This page lists conference activity, publications, and other accomplishments of students and faculty in the music theory department from fall 2013 through summer 2014. See this page for more recent accomplishments.
Summer 2014
Alumni contribute to essay collection
Three recent alumni of the music theory department are among the contributors to Volume 2 of Engaging Students: Essays in Music Pedagogy, a web-based collection of short essays on the subject of student-centered learning. The articles by IU alumni are:
Sara Bakker (PhD 2013) and Timothy Chenette (PhD 2013), "Writing Across the Music Theory Curriculum"
Garrett Michaelsen (PhD 2013), "Improvising to Learn/Learning to Improvise: Designing Scaffolded Group Improvisations for the Music Theory Classroom"
Johnston article published
Professor Blair Johnston’s article “Salome's Grotesque Climax and Its Implications” appears in Volume 36, No. 1 of Music Theory Spectrum (pages 34–57).
Adams book review published
Professor Kyle Adams's review of the book Rhymin' and Stealin': Musical Borrowing in Hip-Hop by Justin A. Williams appears in Volume 36, No. 1 of Music Theory Spectrum (pages 167–70).
Hook article recognized
Academic publisher Taylor & Francis has designated Professor Julian Hook's article "Contemporary Methods in Mathematical Music Theory: A Comparative Case Study" the Mathematics and Statistics Article of the Week for the week of May 26, 2014. Professor Hook's article, published in the Journal of Mathematics and Music in 2013, is the first publication in JMM and the first music-related article to receive this recognition. UK-based Taylor & Francis publishes hundreds of scholarly journals, about 95 of which are related to mathematics or statistics. Current and past Articles of the Week are freely accessible at the link above.
Spring 2014
IU theorists active at MTMW
IU was well represented at the 25th annual conference of Music Theory Midwest, which took place at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin, on April 25–26.
Those presenting papers at the conference included the following:
Professor Christopher Brody presented "Three Apparent Recapitulation Forms from Bach's Keyboard Suites and Their Generic Origins."
PhD student Devin Chaloux presented "The Q–LW Generated Loop Progression and Hermeneutical implications in Elliott Smith's 'Between the Bars.'"
PhD candidate William Guerin presented "The Concept of Musical Meaning: A Reality Check."
PhD student Lucy Liu presented "Inner Form/Outer Form, and Questions of Ambiguity in the Adagio of Brahms's Op. 111."
MM student Nathaniel Mitchell presented "Sharp as a Tack, Bright as a Button: Timbral Metamorphoses in Saariaho's Sept papillons."
Recent alumni presenting papers at the conference included Victoria Malawey (PhD 2007) and Andrew Wilson (MM 2009).
In the recent MTMW elections, Professor Daphne Tan was elected Area II Representative to the MTMW Executive Board.
Tan presents paper at University of Chicago
On April 2, Professor Daphne Tan gave an invited presentation at the University of Chicago's Music History/Theory Workshop. She shared her paper, "Ernst Kurth on Form and Erformung."
Mead continues composition activities
Professor Andrew Mead's Twelve More Caprices for solo soprano saxophone were premiered by saxophonist Daniel Glaser at the North American Saxophone Alliance conference in Urbana, Illinois, on March 22. Mead also traveled to the Chinese University of Hong Kong, where on April 1 he participated as the outside member of a doctoral committee and offered a master class in composition.
Barna presents paper at CCM
On March 29, MM student Alyssa Barna presented her paper "Associative Polyphony and the All-Partition Array in the Unaccompanied Music of Milton Babbitt" at the conference "Approaches to Analysis and Interpretation," sponsored by the Music Theory and Musicology Society at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.
Brody presents paper at MTSMA
On March 21, Professor Christopher Brody presented his paper "The Second-Reprise Medial PAC and the Form of Bach's Binary Dance Movements" at the twelfth annual meeting of the Music Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic at Shenandoah University in Winchester, Virginia.
Hamm wins research award
PhD candidate Chelsey Hamm is the recipient of a Research Award from the IU Graduate and Professional Student Organization, enabling her to pursue archival work at Yale University's Charles Ives collection in the summer of 2014.
