18 November 2009 (3:30p.m., M267) Music Theory Colloquium Series, John Turci-Escobar, Washington University in St. Louis). "El Tango, or How Piazzolla read Borges"

4 December 2009 (12:30p.m., M267) Musicology Colloquium Series, Prof. J. Peter Burkholder , "Borrowing, Reminiscence, or Coincidence?: Testing the Evidence "

9 December 2009 (3:30p.m., M267) Music Theory Colloquium Series, Professional Development Session: "Preparing for the Job Market"

Previous News and Events

Departmental News

The music theory department was well represented at the Society for Music Theory conference in October in Montreal, Quebec:

• Post-doctoral scholar Vasili Byros gave a paper entitled “Revisiting Schema Theory;”
• Ph.D. student Sara Bakker gave a teaching demonstration for the Professional Development Committee and the Music Theory Pedagogy Interest Group entitled “Teaching Ternary Forms”
• Ph.D. student Mitchell Ohriner gave a paper entitled “Temporal Segmentation and Prototypical Phrase Categories.”

18 October, 2009. Prof. Marianne Kielian-Gilbert presented a paper “Becoming and Remembering – Temporal differentiation in vocal settings by Michael Daugherty (Jackie O, “Egyptian Time”) and Tori Amos (“Jackie’s Strength”)” for the Semiotic Society of America national conference.

23 October, 2009. Professor Emeritus Lewis Rowell will present a lecture at the College-Conservatory of Music, University of Cincinnati, in their "Thinking about Music" series. His title will be "Reflections on Tuning:  Remarks, Opinions, and Sound Bites from a Skeptic."

Professor Robert Hatten, presented the following : 

“Aesthetically Warranted Emotion and Composed Expressive Trajectories in Music,” invited plenary address for the International Conference on Music and Emotion-2009,” Durham University, August 30-Sept. 3, 2009.  He will aso present: “Musical Agency as Implied by Gesture and Emotion: Its Consequences for Listeners’ Experiencing of Musical Emotion,” for Semiotic Society of America national conference, Cincinnati, October 15-18, 2009.

Sept. 3, 2009:  Three members of the music theory community and one of the musicology community presented papers at the Second International Conference on Music and Minimalism, held in Kansas City:

Kyle Fyr (PhD student in music theory): " Same Music, Different Perceptions? Steve Reich’s Six Pianos and Six Marimbas as Case Study"

Gretchen Horlacher: "Tehillim and the Fullness of Time"

Kerry O’Brien (PhD student in musicology): "Perceptible Processes in Reich’s Ostinati: Arch Form and Multiple Downbeats in Music for Eighteen Musicians"

 Abigail Shupe (MM in music theory from IU and currently a doctoral student at the University of Western Ontario):  "Samples and the Material they create in Steve Reich’s City Life"

Miguel A. Roig-Francolí (PhD 1990), Professor of Music Theory at the College-Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati, has been named the winner of the 2009 George Rieveschl Jr. Award for Creative and/or Scholarly Works at the University of Cincinnati. [Full story]

PhD candidate Michael Vidmar-McEwen has received a Theodore Presser Award for Summer Enrichment for research at the Britten-Pears Library in Aldeburgh, UK.

The following students and alumni have accepted teaching positions for fall 2009:

• Michelle Clater (PhD 2009):  Maranatha Baptist Bible College, Watertown, WI
• Trina Thompson (PhD candidate):  Andrews University, Berrien Springs, MI
• Michael Vidmar-McEwen (PhD student):  The College of Wooster, Wooster, OH
• Andreas Metz (PhD student):  Baldwin-Wallace College, Berea, OH

4-5 May 2009.  Doctoral student Andrew McIntyre presented a paper "Process in Camille Saint-Saëns' Guitare" at the University of Calgary Graduate-Student Conference, Confounding Expectations: Collaborative Arts in Calgary, AB

3-4 April 2009. Doctoral student Andreas Metz presented a paper "Melodic Process and Pacing in the Adagio Affettuoso of Brahms's Cello Sonata, Op. 99" at the Midwest Graduate Music Consortium, 13th Annual Conference, Northwestern University, Chicago.

April 2-3, 2009. Professor Frank Samarotto presented the invited paper "The Drama of the Bridge: Modulation as Process" at McGill University and the University of Ottawa.

27-28 March 2009.  Doctoral student Mitch Ohriner presented a paper "Temporal Segmentation and Prototypical Phrase Models" at the Contemporary Music/Contemporary Issues Conference at the University at Buffalo in Buffalo, New York.

