I’ve been fortunate to begin a year of leave in 2011-12 on the road, working mostly in Berlin, where Christine and I now have a second home. Several new projects at the Berlin Phonogramm-Archiv keep me occupied here, first, the assessment of historical recordings of Jewish music in Eastern Europe during the 1930s and 1940s, [...]

The past year has been busy and productive.  I am playing on two recently released CDs: a solo recording of contemporary piano tangos (Tangos for Piano) for PARMA Records (October2010 ); and a new disc of works of Conlon Nancarrow (As Fast As Possible) for Wergo Records (May 2011), which also features the Bugallo-Williams piano [...]

In 2010-2011, I began my first complete academic year as the Music Department’s Director of Graduate Studies. I also continued to make progress on a book project dealing with the interplay of Jamaican and African American gospel music.  In November 2010, a sample of this research appeared in a new edited volume, Rhythms of the [...]

My big adventure for 2011-12 will take place in Berlin Germany, where I and my family will spend my sabbatical year as a Fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg. I’m looking forward to a respite from my administrative work as Master of the Humanities Collegiate Division to work on a monograph on the historiography of tonality.  (More [...]

I can’t believe this is my third year chairing the Department!  The days go by in a constant whirlwind of activity, but always chock full of amazing new challenges and pleasures.  I did do some teaching, including an absolutely wonderful seminar with the not-short title “Performing Voices: Material, Mediation, Technology, Theory,” which drew together students [...]

The 2010-2011 academic year was the 150th anniversary of the formation of the Italian state, and so I was particularly busy with a talk about “Verdi and the Risorgimento,” which I presented (in one form or another) at a conference on Opera and Nation in Budapest, at the University of Pisa (Alfredo Banti’s seminar), in [...]

Under the auspices of an extended Mellon New Directions Grant I have been busy running several ongoing and new empirical studies this year, one on analog-acoustic expression in speech and music, a study on what I call the Casablanca effect (music serving as a cue for images), and a study on the motion-after effect as [...]

I spent the last academic year and summer expanding my research on the connections between music and graphic design by visiting the Newspaper Annex of the British Library to examine, among other things, UK music publications from the late 1970s and early 1980s. I presented some of that work in a lecture on campus during [...]

This year we marked our fourth Motet Choir tour by singing all around Chicago in December, which was very snowy, but cheery. We also named the first four Choral Scholars at Rockefeller Chapel, a program Dean Davenport and myself have started to give undergraduates scholarship assistance to sing in Chapel Choir. My two-part article on [...]

I had an enjoyable year not being Chair and teaching a new grad seminar on “European Sacred Music Abroad, 1550-1700″.  I also presented on “The Conquest of Mexico in Baroque Opera” at Humanities Day, and an article on Charles Burney in Milan came out in *Studia Borromaica*. In October, I gave a keynote at a [...]

Over the 2010-2011 academic year I was privileged to be able to concentrate on several writing projects as a faculty fellow at the Franke Institute for the Humanities. Although I spent much of the fall finishing a chapter on musicians and the politics of dignity for an edited volume on the history of world music [...]

In the coming months I will have the amazing opportunity to fulfill the ‘When in Rome do as the Romans do’ command, as a visitor in Rome for the three autumn months as the Fromm Fellow at the American Academy in Rome, hoping to use the time to fulfill a number of commissions while taking [...]

My biggest news from the past academic year was the release of my book, Tonality and Transformation (Oxford) in May 2011. In the fall, I presented two papers at the joint meeting of the American Musicological Society and the Society for Music Theory (one on Bob Dylan, one on Vladimir Jankélévitch). I then gave two [...]

My news begins with things scholarly and ends, not surprisingly, with matters familial. In December, the Journal of Musicology was kind enough to publish my article on Du Fay’s Missa Se la face ay pale and the Holy Shroud with color pictures on its website (black and white in the print edition). My piece on [...]

Concerts, concerts, concerts!  Happily, my 2010-2011 season was filled with rich opportunities to work with talented and dedicated musicians, and to conduct a wide array of substantive repertoire.  Here at U. Chicago our University Symphony concerts included Dvorak’s The Noonday Witch; Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto and Vaughan Williams’ A London Symphony; excerpts from Shostakovich’s late film [...]

