IU Music Theory

SMT 2025 is happening in Minneapolis this week! Below is a handy list of all the events featuring our students, faculty, and alumni. We hope to see you there, and at the IU reception Saturday night! https://blogs.iu.edu/jsommusictheory/2025/10/27/1810/

There's been a slight location change for FIXED DO vs. MOVEABLE DO - tomorrow, Tuesday, April 1. Join us in the Bill Garrett Fieldhouse – GYM 293!

Mark your calendars! On Tue, April 1, at 4:30 pm, Fixed Do will attempt to defend their winning title against archnemesis, Moveable Do. Dust off that soap box, muster up all your feelings, and join the Graduate Theory Association in SPH GYM163 to root for your favorite team! 🧍🏻‍♀️🤾🏼‍♀️

Andrew Mead was recently awarded the 2024 Trustees Teaching Award. Mead, whose scholarly work focuses on 20th-century composers such as Milton Babbitt, Elliott Carter, and Arnold Schoenberg, is widely regarded in the field of music theory as well as by his colleagues and students -- both graduate and undergraduate. This well-deserved award celebrates Mead’s dedication to fostering a dynamic and enriching learning environment for his students. Congratulations!

blogs.iu.edu/jsommusictheory/2024/11/19/mead-trustees-teaching-award

Eileen Karmy Bolton is in Bloomington over the next few weeks to speak on music and labor movements in Chile. In addition to attending the AMS Annual Meeting in Chicago this weekend, she will deliver a public lecture, opening remarks at the LAMC performance of Santa María de Iquique – both at the Jacobs School – and there will be a film screening of her documentary, Himno (2023) at the Herman B. Wells Library.

For details:

Eileen Karmy Bolton on campus to Speak on Music, Labor, and Politics – Music Theory Eileen Karmy Bolton on campus to Speak on Music, Labor, and Politics Posted on November 13, 2024 by John Matthew Cowan The Department of Music Theory and Latin American Music Center are excited to host Eileen Karmy Bolton, a socio-musicologist from Universidad de Playa Ancha, Chile. Best known for h...

Who's going to Jacksonville this weekend? Raise your hands! Visit the blog for a handy list of talks and sessions by IU faculty, students, and alumni. Safe travels everyone!

https://blogs.iu.edu/jsommusictheory/2024/11/04/smt-2024/

Eric Drott, Professor of Theory at the Butler School of Music, is on campus this week giving two talks as part of the Five Friends Master Class Series. We hope you can join us!

Tuesday, September 24
5:00 pm, Ford-Crawford Hall
Eric Drott, “Music Streaming, Music Data, and the Work of Social Reproduction”

Wednesday. September 25
4:00 pm, SM267 (Simon Music Library)
Eric Drott, “Music and Asset Aesthetics”

For more info about Prof. Drott and his work:
https://blogs.iu.edu/jsommusictheory/2024/09/20/five-friends-eric-drott/

Jacobs alum, composer Hippocrates Cheng’s message resonates in a new chamber opera.

The recently appointed SUNY Binghamton music professor premiered "All of Us," an anti-Asian hate opera, at Carmel's Center for the Performing Arts on June 1.

Check out the livestream of "All of Us": https://ow.ly/Aat350Sg8kP

Thank you so much to Charis E. Kubrin for joining us at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music earlier this week. Her lecture -- “Art or Confession? Rap Music as Evidence in Criminal Trials“ -- was well-attended by students of music, sociology, criminal justice, arts administration, and law, among others, and was followed by an extensive and interesting Q&A. In addition, she guest lectured in Prof. Kyle Adams "Analysis of Hip-Hop Music" class and over lunch learned about some of the exciting research and work being done by this equally interdisciplinary group of graduate students.

Many thanks to the Jacobs School Distinguished Lecture Committee for making this visit possible! As Dr. Kubrin expressed in her recent post - it was "A fantastic visit all around!"

Next Monday, April 15, American Criminologist and Professor Charis Kubrin (University of California, Irvine) will deliver a talk on the use of rap music as evidence in criminal trials. The event, which takes place in the Cook Center for Public Arts & Humanities in Maxwell Hall, is sponsored by the Jacobs School of Music Distinguished Lecture Series and the IU Departments of Music Theory, Sociology, and Criminal Justice.

Abstract and more info about her visit to IU can be found here: https://go.iu.edu/6W9U

This week in colloquium, Joey Grunkemeyer will give his public lecture, titled “Brahms the Self-Conscious: Contextualizing His Musical Topics”. Join us in SM267 at 4:00 pm on Wednesday!

Abstract: “Many theorists have alluded to Brahms’s musical topics, making passing references to 18th and 19th century conventions, yet no one has critically examined how topics operate in his music. In this paper, I argue that Brahms’s music benefits from topical analysis, but his usage of topic is self-conscious and subversive. I provide a broad literature review of 19th century topic theory, followed by Brahms-specific approaches. Building on this review, I propose a methodology based on 18th and 19th century approaches, as well as the idea of self-consciousness. I then demonstrate this methodology through two case studies, Brahms’s Tragic Overture and the E Minor Intermezzo, opus 119, no. 2, arguing that sensitive topical analyses provide new and valuable ways of hearing these pieces. Brahms’s tactics include self-conscious deployment of musical topics, deliberate subversions of existing tropes, and ideas of reminiscence and nostalgia.”

Next Friday, March 29, the GTA will be settling a centuries-old argument by holding a dodgeball tournament between two of the most highly contested teams: Moveable Do and Fixed Do. Please join them at 5:00 pm in the Garrett Fieldhouse to cheer on your favorite team in this *battle to end all battles* -- the game itself shouldn’t last more than an hour! 😎