Arnold Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire, while not the first composition to use the Sprechstimme technique, holds a seminal position in redefining the voice—and what a trained classical singer is “allowed” to do—in Western classical music in the 20th century. Beginning with the Second Viennese School and surveying the 20th century, this seminar examines the evolution of the voice on the classical concert stage from both compositional and performance perspectives. From the overtone singing of Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Stimmung to Cathy Berberian’s comic Stripsody, from Luigi Nono’s defiant Quando Stanno Morendo to Chaya Czernowin’s wordless opera Pnima...Ins Innere, the breadth of possibility for vocal expression has proven itself boundless through the imagination and boldness of composers and performers. Students will be encouraged to think critically about these vocal sounds, their history in Western classical music, the techniques used to create them (and their origins), and what they reveal on emotional, social, and cultural levels in performance.