Gail Archer, professor of professional practice in music and director of the Barnard-Columbia Chorus and Chamber Choir, is well versed in the instrumental and choral traditions that have defined European music and culture through the ages.
In addition to her nearly four-decade career at Barnard, Archer is a Grammy-nominated concert organist and one of the few women organists in the field. Her online magazine, Musforum, provides an international network for women organists to advocate for and affirm their work.
In her course, Introduction to Music, Archer extends her expertise and passion to her students. Together, they embark on a yearlong survey into the many incarnations of classical music. The first semester explores music from sixth-century Gregorian chants to the works of renowned composers — such as Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel — concluding around 1750. The second semester picks up in 1770 and follows the genre’s evolution into the modern day.
Each class invokes the spirit of the course’s creative pedagogy. “We analyze musical scores, listen to recorded performances, sing, and clap out rhythmic patterns and rhythmic ‘compositions’ based on examples we find in the music,” said Archer. “We are part of the writing program, so students attend a live concert in NYC as critics for project one, where they compare three to six recordings of a single work and describe the strengths and weaknesses of a given performance for project two. Students are encouraged to choose recordings that are very different in their year of release. Finally, they read John Cage’s book Silence and report on his many avant-garde approaches to composition and creativity in general.”
In addition to taking the introductory course, students are invited to audition for the College’s choir, which specializes in a cappella and choral literature from the Renaissance to the present — with auditions held in September and January.
“I want these students to develop a historical sense of what was taking place and to make it a life habit to always be able to appreciate classical music,” said Archer.
Leading up to the choir’s biannual concerts, held at the end of both the fall and spring semesters, Archer orchestrates weekly rehearsals. There, students complete a range of vocal and breathing exercises before honing in on particularly challenging sections of the music.
The group most recently performed the compositions of Missa Brevis by Zoltán Kodály and Te Deum laudamus by Antonín Dvořák, alongside the choir of Gdynia Maritime University from Poland. And earlier this year, the choir from Gdynia were invited to perform at the spring concert on Columbia University’s campus, held in St. Paul’s Chapel.
To learn more about Archer’s Introduction to Music course and the Barnard-Columbia Chorus and Chamber Choir, watch the video above.
— TARA TERRANOVA ’25
