Music and the Arts

Why are people moved by music? Is there such a thing as a great work of art? Do people see a thing differently if they draw it? Is the rhythm of poetry the rhythm of music? At St. John’s students sing Palestrina in the Great Hall, sketch plants, study how text and music work together in Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, and derive the equation for a vibrating string. Students can also take figure drawing classes, join the orchestra, dance in the studio, play in a jazz band, and throw clay in the pottery studio. Whether students have been long dedicated to an artistic practice or are new to fine arts, conversations about their place in a worthy human life are an important part of a liberal arts education.

NOTE

Music and the arts are a few of the many subjects studied in the college’s interdisciplinary great books curriculum. There are no majors at St. John’s. Instead, students explore all these subjects over the course of all four years. Learn more about St. John’s classes.

Reading List

Johann Sebastian Bach St. Matthew Passion, Inventions

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina Missa Papae Marcelli

Joseph Haydn Quartets

Claudio Monteverdi L’Orfeo

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Operas

Albert Murray Stomping the Blues

Franz Schubert Songs

Igor Stravinsky Symphony of Psalms

Ludwig van Beethoven Third Symphony

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Don Giovanni

Richard Wagner Tristan and Isolde

William Wordsworth The Two-Part Prelude of 1799

Marcel Duchamp Essays

Édouard Manet Art

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart The Marriage of Figaro

Igor Stravinsky Music

The information presented is for illustration purposes only and may not reflect the current reading list and preceptorial and study group offerings. Works listed are studied at one or both campuses, although not always in their entirety.

Mitchell Gallery Teams with Newington-Cropsey Foundation to Bring Bronze Sculpture Fellowships to Johnnies

Internships

See what our summer fellows at the Academy of the Newington-Cropsey Foundation, Hastings-on-Hudson, have created. In two intensive weeks on a fully funded fellowship, Enkh-Od Batzorig (A22), Clare Collins (A22), and Monica Molina (A22) progressed through life drawings, sculpting terra cotta figures which will be cast into bronze, carving linoleum blocks for printmaking, and finishing with wood and marble carving.

Read More

Forest Woods Media Productions

Internships

The Hodson and Ariel Internship Programs support Johnnies who want to pursue internships that would otherwise be unpaid.

Senior Essay

Seeing and Feeling in Painting

Senior Essay

Suffering in Art: The Alienation of Passion in “Musée des Beaux Arts”

Pottery

Student Group

Senior Essay

When the Music is Over—An Exploration into the Purpose of Art and Music

St. John’s Chorus

Student Group

Small Chorus

Student Group

Baltimore Theatre Project

Internships

The Hodson and Ariel Internship Programs support Johnnies who want to pursue internships that would otherwise be unpaid.

Senior Essay

An Analysis of Two Kinds of Repentance in J.S. Bach’s St. Matthew Passion

Senior Essay

The Receding Figure: Sublime Moments in Three Landscapes by Caspar David Friedrich

Senior Essay

Two is Strong where One is Feeble: An Exploration of Love, Commitment and Community in Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess

Senior Essay

The Labyrinthine Self: The Experience of Self in Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker

Senior Essay

Ambiguity of Reality in the Translation of Worlds: Asking Van Gogh through His Paintings and Letters Why We Read

Senior Essay

Kommt, ihr Töchter, helft mir klagen: Bach’s St. Matthew Passionas an Invitation to Complex, Varied Lamentation

Senior Essay

“Voi che sapete che cosa e amor, vedete s’io l’ho nel cor.” An Exploration of Love in Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro

Senior Essay

Agape in the Form of Art: An Analysis of Andrei Tarkovsky’s Andrei Rublev

Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts and McBride Gallery

Internships

The Hodson and Ariel Internship Programs support Johnnies who want to pursue internships that would otherwise be unpaid.

Senior Essay

Love, Mythos, and Pat Metheny

Senior Essay

The Observer, Observed or: On the Possibility of Impossible Love in Chaplin’s City Lights

SITE Santa Fe

Internships

The Hodson and Ariel Internship Programs support Johnnies who want to pursue internships that would otherwise be unpaid.

Film Club

Student Group

Senior Essay

Reading the List: On Love and Revenge in Don Giovanni

Contemporary Choir

Student Group

Annapolis Shakespeare Company 

Internships

The Hodson and Ariel Internship Programs support Johnnies who want to pursue internships that would otherwise be unpaid.

Primum Mobile (renaissance / classical / a cappella)

Student Group

Blue Bear Films

Internships

The Hodson and Ariel Internship Programs support Johnnies who want to pursue internships that would otherwise be unpaid.

Equant (pop a cappella)

Student Group

Senior Essay

Finding Home: Man’s Journey in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony

Senior Essay

The Mechanics of Grace: A Schenkerian Approach to the Live Content of Bach’s First Prelude in C

Hainan Don-po Academy of Calligraphy and Painting

Internships

The Hodson and Ariel Internship Programs support Johnnies who want to pursue internships that would otherwise be unpaid.

Senior Essay

Night in Day: Making Peace with the Inevitability of Striving in Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde

Darkroom

Student Group

A darkroom on campus allows students to develop film and learn the fundamentals of photography.

Art Society

Student Group

Senior Essay

The Power of the Nonverbal in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey

Photo Club

Student Group

Film Society

Student Group