ? Yes ! Let's talk Alexander Borodin ! Resources

Alexander Porfiryevich Borodin

credits: Drawing by Natalia Mikhaylenko

https://www.rbth.com/arts/

"Know more as a musician than a scientist, Alexander Borodin was a friend and colleague to many famous scientists of the 19th century. Sometimes those just outside the limelight have their stories to tell."

Eva Amsen

Although composer Alexander Borodin (1833-1887) is best known for writing one of the best Russian operas, Prince Igor, he was also a renowned scientist and chemist. 

In fact, many Russian composers were not only composers. Mussorgsky was a militarist. Rimsky-Korsakov was a sailor.

The son of a Georgian prince, Alexander Porfiryevich Borodin was a sickly child who went on to create a powerful legacy in two different fields. 

Alexander Borodin

https://en.wikipedia.org/

Born in St. Petersburg on this day in 1833, Borodin showed an early aptitude for science, languages, and music. 

While mastering German, French, and English, he began studying flute at age eight and later learned the violin and violoncello. 

By the age of 13 he’d already composed a piece for flute and piano, nevertheless, he considered music to be a hobby while his main focus was in the field of science.

Google Doodle:

Google Doodle Alexander Borodin’s 185th Birthday

https://www.google.com/doodles/

Today, 12 November Google celebrates the 185th birthday with an interactive Doodle. Borodin, the boy who grew up to become both a distinguished chemist and one of Russia’s greatest classical composers.

He was a Russian Romantic composer who was a doctor and chemist by profession and made important early contributions to the field of organic chemistry. 

Although he is better known today as a composer, during his lifetime, he regarded medicine and science as his primary occupations, only pursuing music and composition in his spare time or when he was ill. 

The Five

https://en.wikipedia.org/

• Borodin, the composer:

Alexander Borodin, a Russian chemist and composer, was born Nov. 12, 1833.  Most people, if they have heard of Borodin at all, know him as a composer of symphonic poems, such as The Steppes of Central  Asia, or as an opera composer and creator of the Polovtsian Dances from Prince Igor opera.

Musically, he was one of the prominent 19th-century composers known as The Mighty Handful, a group dedicated to producing a uniquely Russian kind of classical music, rather than imitating earlier Western European models.

The group of five Russian composers: César Cui, Aleksandr Borodin, Mily Balakirev, Modest Mussorgsky, and Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov who in the 1860s banded together in an attempt to create a truly national school of Russian music, free of the stifling influence of Italian opera, German lieder, and other western European forms. 

Borodin is best known for his two symphonies - his third was unfinished, interrupted by his early death; his two string quartets, the tone poem and his opera Prince Igor, also unfinished – it was completed by Rimsky-Korsakov and Alexander Glazunov.

Music from Prince Igor and his string quartets was later adapted for the US musical Kismet (1953). .

With three Tony Awards (including Best Musical), a television version and an MGM smash film, Kismet is one of the most renowned musicals to grace the Great White Way. Kismet has proven a winner with audiences time and again, thanks to its exotic setting, appealing characters and wry sense of humor... not to mention a lush score that is adapted from the soaring melodies of Alexander Borodin.

Alexander Borodin

https://www.famousscientists.org/

Portrait of composer and chemist Aleksander Porfirievich Borodin

by Ilya Repin

https://commons.wikimedia.org/

• Borodin, the scientist:

In fact, by profession, Borodin was a medically-trained organic chemist, and a very good one.  He taught at the Imperial Medical-Surgical Academy in St. Petersburg.  

Modern organic chemists recognize him as the co-discoverer of the aldol reaction, which is used to build complex carbon compounds, and for his work in organic synthesis.  He was also instrumental is setting up the first medical school for women in St. Petersburg, where he himself taught for some years.

At 17, Borodin began his studies at St Petersburg’s Medico-Surgical Academy, delving into botany, zoology, anatomy, and crystallography. Soon specialized in organic chemistry, earning his doctorate in 1858. 

St. Petersburg. Imperial Academy of Medical and Surgical (Military Medical)

https://commons.wikimedia.org/

He went on to become a professor at his alma mater, conducting research on benzene derivatives and organic synthesis, and the discovery of the aldol reaction. 

He’s also remembered as a champion of women’s rights, equal opportunity. He was of the opinion that there should be equality of education and was convinced that women would make good doctors. 

Medicina Ars Nobilissima

https://en.wikipedia.org/

Having founded the Women’s Medical School in St. Petersburg, where he taught for many years. The project of which Borodin was most proud. 

On his burial casket there is a silver plate from his female students which reads: "To the Founder, Protector and Defender of the School of Medicine for Women."

