(Photo: Professor Philip Bohlman and Associate Professor Anna Schultz at the 2018 annual meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology in Albuquerque, New Mexico)
Every fall brings a flurry of activity to the Department of Music as students return to campus and classes and performance ensembles resume, but come the first week of November each year, an uncharacteristic hush descends on Goodspeed Hall as faculty and students leave the confines of the University's ivy covered buildings to present at the annual meetings and conferences of the American Musicological Society, the Society for Music Theory, and the Society for Ethnomusicology.
This fall, eight faculty, fifteen students, and nearly twenty alumni are presenting at the conferences in Boston, Columbus, and Bloomington (Indiana), and countless more are attending to convene with colleagues, meet prospective students, and learn about the latest research in musicology, theory, and ethnomusicology.
American Musicological Society Conference, October 30-November 3, Boston, Massachusetts
Founded in 1934, the American Musicological Society serves to advance research in the various fields of music as a branch of learning and scholarship. Every year, the Society convenes an annual meeting of scholars from around the world for the reading and presentation of nearly 200 papers, as well as study sessions, panel discussions, and performances.
At the 2019 conference in Boston, faculty, students, and alumni present on a variety of topics ranging from the role of music in the German reformation to electronic music and contemporary theory. All presentations take place at the Westin Waterfront Hotel in Boston.
Presenting:
Thursday, October 31
2:15 PM, Harbor III – Zachary Loeffler, Ph.D. '18 (Humanities Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow), “’Real Magic’: A Genealogy of the Recital Encore”
2:15 PM, Stone – Maria Josefa Velasco, Ph.D. ‘17 (Princeton University), “Songs, Revolution, and the Reconstruction of History in the French Basque Country, 1789–1900”
4:00 PM, Harbor I – Andrew White, “Teaching by Example: Individualization, Practicality, and Embodied Knowledge in Postclassical Thoroughbass Pedagogy”
Friday, November 1
9:00 AM, Grand Ballroom A – Anna Gatdula, participating in #BelieveMe, Professional Listening, and Hearing on Purpose
9:00 AM, Harbor III – Abigail Fine, Ph.D. ‘17 (University of Oregon), “Geniology as Art-Religion: Measuring the Divine in the Composer’s Body”
10:45 AM, Grand Ballroom E – Olga Sánchez-Kisielewska (lecturer), “Aesthetics of the Hymn as Style and Topic in the Music of the Late Eighteenth Century”
2:15 PM, Harbor II – Barbara Dietlinger, “Music as the Bearer of Identity: The Centenary of the Reformation in Dresden, 1617”
2:15 PM, Grand Ballroom B – Claudio Vellutini, Ph.D. ‘15 (University of British Columbia), “Resisting Shakespeare? Felice Romani and Saverio Mercadante’s Amleto in Restoration Milan”
Saturday, November 2
10:45 AM, Harbor III – Braxton Shelley, Ph.D. ‘17 (Harvard University), “Musical Ontology in the Gospel Imagination”
2:15 PM, Harbor III – Tommaso Sabbatini, “Gentrification and Genre: Musical Consequences of the Transformation of the Theatrical Landscape of Paris, ca. 1860–1900”
4:00 PM, Harbor I – Seth Brodsky (Associate Professor), “After Apeshit/After Analysis”
8:00 PM, Grand Ballroom B – Zhuqing Lester Hu, Ph.D. ‘19 (University of California, Berkeley), Lars Christensen (University of Minnesota), and Makoto Harris Takao (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), “Hidden Cosmopolitanisms”
Sunday, November 3
9:00 AM, Commonwealth C – Julianne Grasso, “Like, Comment, and Subscribe: Amateur Music Theory as Participatory Culture”
9:00 AM, Harbor III – Theodore Gordon, Ph.D. ‘18 (Columbia University), “The Buchla Modular Electronic Music System and the Anonymous Artists of America”
10:45 AM, Harbor II – Bradley Spiers, “Music, Mind, and the Moral Fantasy of Enlightenment Automata”
10:45 AM, Grand Ballroom A – Martha Sprigge, Ph.D. ’13 (University of California, Santa Barbara), “The Widow in the Archive: Musical Materials and the Gendered Labor of Mourning in the German Democratic Republic”
Other University of Chicago alumni presenting include Peter Kupfer, Andrew Mall, and Douglas Ipson.
Society for Music Theory Annual Meeting, November 7-10, Columbus, Ohio
The mission of the Society of Music Theory is to promote "the development of and engagement with music theory as a scholarly and pedagogical discipline." Embracing all approaches to and perspectives of music theory, the Society furthers the field of music theory through the publication of three scholarly journals, the promotion of scholarly research through awards and grants, and the convening of an annual meeting for the presentation and exploration of the latest research.
At the 2019 annual meeting in Columbus, Ohio, five current students and many recent alumni present research engaging in contemporary analysis, music perception, and music theory pedagogy. All presentations with the exception of Professor Larry Zbikowski's Thursday evening talk will take place at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Columbus, Ohio.
