MUSI

As the premier undergraduate choral ensemble at the University of Chicago, the Motet Choir accepts 28-36 singers each year. Concentrating on a cappella masterworks of all periods, this polished vocal ensemble specializes in music of the Renaissance and also performs historically and culturally diverse repertoire ranging from Gregorian chant to gospel standards. The Motet Choir presents at least three major concerts per year (one each quarter) and sings at convocations and special events on campus and throughout the Chicago area. The ensemble goes on tour every second year, often during the University's spring break.

The University Chorus is the largest vocal ensemble on campus. Its season includes an annual production of Handel's Messiah as well as presentations of choral masterworks such as Berlioz's Roméo et Juliette, Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, and Verdi's Messa da requiem. Among its 80 to 100 members are undergraduates, graduates, faculty and staff members, and singers from the Hyde Park and University community: The result is a wonderfully diverse group of vocalists, collaborating in performances of monuments of the literature. The University Chorus presents three to four concerts per season, culminating in a festive year-end performance with the combined choirs and the University Symphony Orchestra.

During the five three-hour sessions of the Dissertation Chapter Seminar each quarter, Ph.D. students in their fourth and fifth years will have the opportunity to share strategies for writing up their dissertations during the years of most intensive research. We shall work collectively to develop these strategies, investigating the on-the-ground research work that students bring to the DCS from the early stages of research to the completion of chapters in preparation for the dissertation-completion year. Each session will begin with a discussion of research-to-writing strategies, and it will conclude with discussion in the seminar of one or two pre-circulated chapters by students in the DCS. Ph.D. students who are not in residence during their fourth and fifth years, because they are conducting research or no longer in residence in Chicago, will participate remotely. During the Autumn Quarter of 2020/2021, the DCS will be entirely remote. The DCS provides students an opportunity for a sustained and supportive dissertation-writing workshop for Ph.D. students in Music.

The Dissertation Pre-Proposal Seminar (DPPS) is a yearlong course required of all first- and second-year students in the Department of Music. The DPPS provides Ph.D. students in all sub-disciplines—history/theory, ethnomusicology, and composition—with methods and approaches to guide them in the early stages of preparing for the dissertations or, in the case of composers, their minor-field papers. In the course of the year, students will read and examine dissertations and the proposals that led to them. Students develop a fuller understanding of what kinds of research can be helpful in the first and second years, for example, whether short-term visits to archives or ethnographic work might assist them in identifying the empirical materials they will use. At various times during the year, we workshop some of the written work that students prepare as the subjects of their dissertations become clearer.

The purpose of this seminar is to assist students (typically in their third year) in crafting a dissertation proposal, gaining critical feedback from their peers, and honing compelling research projects. The meeting schedule of the seminar will be flexible: beginning in the fourth week of Autumn term, we will meet about once every two weeks; it may be, however, that we pick up the tempo a bit during Winter term, such that during Spring term we can slow it down a bit to allow students more time to work with their advisors on the formulation of their research projects. Once I know the schedule of the Department workshops I will schedule the meetings of the DPS to avoid conflicts with classes, workshops and other events, and distribute an initial assignment for reading and discussion.

The purpose of this seminar is to assist students (typically in their third year) in crafting a dissertation proposal, gaining critical feedback from their peers, and honing compelling research projects. The meeting schedule of the seminar will be flexible: beginning in the fourth week of Autumn term, we will meet about once every two weeks; it may be, however, that we pick up the tempo a bit during Winter term, such that during Spring term we can slow it down a bit to allow students more time to work with their advisors on the formulation of their research projects. Once I know the schedule of the Department workshops I will schedule the meetings of the DPS to avoid conflicts with classes, workshops and other events, and distribute an initial assignment for reading and discussion.

In this pro-seminar we will survey some major themes that emerge in pre-modern music theory (antiquity to about 1700). Among the topics we will study are the nature and classification of mode, classical canonics (interval theory), rhythm and mensuration, discant and contrapunctus theory, tuning and temperament, and the "periphery" of music theory: musica humana, magic, and the emergence of modern science. (These latter topics will indeed help us critically scrutinize just what we might mean by "music theory" when considered historically.)