Alexander Borodin

https://www.famousscientists.org/

Still, the music kept calling him. As a chemist, he is best known for his work in organic synthesis, including being among the first chemists to demonstrate nucleophilic substitution, as well as being the co-discoverer of the aldol reaction.

credits: The Knowledge Review

Education : 

"Music offers a bundle of advantages for the educational and overall development of students. Training in music helps students develop language and reasoning. Early musical training helps develop the areas of brain related to language and reasoning. Music can help develop the left side of our brain, and songs can help in imprinting information on our minds."

Music also has the potential to achieve social and psychological transformation of children and young people. Their sensibility will be accurate. 

We must never waste such an opportunity as teachers! Captivating the major interests of our students to Music.

Some teachers love Music and feel comfortable to speak about Music in school curricula.

So, there's Alexander Borodin to include into your school curriculum. 

Displaying the Doodle could be an interesting approach to understand the feelings of some of your students about classical music. 

I'm sure you will discover some gifted kids. You can guide them to continue to study Music in Higher Education.

And science? See? Some good students in science will discover that they can do both. Music and science.

 

Dr Frances H. Arnold Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2018

https://vcresearch.berkeley.edu/

Borodin has been a precursor on women and girls in science education. Wow! In the 19th century? 

Over the last years, the global community has made a  great effort to inspire and engage women and girls in science. But the gap is still a problem.

Girls do as well as boys in science, maths, STEM, at school but many more boys go on to further study science, technology, engineering and medicine.

Remember to include Nobel Prize Nobel in Chemistry 2018 with one half to Frances H. Arnold. 

Resources: Book

Alexander Borodin

Composer, Scientist, Educator

Williem Vijvers

via ABC The American Book Center

https://abc.nl/

This book will be valuable to musicologists and historians of science alike. It should appeal to a wider audience of music lovers and people interested in Russian history.

The author is a chemist and worked as a specialist in scientific and patent information. Additionally, he studied music and graduated in Russian studies. He published several articles in these fields.

Other resources:

Please visit my posts on Beethoven, Grieg, Debussy among others.

Alexander Borodin: A Composer Among Chemists

Alexander Borodin, composer and scientist

http://www.lateralmag.com/articles/

Some thoughts: 

All of your lessons plans must be thought to meet specific area and curricular requirements, but also enrich students experience. 

For example, start by choosing the subject areas such as Core Curriculum (Language, Science, Music, Digital Literacy) and of course a Media Art | Music cross-curricular project.

Music Art| Project in Vocational education: 

Based on the curricular strand to be focused on in conjunction with students needs and any other specific classroom requirements, the art form and a specially trained LTTA (Learning Trough the Arts) are selected. 

Invite LTTA artists to collaborate with you in partnership to develop customized arts-infused lesson plans.

G-Souto 

12.11.2018

update 12.11.2020
Copyright © 2020G-Souto'sBlog, gsouto-digitalteacher.blogspot.com®

Schools : Science & Music ? Yes, Alexander Borodin : resources by G-Souto is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Schools : Let's talk about Art : Oskar Schlemmer

The New Vision of Life

Oskar Schlemmer
Bahaus Master

https://www.bauhaus100.de/

Oskar Shlemmer once described the themes of his work: “the human figure in space, its moving and stationary functions, sitting, lying, walking, standing” as being “as simple as they are universally valid.”

German artist, choreographer and stage designer Oskar Schlemmer thrilled the world with his groundbreaking “Triadic Ballet”.

Space Dance, Gesture Dance, Rod Dance, Triadic Ballet, Oskar Schlemmer developed his costumed, masked dancer into an “art figure” synthesizing dance, costume and music. 

Oskar Shlemmer 130th Birthday

https://www.google.com/doodles/

• Google Doodle:

The search engine Google celebrated last 4th September, Oskar Schlemmer’s 130th Birthday with a awesome animated Doodle.

Bulbous mechanical creatures wearing metallic masks are not the usual image that comes to mind when one thinks of ballet. But that’s precisely what Oskar Schlemmer used to stage his ‘Triadic Ballet,’ a groundbreaking production that premiered in Stuttgart, Germany in 1922.

The Doodle celebrating the artist, pays homage to Schlemmer’s “Triadisches (Triadic) Ballet”, the work which brought him international fame, with an animated representation of a seemingly mechanical ballerina in a metal mask.

Oskar Schlemmer

Photo: unknown, 1928.

https://www.bauhauskooperation.com/

• Some biographical notes:

Oskar Schlemmer was born in Stuttgart on September 4, 1888, the youngest of six children, and had to become completely self-sufficient around the age of 15 following the death of his parents.

