Musicology at McGill University

Choral Collective, an independent student-led choir based at the Schulich School of Music, is currently accepting new members.

The Choral Collective aims to expand the diversity of choral experiences at McGill. We provide a space for practical interdisciplinary learning and collective leadership, and we center the music of underrepresented and living composers - including undergraduate and graduate students currently at the Schulich School of Music. We achieve this through a focus on peer-learning and democratic leadership, meeting weekly to rehearse.

Our fall 2023 concert will feature works by living, underrepresented, and student composers.

If you are interested in joining, please reach out to mcgillchoralcollective[at]gmail.com.

No audition is required, but choral or ensemble experience is preferred.

Rehearsals take place every Monday at 6:00-8:00 pm.

Happy first day of classes from SMuSch, aka the Society of Musicologists at Schulich!! Just please don't ask us what grade we're in this year 🫣

Two McGill musicologists are among this year's AMS travel and research grant recipients!! PhD candidate Marta Beszterda has received an award from the Eugene K. Wolf Fund for her PhD dissertation project "Gender, Labor, and the Shaping of Contemporary Music Culture in Poland between 1944-1969." And alumna Dr. Kristin Franseen (PhD '19) has received an award from the Ora Frishberg Saloman Fund for her project "Imagining Musical Pasts: The Q***r Literary Musicology of Vernon Lee, Rosa Newmarch, and Edward Prime-Stevenson." Congratulations Marta and Kristin!! (find a complete list of this year's awardees here: https://www.amsmusicology.org/news/610298/2022-AMS-Grantees.htm)

Check out this interview with McGill musicology PhD candidate Kiersten van Vliet, winner of Schulich's 2021-2022 teaching award. Congratulations Kiersten!!

2021-2022 Teaching Award Winner: Kiersten van Vliet Congratulations to Kiersten van Vliet, winner of Schulich's 2021-2022 Teaching Award in the MUAR Teaching Assistant/Graduate Instructor Category. Kiersten was course instructor for MUAR 392 (Popular Music after 1945) during the Fall 2021 semester, providing 180 music and non-music majors with an opp...

Congratulations to Rebekah Hutten for being awarded a 4-year doctoral grant by the Fonds de Recherche du Québec - Société et Culture (FRQSC)! Rebekah is a PhD Candidate in musicology with a concentration in women's and gender studies. She is writing her dissertation on "Women's Musical Labour in the Annapolis Valley, Nova Scotia."

Congratulations Hester!!

🎉 Congratulations to Hester Bell Jordan (current Ph.D. in Musicology), recipient of the Alvin H. Johnson AMS 50 Dissertation Fellowship! 🏆Awarded by the American Musicological Society, Hester is the first-ever AMS fellow from McGill University and only the third student from a Canadian university to receive the prestigious award for her dissertation titled, “Notorious Ladies and Charming Daughters: Women-Led Music Businesses in Early Nineteenth-Century Europe.” 🎹 Read more about Hester, her research in musicology and gender/women’s studies, and the Fellowship here 👉 bit.ly/3sdmd1o

Congratulations to musicology alum Kristin Franseen (PhD 2019) on the recent publication of two(!!) articles about the history of gossip and other dubious sources in musicology.

The first, “Everything You’ve Heard is True: Resonating Musicological Anecdotes in Crime Fiction about Antonio Salieri” (in the Journal of Historical Fictions) explores the representation of musicological sources in fiction and the popular appeal of novels about conspiracy theories. The second, “The Salieri Rumor and Why Gossip Matters” (in Contingent Magazine) looks at how gossip appears in ostensibly nonfictional 19th-century sources and how what stories get repeated shapes what we assume about the musical past (not to mention how false information spreads today).

