AMS Lecture Series: Sound and Vision: Set and Sound Design in David Bowie’s Diamond Dogs Tour
The American Musicological Society and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame collaborate on a lecture series that brings scholarly work to a broader audience and showcases the musicological work of the top scholars in the field.
Our spring lecture will feature presentations by a musicologist:
Dr. Katherine Reed (California State University), “Sound and Vision: Set and Sound Design in David Bowie’s Diamond Dogs Tour"
About the Program
Our June lecture will feature presentation “Sound and Vision: Set and Sound Design in David Bowie’s Diamond Dogs Tour" by Dr. Katherine Reed (California State University) on Thursday, June 22nd, 2023. For an artist like David Bowie, making his concept albums’ worlds tangible in performance was an important project. Take his 1974 tour: onstage, a cityscape oozed multicolored drips, while catwalks and cranes moved around the stage. Collaborating with Broadway design veteran Jules Fisher and set designer Mark Ravitz, Bowie envisioned a stage show where his album Diamond Dogs could be brought to life. Bowie and his collaborators created a sound collage, culled from radio recordings, weather reports, city sounds, and more. How did it come into being and what can it show us about Bowie’s creative process?
Join AMS scholar Dr. Katherine Reed as she draws on Rock and Rock Hall of Fame archival evidence and new interviews with Bowie’s collaborators exploring his multimedia, immersive performance settings. This research enters the world of Bowie’s 1974 Diamond Dogs tour, bringing the audience to a better understanding of the use of media in the rest of Bowie’s tours, as well as its influence on contemporary rock performance.
The American Musicological Society and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (RRHOF) in Cleveland, Ohio, collaborate on a lecture series that brings scholarly work to a broader audience and showcases the musicological work of the top scholars in the field. The AMS / Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Lectures provide a public forum that brings music research to a broader audience.
About the Presenter
Dr. Katherine Reed is Associate Professor of Musicology at California State University, Fullerton, where she teaches courses in music history, popular music, and film music. Dr. Reed’s research interests include musical reuse in film, semiotics, and popular music, particularly David Bowie’s works of the 1970s. Her book, David Bowie and the Moving Image: A Standing Cinema, is now available.