I was privileged to be on leave this year, with a research project focused on developing a cognitive grammar of music supported by a fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies and (during the first part of 2011) a Fulbright Visiting Research Chair in Cognitive Music Theory at McGill University. During the first part [...]

Amy Briggs is beginning her second year at the University of Chicago, and looking forward to the 2010-2011 season.  Features of the past summer included a performance of Beethoven’s Piano Trio Opus. 1 No. 3 on the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s Beethoven festival, and a live radio broadcast performance of Edgar Varèse’s Amériques for piano eight [...]

Melvin L. Butler enjoyed a busy year teaching his first courses as a member of the University of Chicago faculty. He also concluded his two-year term as Secretary of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music, and presented his research in a number of venues. In Fall 2009, he gave a talk at [...]

Thomas is continuing his service as Associate Dean and Master of the Humanities Collegiate Division, regretting the time it is taking from his teaching and research, but grateful for the opportunity to serve the Humanities Division and the College. He was deeply humbled to be appointed this past year as the Avalon Foundation Chair in [...]

Martha Feldman had a splendid year on a Guggenheim leave, bringing her Bloch Lectures near completion for publication, and finishing other essays. The year brought the stunning news that her 2007 Opera and Sovereignty: Transforming Myth in Eighteenth-Century Italy had won the Gordon J. Laing Award of the University of Chicago Press for the faculty [...]

Philip Gossett continued his activity as a scholar and teacher this past year. His Divas and Scholars was issued in an Italian translation (Dive e maestri) by Il saggiatore of Milan. He participated in a number of events at opera houses and festivals, including Hannover Opera (Il viaggio a Reims), the Teatro alla Scala (Il [...]

Berthold Hoeckner.  A highlight last year was the Mannes Institute on Musical Aesthetics at the University of Chicago (co-directed with Alex Rehding from Harvard University).  For an intense and rigorous four days of workshops and plenary sessions, the Institute brought together 45 national and international scholars from North America to Hong Kong.  Workshops covered such [...]

Travis A. Jackson spent the 2009–10 academic year on leave. During that time, he caught up on reading, put the finishing touches on Blowin’ the Blues Away (due out next year from the University of California Press), prepared reviews for Jazz Perspectives and The Du Bois Review, made significant progress on research for a book [...]

James was Artistic Director for the Sounds of Faith documentary-concert that recently aired on Chicago PBS, selecting the music, musicians, and conjuring up the scenes and numbers and flow of the musicians on and off stage. James was happy to have his Piano Trio premiered in Boston this past January along with several performances in [...]

Despite more medical problems, Bob Kendrick finished up his term as Chair in June 2010 and is back to teaching and research.  His articles on litanies and on Settecento Milan came out in Sanctorum and Studia Borromaica, and he will be teaching courses on sacred music outside Europe, early modern Europe, and ethnomusicology this coming [...]

Kaley’s year began in October with a rare intersection of francophone and anglophone ethnomusicologists at the Université de Montréal for the international conference, Musical Heritage: Movement and Contacts. Together with Ritwik Banerji and MAPH graduate, Kristina Wood, he participated on a panel that represented a neighborhood audio mapping initiative organized by youth outreach coordinators and [...]

During her 2-quarter leave from the University, Shulamit wrote several compositions while also travelling to and from Rochester NY where she was the Howard Hanson Visiting Professor of Composition at Eastman School of Music.  Among her new works, das was geschah (that which happened) for 12-person choir and saxophone quartet, with texts ranging from Paul [...]

Steven Rings was on leave for the 2009–10 academic year, but between research, writing, presenting papers, and seeing various projects through press he felt busier than ever. His book Tonality and Transformation is in production at Oxford and will be in print in a matter of months. He was on the faculty of the Mannes [...]

Anne Robertson was on leave this past year, working on her book, tentatively titled “The New Christology and Late Medieval Music,” and on several articles for the upcoming 800th anniversary of Reims Cathedral in 2011. She very much enjoyed lecturing on these and other topics at Arizona State, Indiana University, the University of North Carolina, [...]

Paul Steinbeck was pleased to return to the University of Chicago in 2009 as a post-doctoral fellow in music theory. During the 2009–10 academic year he taught undergraduate theory courses and a graduate seminar on improvisation research. He completed multiple Chicago-themed writing projects, notably an article about the Art Ensemble of Chicago (for Jazz Perspectives) [...]

