Date of Award

Fall 1-3-2025

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Fine Arts (MFA)

Department

Film and Media Studies

First Advisor

Rachel Stevens

Second Advisor

Michael Gitlin

Academic Program Adviser

Andrew Demirjian

Abstract

Serious Music with Bea Witkin is a site-specific audio walk on New York City’s Upper West Side produced by Megan Hattie Stahl. This immersive, musical documentary explores and extends the life and work of composer Beatrice Witkin (1916-1990). Across four stationary chapters and three walking interludes, participants follow a one-mile route from Riverside Park to Straus Park by way of Witkin’s longtime residence on West End Avenue. Through guided narration, archival music, interviews and recordings of contemporary musicians sight-reading a 1985 string quartet piece by Witkin, Serious Music invites listeners to consider where music begins and ends.

Witkin, who graduated from Hunter College in the late 1930s, composed prolifically throughout her life in various styles: musical theater, chamber music, experimental electronic music and Jewish cantillations. While she received funding from the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations and the National Endowment for the Arts and worked alongside a range of renowned figures like Leornard Bernstein and Karlheinz Stockhausen, Witkin is an obscure figure in 20th music history and as of 2024, many of her compositions remain unpublished. Her most well-known work is a theme song composed on Buchla synthesizer for the 1970s television show Wild Wild World of Animals. Serious Music examines Witkin’s lifelong efforts to navigate the worlds of both “serious” and commercial music, all while balancing marriage and motherhood.

Comments

For information about how to experience Serious Music with Bea Witkin, please visit the artist's website: www.meganhattiestahl.com/

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