Presenting:
Thursday, November 7
7:30 PM, Columbus Science Pub at Up Front bar – Lawrence Zbikowski (Professor of Music), “From Feeling to Understanding: The Cognitive Foundations of Music Theory”
Friday, November 8
2:15 PM, McKinley – Andrew Malilay White, “Teaching by Example: ‘Practical’ Pedagogies of the Postclassical Thoroughbass”
4:00 PM, Harrison – Joshua Klopfenstein, “Heinrich Glarean, Jakob Paix, and the Problem of Polyphonic Mode”
8:00 PM, Taft A – Olga Sánchez-Kisiliewska (lecturer), “The Hymn as a Musical Topic in Haydn's Symphonies: Stylistic Sources and Expressive Trajectories”
8:00 PM, Taft C – Chelsea Burns, Ph.D. ‘16 (The University of Texas at Austin), "Resolving Chords to Resolve Anxieties: Pressures around Teaching the Chorale"
8:00 PM, Taft C – Peter Smucker, Ph.D. ‘15 (Stetson University), “Administering Pedagogy: Navigating the Institutional Impacts of a Changing Theory Curriculum”
8:00 PM, Taft C – Katherine Pukinskis, Ph.D. ‘15 (Harvard University), “Repurposing the Chorale in the Theory Classroom”
8:00 PM, Taft C – Marcelle Pierson, Ph.D. ‘15 (University of Pittsburgh), “Building on Undergraduate Curriculum without SATB Writing”
Saturday, November 9
9:00 AM, McKinley – John Y. Lawrence, “Transacting Musical Time: Where Rhythm Ends and Rubato Begins”
9:00 AM, Harrison – Dana DeVlieger, MAPH ‘13 (University of Minnesota), “The Bias of Western Musical Notation in Music Copyright Litigation”
10:45 AM, Taft A – Julianne Grasso, “Like, Comment, and Subscribe: Amateur Music Theory as Participatory Culture”
10:45 AM, Harrison – August A. Sheehy, Ph.D. ‘17 (Stony Brook University), “The Form of Fantasy and the Fantasy of Form in the Writings of A. B. Marx”
Sunday, November 10
9:00 AM, Taft A – Yonatan Malin, Ph.D. ‘03 (University of Colorado Boulder), “Listening to Klezmer Music with Schema Theory”
9:00 AM, Taft A – Sarah Iker, Ph.D. ‘17 (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), “Tartar Sauce and Travesty: Deformations of Galant Schemata in Stravinsky's Neoclassicism”
10:45 AM, Harrison – George Adams, Ph.D. '19 (Humanities Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow), “Voice, Technology, and Agent-Classes in Steve Reich's Tape Works”
Society for Ethnomusicology Annual Meeting, November 7-10, Bloomington, Indiana
The Society for Ethnomusicology was founded in 1955 to promote the research, study, and performance of music from all historical periods and cultural contexts. With a network of scholars, educators, students, musicians, activists, and curators from diverse humanistic and social science perspectives. In addition to hosting an annual meeting, the society publishes the journal Ethnomusicology as well as four online publications and a podcast, and it provides awards for excellent scholarship in the field.
UChicago faculty and students at the 2019 annual meeting will present on music from Israel, China, Kurdish Iraq, Appalachia, and more at the University of Indiana, Bloomington.
Presenting:
Thursday, November 7
8:30 AM, Maple – Thalea Stokes participating in Whose HU?: Making Sense of the Global Ethno-Metal, Folk-Rock, and Hip Hop Sensations from Mongolia
9:30 AM, Sassafras – Mili Leitner, “What Women Want: Jewish Women's Singing Voices at Jerusalem's Western Wall”
10:45 AM, State Room West – David Wilson, “Contested Chinas: Folk Music, Mass Media, and Chinese National Imaginaries”
11:15 AM, Redbud – Hannah Judd, “Hearing an Archive: Finding Eusebia Cosme”
2:15 PM, Sassafras – Jon Bullock, “Before the Vineyards Burned: The Role of Kurdish Musicians in the Early Recording Industry in Iraq”
Friday, November 8
4:00 PM, Georgian – Philip Bohlman (Ludwig Rosenberger Distinguished Service), participating in Past Presidents’ Roundtable: Ethnomusicology Beyond Music, Part 2
Saturday, November 9
11:15 AM, Dogwood – Anna Schultz (Associate Professor), “Gendering Coolitude in Chutney-Soca”
Sunday, November 10
8:30 AM, Sassafras – Joseph Maurer, “The Role of Social and Economic Structures in Building Chicago's Mariachi Education Pipeline”
9:00 AM, Sassafras – Lindsay Wright, Ph.D. '18 (Humanities Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow), “’Every Child Can’: Music, Meritocracy, and the Suzuki Industrial Complex”
11:15 AM, Maple – Laura Turner, “Representing Region on Two Southern Appalachian Music Heritage Trails”