Suzuki received four premiers this year.  “Resonans campanis” for organ was commissioned by the University of Chicago and premiered at the Rockefeller Chapel by Tom Weisflog during the 500th Convocation in October.  In the same month, “Vestigia” for string quartet, dancers, video, and electronics (real-time audio and visual processing) was premiered by the Penderecki String [...]

Most of Lawrence Zbikowski’s activities last year fell into the familiar categories of the academic life, but in October he added to these a noon-time recital featuring works by Heitor Villa-Lobos, Fernando Sor, Francisco Tárrega, James McGuire, and Vincente Sojo. He continued serving as Director of Graduate Studies but, subsequent to Bob Kendrick’s accident in [...]

2008-09 was an exhilarating academic year for Melvin Butler as he and his family transitioned from Virginia to Chicago. Along with settling in Hyde Park, he has been working steadily to complete the first of two book projects exploring music and charismatic Christianity in the Caribbean and its diaspora. The bulk of his writing this [...]

Martha Feldman spent 2008-09 as Acting Chair of the Department. Despite the worst financial crisis in the Department’s history, it was a bountiful year in other ways: marvelous encounters with students, the pleasures of a great faculty, performers, and resident ensembles who continue to produce and perform prodigiously and win many accolades far and wide, [...]

This year Philip Gossett was awarded the “Serena Medal” of the British Academy for contributions to Italian studies. He was also elected as a “corresponding fellow” to the Academy (joining his colleague Philip Bohlman). New editions have been published under Gossett’s direction. After performances at the Parma Verdi Festival in October, Alberto Rizzuti’s Giovanna d’Arco [...]

Travis A. Jackson spent the 2008-09 academic year attending meetings (Committee of the Council of the University Senate, College Council), chairing admissions, and occasionally teaching classes and otherwise interacting with the university community and broader communities. He also gave a talk at the American Studies Association meeting in Albuquerque, New Mexico entitled “Post-Punk Sound and [...]

Robert Kendrick was on sabbatical in 2008-09, and used the year for research on liturgy and music in early modern Europe. He also took over chairing the Committee on the History of Culture as well as the AMS Publications Committee. He resumed his duties as Chair of the Department of Music on July 1, 2009.

Kaley Mason, Assistant Professor in the Department of Music, co-organized a symposium with Philip V. Bohlman called “Sound Works: Musicians and Media in South Asian Cities.” In addition to bringing together diverse scholars from ethnomusicology, anthropology, and film studies, the event also featured a Hindustani sitar concert by visiting scholar and artist in residence, Prof. [...]

A new production of Marta Ptaszynska’s children’s opera Mister Marimba was premiered by the Cracow Opera on September 20, 2008 with 18 performances this season. The opera will stay in the repertory for the 2009-10 season.  Her work for 70 percussionists, commissioned by the Poznan Philharmonic, was premiered with tremendous success on December 15,2009 at [...]

Two new compositions by Shulamit Ran received major premieres this past year. The Show Goes On, her Clarinet Concerto, commissioned by “Clarinet Days” in Israel, was performed in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem in December 2008 by the Buchman-Mehta Orchestra of the Tel Aviv Academy of Music. Lyre of Orpheus, a string sextet commissioned by the [...]

Steven Rings spent the 2008–09 academic year immersed in research, teaching, and administrative duties. He was awarded the Whiting Foundation Fellowship for Excellence in Teaching, which will provide him with a full year of research leave in 2009–10, in addition to supplying the Music Department with funds for replacement teaching. On the research front, Steve [...]

Anne Robertson presented her paper, “The Man with the Pale Face, the Relic, and Guillaume Du Fay’s Missa Se la face ay pale,” at the Annual Meeting of the AMS in Nashville in October, 2008. This study was conceived as a companion-piece to her 2006 JAMS article on the Caput Masses and motet and continues [...]

Kotoka Suzuki spent most of her sabbatical year in Berlin, Germany, where she completed several projects. Her new electro-acoustic composition for surround sound, Epiphyllum Oxypetalum, was premiered at the Ultraschall Music Festival in Berlin, Germany. This work will be broadcast by Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg (RBB) in July and receive a North American premiere at the International [...]

Last summer Lawrence Zbikowski was interviewed by staff of the University of Chicago’s news office, and the results of the interview and a September photo shoot appeared in a December 2008 feature on his work that included a brief video clip in which he played a bit of guitar. In the more workaday world, he [...]