2021-2022

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 Colloquium is a series of lectures followed by discussion and normally given by speakers from other institutions who are specially invited by the Music Department to share their recent research or compositions with students and faculty. All lectures take place on Friday afternoons.

The composition seminar is a weekly session designed for graduate students in composition. It is an open forum for composers to listen to recent music, including their own, and to discuss issues connected with trends, esthetics, and compositional techniques. The entire composition faculty takes part in these sessions. The composition seminar often hosts well-known visiting composers whose works are performed in the city by various groups or ensembles, as well as performers specializing in new music and contemporary techniques.

The topic of this seminar varies per faculty member. This proseminar is designed to equip graduate students with methodological and epistemological tools for doing ethnographic fieldwork in expressive cultural contexts.

This course is a continuation of Music 31100, a study of advanced techniques in tonal analysis. Much of our work will center on Schenkerian theory, but we will also place Schenkerian approaches in dialogue with other methods, including recent approaches to Formenlebre, schema theory, and neo-Riemannian theory. We will be interested in exploring the intersections (and frictions) between these diverse analytical methods, seeking at once to develop analytical fluency in each of them and to heighten our sensitivity to the methodological issues involved in a pluralist approach to tonal analysis.

This course is intended for students who wish to pursue specialized readings in music or to do advanced work in composition.

The seminar guides students through the preliminary stages of selecting and refining a topic, and provides an interactive forum for presenting and discussing the early stages of research, conceptualization, and writing. The course culminates in the presentation of a paper that serves as the foundation of the honors thesis. The instructors work closely with honors project supervisors, who may be drawn from the entire music faculty.

MUSI 27300 treats music since 1800. Topics include the music of Beethoven and his influence on later composers; the rise of public concerts, German opera, programmatic instrumental music, and nationalist trends; the confrontation with modernism; and the impact of technology on the expansion of musical boundaries.

Johann Sebastian Bach is somewhat of a cipher, one whose image and meaning has changed remarkably over the centuries. In this class, we will look at many of these shifting images of the famous Leipzig composer. Was he the pious Thomaskantor dutifully churning out his cantatas and passions or the intellectual wizard of an abstract and dying fugal art? A belated hero of German nationalism, or a universal icon of musical humanity celebrated by many as the greatest composer of all time? We will do a fair amount of readings that reflect many of these changing views of Bach. But we will also spend much of our time listening to—and studying—his music, seeing what clues he has offered to help us understand this most enigmatic of composers. While an advanced understanding of music theory is not a prerequisite for this course, it will be important that you can read music and helpful to have a foundational understanding of harmony and counterpoint.