GTA presents annual symposium
The Graduate Theory Association presented its 20th Annual Symposium of Research in Music Theory on February 21–22. GTA president Jason Jedlicka and more than a dozen other graduate students were involved in planning, chairing sessions, hospitality, technological assistance, and publicity for the symposium.
Those presenting papers at the symposium included several IU students, faculty, and recent alumni:
Professor Andrew Mead stepped in on short notice to deliver the keynote address, "Fuzzy Edges: Notes on Musical Interaction in the Music of Elliott Carter," and also led a workshop on Carter's music.
Professor Christopher Brody delivered a featured presentation titled "Parametric Interaction in Tonal Repertoires: A Meta-Theory of Form and Structure."
Professor Julian Hook delivered a featured presentation titled "Generic Sequences and the Generic Tonnetz."
PhD candidate Steve Grazzini presented "In Defense of Rameau's Theory of Supposition."
PhD student Ryan Taycher presented "Schenker, Brahms, and the Phrygian 2."
Alumna Abigail Shupe (MM 2009) presented "Rameau, Voltaire, Castel, and the Stakes of Enlightenment Music Theory."
Alumnus Calvin Peck (MM 2013) presented "Concerning the Limits of Aural Skills Pedagogy."
Taycher presents paper at Mannes
On January 26, PhD student Ryan Taycher presented his paper "Schenker, Brahms, and the Phrygian 2" at the Third Graduate Student Theory Conference at Mannes College in New York City.
Cubero paper read in Estonia
PhD candidate Diego Cubero's paper "In the Process of Dissolving: Examining the Interaction of Syntactic and Statistical Form in Brahms" was presented at the Seventh International Conference on Music Theory at Tallinn-Pärnu, Estonia, on January 10. Unfortunately the infamous polar vortex and associated brutal weather in the U.S. disrupted Diego's travel plans; his paper was read in his absence by Professor L. Poundie Burstein of the CUNY Graduate Center.
Fall 2013
Wennerstrom book review published
In December, Professor Mary Wennerstrom's review of Matthew Bribitzer-Stull's Anthology for Analysis and Performance (Oxford University Press, 2014) was published in Music Theory Online.
Kielian-Gilbert essay published
Professor Marianne Kielian-Gilbert's essay "Listening in Film: Music/Film Temporality, Materiality and Memory" has appeared in the Oxford Handbook of Film Music Studies, published by Oxford University Press in December.
Kielian-Gilbert speaks at Notre Dame
On November 21, Professor Marianne Kielian-Gilbert presented an invited lecture at the University of Notre Dame. Her talk was titled "Stravinsky's Masks of Abstraction: Russian Orthodox Bell Ringing, Ostranenie, and Aesthetic Distance in The Rite of Spring and Symphony of Psalms."
Mead performs on organ
Professor Andrew Mead played the organ part in Saint-Saëns’s Organ Symphony in two concerts with the Jackson (Michigan) Symphony Orchestra on November 16–17.
IU theorists participate in SMT conference
Ten faculty, fourteen current graduate students, and many alumni of the music theory department attended the annual meeting of the Society for Music Theory in Charlotte, North Carolina, on October 31–November 3.
Faculty and students who presented papers at the conference included the following:
Professor Kyle Adams presented “When Does the Present Become the Past? A Re-examination of ‘Presentism’ and ‘Historicism.’”
PhD student Devin Chaloux presented “The Synthetic Scale, Space S, and Sonata Form in Charles Griffes’s Piano Sonata.”
Professor Eric Isaacson, former editor of Music Theory Online, gave a presentation entitled “Riding Technology’s Leading Edge” in a session on the history and future of MTO. Professor Isaacson also serves as treasurer of the society.
Professor Blair Johnston presented “Texture, Partitioning, and Formal Dynamics in Schoenberg’s Fourth String Quartet.”
Professor Andrew Mead chaired a session titled “Twelve-Tone Techniques.”
PhD candidate John Reef presented “Subject-Phrase Interactions in Bach’s ‘Fortspinnungstypus’ Fugues.”
PhD student Paul Sherrill presented “Binary Form as Moral Philosophy in the Da Capo Aria.”
