Division of Music History, Theory, and Ethnomusicology

Professor William Caplin was the invited resident of UNT’s division of Music History, Theory, and Ethnomusicology in April, where he taught graduate analysis classes, including advanced Schenkerian analysis. Caplin’s residency culminated in his lecture at our division lecture series, concerning “Teaching Classical Form: Strict Categories versus Flexible Analyses.”

William Caplin is James McGill Professor of Music Theory at the Schulich School of Music, McGill University, specializing in the theory of musical form and the history of harmonic and rhythmic theory in the modern era. His book Classical Form: A Theory of Formal Functions for the Instrumental Music of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven (Oxford, 1998) won the 1999 Wallace Berry Book Award from the Society for Music Theory (SMT). Caplin publishes in the leading journals of his discipline (e.g., Music Theory Spectrum, Journal of the American Musicological Society, Eighteenth-Century Music) and contributes book chapters to major collections of essays (e.g., Cambridge History of Western Music Theory, Beethoven’s String Quartets, Beethoven’s “Tempest” Sonata). He recently co-authored (with James Hepokoski and James Webster, and edited by Pieter Bergé) Musical Form, Forms, & Formenlehre. A textbook on musical form, Analyzing Classical Form, will be published by OUP in June 2013. A former president of the SMT, he has presented many keynote addresses, guest lectures, and workshops in North American and Europe. He currently holds a major research grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and is serving the second year of two-year leave supported by a Killam Research Fellowship from the Canada Council of the Arts, both on the project “Cadence: A Study of Closure in Tonal Music.”

Robert D. Pearson is currently a lecturer in music history at UNT. Dr. Pearson received a B. A. in music from UC Davis and higher degrees in musicology from Brandeis University, where his dissertation research on Donald Francis Tovey was supported by an Andrew W. Mellon Dissertation Year Fellowship. His research interests include the history of music theory, performance, and Beethoven.

Dr. Michael Bakan, Professor and Head of Ethnomusicology and World Music at Florida State University visited UNT March 4 and 5 during which time he delivered a division lecture entitled “Musical Ethnography as Social Activism in the Ethnomusicology of Autism.” Bakan detailed his experiences performing music with children labeled autistic over the past decade. He presented a compelling and evocative argument for putting ethnomusicological research to practical use. In particular, he discussed his experience as director of the Artism Ensemble, a unique music performance collective featuring children on the autism spectrum, their co-participating parents, and professional musicians from diverse world cultures. This NEA-funded project provides a powerful vehicle for enacting and promoting forms of social activism that model autistic experience and praxis in terms of ability, creativity, cultural competence, and social agency, rather than in relation to the more customary tropes of disability, rigidity, isolationism, and social exclusion.

In addition to this lecture, Bakan conducted a workshop with graduate students in musicology and ethnomusicology in performing the Balinese Gamelan Beleganjurtradition. Afterwards, he lectured to the World Music survey class on the Balinese gamelan music and dance tradition. In particular, he focused on the role of the Beleganjur musicians as part of ancient cremation ceremonies to cleanse the souls of the deceased and prepare them for reincarnation. This discussion was based on his book Music of Death and New Creation: Experiences in the World of Balinese Gamelan Beleganjur (Univ. of Chicago Press, 1999).

Sriji Poovalur, a member of the UNT Global Music faculty and director of the University’s South Indian Cross-Cultural ensemble gave a guest lecture in the World Music Survey class on March 19. Mr. Poovalur introduced students to the South Indian Carnatic tradition, tracing its early development dating back to the 4th century B.C. He discussed his own experience as part of a musical family lineage and teacher of  a distinct microtonal, modal art form which is built upon a highly developed theoretical foundation. In particular, he explained the concept of “tala” and demonstrated various repeated rhythmic phrases which are counted additively.  

Wednesday, February 27, 2013, 4pm, 321
Giorgio Sanguinetti, University of Rome - Tor Vergata, Rome
Lecture Title: "Verdi’s 6/4s"

Professor Giorgio Sanguinetti of the University of Rome—Tor Vergata completed a one week residency in the theory department this spring. His busy schedule included lecturing in undergraduate core theory classes, a special topics discussion of European vs. American approaches to analysis, he taught 18th-century counterpoint and Schenkerian analysis courses, and read a paper codifying Verdi’s usage of 6/4s as part of the MHTE division lecture series. As the culmination of his stay, Prof. Sanguinetti was the invited keynote speaker at the annual meeting of the Texas Society for Music Theory, held this year at UNT, where he spoke about the history and future of partimenti, the subject of his recent book.

Giorgio Sanguinetti is the author of The Art of Partimento. History, Theory and Practice (Oxford University Press, 2012) and co-author of Partimento and Continuo Playing in Theory and Practice (with Thomas Christensen, Robert Gjerdingen and Rudolf Lutz; Leuven University Press, 2010). He has published on the history of music theory, Schenkerian analysis, form, and opera analysis. His articles and reviews have appeared in The Journal of Music Theory, Studi Musicali, Rivista Italiana di Musicologia, Rivista di Analisi e Teoria Musicale, Fonti Musicali in Italia, Studi Pergolesiani, and in several conference proceedings. He has delivered papers and keynote addresses at the annual meetings of the Society for Music Theory, of the Dutch-Flemish Society for Music Theory, the Società Italiana di Musicologia, at the Schola Cantorum Basilensis, at the 6th European Music Analysis Conference and at several other meetings and conferences. He was the organizer of the VII European Music Analysis Conference (EuroMac 2011). In 2012 he was Visiting Professor at McGill University. He is Associate Professor at the University of Rome–Tor Vergata.