27-28 March 2009.  Doctoral student Andrew McIntyre presented a paper "The Lowly Humanist and the Mighty Pope: Structural Similarities in Heinrich Glarean's Modal System (1547) and Pope Gregory XIII's Calendar (1582)" at the Twenty-seventh Great Lakes Regional Conference of The College Music Society in Mount Pleasant, Michigan.

6-8 March 2009. Doctoral student Andrew McIntyre presented a paper "Process in Camille Saint-Saëns' Guitare" at the West Coast Conference of Music Theory and Analysis in Claremont, California.

2-3 March 2009.  Masters student Abigail Shupe presented a paper "Samples and the material they create in Steve Reich's City Life" at the University of Central Missouri New Music Festival 2009: Innovation in Warrensburg, Missouri.

27-28 February 2009.  Doctoral student Justin Lavacek presented a paper “Displaced Metrical Grids: Contrapuntal Dissonance in Bach” at the Music Theory Southeast Conference in Orlando, Florida.

20-22 February 2009.  Doctoral student Sara Bakker presented a paper "Parsing Time with Harmony" at the Dutch-Flemish Society for Music Theory Conference in Leuven, Belgium.

13-14 February 2009.  Doctoral student Christy Keele presented a paper "Problematizing Analysis: Culture and Fantasy in Process Music" at the Conversations in Music conference at the University of Michigan.

Professors Marianne Kielian-Gilbert and Robert Hatten have each given a paper at “Analysis and Performance:  A Symposium Celebrating the 40th Anniversary of Edward T. Cone’s Musical Form and Musical Performance,” at Princeton University on Dec. 5-6, 2008.  Professor Hatten’s paper was entitled “Performance and Analysis--or Synthesis:  Theorizing Gesture, Topics, and Tropes for Performers,” and Professor Kielian-Gilbert’s paper was entitled “Borderlands of Performance and Analysis – Between Form, Meaning, and Materiality (Anglophone perceptions of the premiere of ¡Únicamente la verdad! by Gabriela Ortiz).”

Professor Gretchen Horlacher has received a Publication Subvention Award from the Society for Music Theory in conjunction with her forthcoming book Building Blocks: Repetition and Continuity in Stravinsky's Music, which is under contract with Oxford University Press.

Christopher Raphael, Adjunct Associate Professor of Music Theory, has been awarded a $450,000 National Science Foundation grant to create a computer program that understands the gestural language of musical conducting through video. [Full Story]

Recent Publications

Prof. Frank Samarotto, “The Divided Tonic in the First Movement of Beethoven Op. 132,” in Keys to the Drama: Nine Perspectives on Sonata Forms, edited by Gordon Sly, from Ashgate Publishing

Vincent Benitez (PhD 2001), "Reconsidering Messiaen as Serialist." Music Analysis 28, nos. 2-3 (2009, forthcoming).

Prof. Frank Samarotto, “’Plays of Opposing Motion’: Contra-Structural Melodic Impulses in Voice-leading Analysis,” in Music Theory Online 15.2 (June, 2009).

Prof. Mary Wennerstrom, "The Liability of Labels," Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy 22 (2008).

Prof. Julian Hook,"Signature Transformations."  In Music Theory and Mathematics:  Chords, Collections, and Transformations (University of Rochester Press, 2008).

Prof. Julian Hook and Jack Douthett, "Uniform Triadic Transformations and the Twelve-tone Music of Webern."  Perspectives of New Music 46 (2008).

Prof. Marianne Kielian-Gilbert “Inventing a Melody with Harmony:  Tonal Potential and Bach’s “Das alte Jahr vergangen ist,” Journal of Music Theory 50.1 (2008).

M. Rusty Jones (Ph.D. 2004) and Martin Bergee, "Elements Associated with Success in the First-Year Music Theory and Aural-Skills Curriculum." Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy 22 (2008).

Prof. Emeritus Lewis Rowell. "Gesture and Meaning in the Musical Languages of India." In A Sounding of Signs: Modalities and Moments in Music, Culture, and Philosophy, ed. Robert S. Hatten, Pirjo Kukkonen, Richard Littlefield, Harri Veivo, and Irma Vierimaa. Imatra: International Semiotics Institute, 2008.

Vincent Benitez (PhD 2001), "A Conversation with Composer Gerald Levinson about Olivier Messiaen." (12 December 2008).

Vincent Benitez (PhD 2001), "Messiaen as Improviser." Dutch Journal of Music Theory 13, no. 2 (2008).

Vincent Benitez (PhD 2001), Olivier Messiaen: A Research and Information Guide. Routledge Music Bibliographies. New York and London: Routledge, 2008.