Professor Daphne Tan presented “Beyond Energetics: Gestalt Psychology and Harmony in Ernst Kurth’s Musikpsychologie (1931).”
Numerous IU alumni also presented at the conference, including recent alumni Daniel Arthurs (PhD 2011), Timothy Chenette (PhD 2013), Garrett Michaelsen (PhD 2013), Mitch Ohriner (MM 2007, PhD 2011), and Andrew Wilson (MM 2009).
Alumnus Mitch Ohriner was named the winner of the SMT’s 2013 Emerging Scholar Award for his article “Grouping Hierarchy and Trajectories of Pacing in Performances of Chopin’s Mazurkas,” published in the journal Music Theory Online in 2012. The Emerging Scholar Award is given for publications within seven years of the author’s completion of a PhD. Previous recipients of the award include two current IU faculty, Andrew Mead and Julian Hook. This year’s award represents the first time the Emerging Scholar Award has ever been given for an online publication.
Mead publishes Carter essays
Two essays by Professor Andrew Mead appear in the collection Hommage à Elliott Carter, published by Delatour in 2013. Professor Mead’s contributions, translated into French by Max Noubel, are titled “Tempo, polyrythme et mètre: méthodologie et observations concernant le rythme dans la musique d’Elliott Carter” and “Abords indistincts: quelques considérations sur l’interaction musicale chez Elliott Carter.”
A new face in the office
In October, the theory and musicology departments bade a fond farewell to Shauna Peatross after her more than five years as our administrative assistant. We wish her well in her new life in Chicago. We are happy to welcome Alice Corey as our new administrative assistant.
Hook article published
In October, Professor Julian Hook’s article “Contemporary Methods in Mathematical Music Theory: A Comparative Case Study” was published in Volume 7, No. 2 of the Journal of Mathematics and Music (pages 89–102).
Rowell honored in concert
On Sunday afternoon, October 20, a concert in Auer Hall celebrated the 80th birthday of Lewis Rowell, Professor Emeritus of Music Theory. The concert featured five of Dr. Rowell’s compositions, ranging chronologically from 1956 to 2013. The performers included Professor Emeritus Allen Winold, viola, and Professor Julian Hook, piano.
Kielian-Gilbert presents work on Britten
Professor Marianne Kielian-Gilbert presented a paper at Benjamin Britten, A Century of Inspiration, a multidisciplinary symposium of performances, lecture-recitals, and academic presentations held at Texas Tech University on October 17–19. Her paper was titled “Perilous Sweetness: (De)Ciphering Subjectivities in Britten’s Late Works Death in Venice, Op. 88, and Phaedra, Op. 93.”
Hamm publishes chapter in conference proceedings
PhD student Chelsey Hamm's essay "A Critical Examination of Verbula in the Berkeley Manuscript" appears as the first chapter of Histories and Narratives of Music Analysis, edited by Miloš Zatkalik, Milena Medić, and Denis Collins and published in October by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. The volume is the proceedings of the Music Theory and Analysis Conference held in Belgrade, Serbia, in 2011. Chelsey's chapter (except for the endnotes and bibliography) can be read online as part of a free sample provided by the publisher.
Mead compositions performed
On October 10, two of Professor Andrew Mead’s compositions were performed in a concert entitled “Working without a Net” at the Wheeler Arts Community in Indianapolis. The pieces were Let the Air Circulate, written in the early 2000s for soprano, on a text by Amy Clampitt; and Rhapsody for Solo Flute, a work from 1983. Professor Mead also gave a talk to undergraduate students at the University of Indianapolis that afternoon.
Jedlicka presents paper
On October 4, PhD student Jason Jedlicka presented a paper entitled “Exploring Augmentation in Steve Reich’s Double Sextet” at the Fourth International Conference on Music and Minimalism at California State University–Long Beach.
GTA presents annual recital
On October 4, the annual Graduate Theory Association Recital took place in Auer Hall. The program included works by Bach, Mendelssohn, Grieg, Ravel, Prokofiev, and Reger. The performers included theory graduate students Alyssa Barna (clarinet), Devin Chaloux (piano), and Nathan Lam (clarinet); theory faculty Julian Hook (piano) and Andrew Mead (organ); and theory Associate Instructors Madoka Asari (piano) and Jonathan Rudy (organ).