Both articles are open-access and available online:

historicalfictionsjournal.org/pdf/JHF%202022-041.pdf

https://contingentmagazine.org/2022/01/16/the-salieri-rumor-and-why-gossip-matters/

The Black Canadian Studies Association has released a call for papers for their conference "Black Solidarities, Thought and the Quest for Black Freedom," taking place in May 2022. Among other topics, they invite submissions related to Black musicology and methodologies. Submissions are due January 31, 2022.

https://www.blackcanadianstudiesassociation.ca/conference-2022.html?fbclid=IwAR1B4tNJ-1k-9YC7nqpTEjd003QjIzMqCn-XorOVzF8SlyLc3O_-iQ3h3kU

CONFERENCE 2022 Conference Dates: May 14 -16, 2022 Our theme: Black Solidarities, Thought and the Quest for Black Freedom The 2022 meeting of the Black Canadian Studies Association (BCSA) will take place...

It’s November, and that can only mean one thing: it’s almost time for the American Musicological Society annual meeting! Check out all the McGill professors, students, and alumni who are presenting this year. Make sure to watch their videos before you attend the live Q&A for each paper session.

Did we miss anyone? Let us know in the comments.

Thursday, November 11

2:00-2:50pm (EST): paper session ‘Portraying Disability’
- Jessica Holmes (PhD Musicology ’18) will present ‘“The Worrying Rise of Misery Music”: Representations of Depression, Anxiety, and Su***de Ideation in the Music and Reception of Billie Eilish’
- Jeremy Tatar (PhD candidate in Music Theory) will present ‘Injury, Affirmation, and the Disability Masquerade in Kanye West’s “Through the Wire”’

4:00-4:50pm (EST): paper session ‘Recording Technology and Social Change’
- Alyssa Michaud (PhD Musicology ’20) will present ‘Redefining Virtual Liveness: Holographic Performance and Instrumentality in the Twenty-First Century’

4:00-4:50pm (EST): paper session ‘Sonic Techniques’
- Chelsea Komschlies (PhD candidate in Composition) will present ‘Penderecki’s Phantom Bell’

6:00-6:50pm (EST): paper session ‘Reception Histories’
- Kristin Franseen (PhD Musicology ’19) will present ‘Gossip, Collegiality, and the Problem of Salieri in Nineteenth-Century Biographical Fiction’

7:00-9:00pm (EST): Skills and Resources in Early Music Study Group meeting - ‘Early Musics in the 21st Century: Skills and Resources’
- Professor Julie Cu***ng and Linda Pearse (PhD candidate in Musicology) will present ‘Historical Pedagogy and Improvisation in the Renaissance’

Friday, November 12

11:00am-12:50pm (EST): workshop ‘The Great American Songbook’
- Professor Lisa Barg will present a position paper on the legacy of Billy Strayhorn

6:00-6:50pm (EST): paper session ‘Women’s Strategies in the 19th Century’
- Hester Bell Jordan (PhD candidate in Musicology) will present ‘Mlles Erard: Gender, Music Publishing, and Self-Dedication in Nineteenth-Century Paris’

Thursday, November 18

7:00-8:30pm (EST): roundtable ‘“Ten Years Gone”: Reflections on Popular Music Studies and the Rock Hall/AMS Lecture Series’
- Professor David Brackett will be a panelist

Saturday, November 20

3:00-3:50pm (EST): paper session ‘Modern Opera and Empire’
- Nina Penner (PhD Musicology ’16) will present ‘Anti-Colonization, Art Music, and Against the Grain Theatre’s Messiah/Complex.’

3:00-3:50pm (EST): paper session ‘Politics and Legacies’
- Marta Beszterda (PhD candidate in Musicology) will present ‘Zofia Lissa, Identity, and the Politics of Postwar Musicology in Poland’

4:00-5:50pm (EST): Music and Philosophy Study Group meeting - ‘Genres after the end of Genre’
Professor David Brackett will be a panelist

Sunday, November 21

1:00-1:50pm (EST): paper session ‘Early Modern Composerly Strategies’
- Professor Peter Schubert will present ‘Willaert's Contrapuntal Strategies’

7:00pm-9:00pm (EST): Childhood and Youth Study Group meeting - ‘Equity in the Study of Childhood and Youth’
- Professor Roe-Min Kok will be a respondent