After pursuing apprenticeships in inlay and marquetry, began studying at art school in his home city, under the tutelage of prominent German landscape painters.

Schlemmer turned to sculpture after the war, exhibiting at Berlin’s Gallery Der Sturm, before becoming one of the most influential figures of the Bauhaus movement, teaching stage research and production at the eponymous school in Weimar.

Oskar Schlemmer, who almost nine decades after his death remains one of the most influential 21st century aesthetes, was the original multihyphenate. 

Scouted by Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius in 1921, the Stuttgart-born painter, sculptor and choreographer became one of the first masters of the “staaliche” movement in Weimar.

Costumes from Schlemmer's Triadisches Ballett (1922)

https://en.wikipedia.org/

Born on 4th September 1888, Schlemmer was the youngest of six children who attended art school before traveling to Weimar, Germany, to join Walter Gropius’ avant-garde Bauhaus, where he became director of stage research and production. Schlemmer also experimented with painting, sculpture.

Group at Table, 1923

Oskar Schlemmer 

via Sothebys

However, it's his creative theater designs that are most remembered, influencing future artists like David Bowie.

Bauhaus ballet costume by Oskar Schlemmer 
based on Kansai Yamamoto / David Bowie
via Pinterest

Comparison of a Bauhaus ballet costume from the Triadisches Ballett directed by Oskar Schlemmer and one of David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust costumes designed by Kansai Yamamoto.

Ziggy Stardust

David Bowie & Kansai Yamamoto
https://www.davidbowie.com/

In his ideas, Oskar Schlemmer used elaborate costumes to transform costumed and masked dancers into 'artificial figures' in which dance, costume and music are united. Space Dance, Gesture Dance, Rod Dance, Hoop Dance, Metal Dance, Form Dance, Scenery Dance, and the Triadic Ballet.

Oskar Schlemmer  was a designer and choreographer associated with the Bauhaus school. In 1923 he was hired as Master of Form at the Bauhaus theatre workshop, after working some time at the workshop of sculpture. 

His most famous work is Triadisches Ballett, in which the actors are transfigured from the normal to geometrical shapes. 

Costums by Oskar Schlemmer (Bauhaus) for Ballet Triadic

at Metropol Theater in Berlin

credits: Ernst Schneider, 1926/ Getty Images

https://www.gettyimages.com/

With three dancers, 12 movements, and 18 costumes, Schlemmer’s innovative approach to ballet broke with all convention to explore the relationship between body and space in new and exciting way. He described the performance as “‘artistic metaphysical mathematics,” and a “party in form and color.” 

Treppenszene (Stairway Scene), 1932
Oskar Schlemmer

 Kunsthalle Hamburg, Hamburg

https://en.wikipedia.org/

Education:

My usual readers know I write very often about Art in education. Art are absolutely necessary to a complete and better education of children and young people. 

Discovering Art in school education, some students can pick their inner path on Art and later they will choose Art colleges and Higher Schools of Arts to develop their aptitude by a real learning of Art no matter the field.

credits: Amy Zschaber slisdeshare

https://www.slideshare.net/

Students attending schools in high poverty communities have less access to Art instruction than their peers in more affluent communities.

Pressure to improve test scores in other content areas is another top barrier to Art education. 

And it's a scientific idea that Arts - music, dance, theater - are a wonderful therapy for hyperactive kids that have a great difficulty to concentrate.

Art give them the concentration discipline and the pleasure to express with creativity.

It's true that a lot of schools don't have specialists in Art in full-time-equivalent, although secondary schools are much more likely than elementary schools to employ specialists. 

However teachers with a special taste to Art can motivate students including Art into school curricula. And digital resources as this Doodle can motivate students to discover their path and develop aesthetic skills for life.

It would be important to give a different meaning of Art in school curricula and to have good teachers of Art providing professional first development for kids that could, in a different level of education, continue Art studies at Higher Schools of Arts

In our days, digital culture is well-come into the school curriculum as an important tool to tackle the world's toughest problems creating bridges and establish a truly intercultural world, where diversity can be celebrated, a world where different cultures not only coexist but value each other for their contributions and potential.

The Abstract, 1920

Oskar Schlemmer

Curricula: Arts ; Literature ; Design ; Digital Art.

Level: All levels. 

• Focus on Art (Vocational Education) ; School of Arts (Higher Education).

• Secondary education: cross-curricular Literature & Art.

G-Souto

08.09.2018

Copyright © 2018G-Souto'sBlog, gsouto-digitalteacher.blogspot.com®

Schools : Let's talks about Art : Oskar Schlemmer by G-Souto is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.