DiPaolo composition performed
On October 3, PhD student Nicole DiPaolo’s Divertimento for String Quartet was performed by the Cuarteto Internacional de Cuerdas de Yucatán in Mérida, Mexico.
Brody book review published
In September, Christopher Brody, Postdoctoral Resident Scholar in Music Theory, published a review of the book Engaging Bach by Matthew Dirst in Volume 19.3 of Music Theory Online, the online journal of the Society for Music Theory.
New students welcomed
In August 2013, the music theory department welcomed new students into our MM and PhD programs.
New MM students:
Knar Abrahamyan (Cleveland, TN). A pianist, Knar received BM, BA, and MM degrees at Lee University. She speaks Russian, Armenian, and Romanian (and English!), and enjoys drawing and painting. Her musical interests include Baroque counterpoint and the evolution of style in Scriabin’s piano sonatas.
Matthew Bilik (Granger, IN). A film enthusiast, Matt received his Bachelor of Music Education degree from IU. His musical interests include 19th- and 20th-century French and Spanish music, popular song, early 20th-century music, composition, and orchestration. (He adds “And I love roller coasters.”)
Ethan Edl (Rochester, MN). Ethan writes “I consider myself a connoisseur of bad Chinese food and bad movies.” He holds a BA from Grinnell College in Grinnell, IA. He is interested in transformational theory, 20th- and 21st-century music, and the philosophy of music.
Stephen Komer (Chesterfield, MI). A squash player and stamp collector, Stephen received a BM degree from Oakland University in Rochester, MI. His interests include Renaissance music, Baroque counterpoint, Romantic piano music, and Schenkerian analysis.
Nathaniel Mitchell (Bristol, VA). Nate holds a BM degree from Furman University in Greenville, SC. His interests include timbral analysis, spectralism, form, music cognition, and bluegrass music. (“Interesting fact: I have double-jointed toes.”)
Zachary Zinser (San Diego, CA). Zack received a BM in piano from IU. His interests include Renaissance and Romantic music, chromaticism, Motown, and jazz. He reports being “obsessed” with James Jamerson’s bass playing, and adds “I can be talked into just about anything if a Chipotle burrito is involved.”
New PhD students:
Nikolas Bauchat (Fayetteville, GA). Nik holds a BA from Florida State University, an MM from the University of Georgia, and an MM in music theory from IU. His interests include Webern, hermeneutics, analysis of popular music, and text-music relations.
Craig Duke (Atlanta, GA). Craig holds a BM from Florida State University and an MA from the University of British Columbia. He is interested in early 20th-century tonal music and folk-influenced modality, as well as early music and postmodern music.
Nathan Lam (Brisbane, Australia). Nathan received a BM from Griffith University in Queensland, Australia. He is a clarinetist, an avid cyclist, and an amateur astronomer, and as far as we know, he is the first IU theorist to play the didgeridoo. His musical interests include the symphonies of Malcolm Arnold, the hymns of Vincent Persichetti, and Schenkerian analysis.
Michael Schnitzius (Fort Worth, TX). Michael holds BA and MM degrees from the University of North Texas. He is interested in pre-serial music of the Second Viennese School, phenomenology, and deconstruction.
Ryan Taycher (Neenah, WI). Ryan holds BM and MA degrees from the University of North Texas. His interests include Schenkerian analysis, chromaticism, German Lieder, and Renaissance music. Additionally, he notes “I am a bibliophile, collecting especially first (English) editions of theory books, and one of my hobbies is bookbinding.”
Matthew Voglewede (Rockville, MD). Matt holds a BS in computer science from the University of Maryland–Baltimore County, and an MA in music theory from the University of Oregon, where he wrote a master’s thesis titled “Toward a Perceptual-Cognitive Account of Double-Time Feel in Jazz.” His interests include music theory pedagogy, music perception and cognition, and music informatics.
New faculty join the department
Three new faculty joined the theory department in 2013:
Andrew Mead, Professor of Music Theory
Daphne Tan, Assistant Professor of Music Theory
Christopher Brody, Postdoctoral Resident Scholar in Music Theory