West Coast Conference of Music Theory and Analysis

The program for our first live conference in two years (at UC Irvine, May 27-28)!

30th Annual Meeting, May 27–28, 2022
Department of Music, Claire Trevor School of the Arts,
University of California, Irvine
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Registration and coffee, 12:30 a.m.–1:00, CAC 1st floor Colloquium Room;
all sessions CAC Colloquium Room
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Friday, May 27

Pedagogy 1: Diversifying the Canon
1:00 p.m.- 2:30 p.m.

Amy Bauer, chair, University of California, Irvine
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“To Accommodate To Western Taste”: Teaching Style Topics of the Exotic
Ian Gerg, Southeastern Oklahoma State University
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Toward an Anti-Racist Post-Tonal Pedagogy: George Walker’s Lilacs in Theory IV
Evan Ware, California State Polytechnic University
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Identity Through Learning: Diversifying Gender Representation in Music Theory Textbooks
Tori Vilches, Texas Christian University
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Coffee break 2:30–2:45 p.m.
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Pedagogy 2: New Post-tonal Approaches
2:45 p.m.- 4:15 p.m.
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Jack Boss, chair, University of Oregon
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Pc-set Relationships: Connecting Theory to Practice in the Post-Tonal Classroom
John King, University of Oregon
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Reframing Leong’s “Wissen, Können, Kennen” for the Post-Tonal Theory Classroom
Ben Duinker, University of Toronto
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Pokémon Pedagogy: The Hidden Curriculum in the Post-Tonal Classroom
Blaire Ziegenhagel, University of Oregon
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Coffee break 4:15 p.m.-4:30 p.m.
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Session 3, Post-tonal Pitch Organization
4:30 p.m.-6:00 p.m.
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Jack Boss, chair, University of Oregon
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Pitch Fields as Background Structures in Pieces by Lilburn, Rabb, and Ho
Robert Gross
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Kaija Saariaho’s L’amour de loin: Sketches, Harmonic Fields, and Text-Painting
Gabrielle Choma, University of Oregon
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Linkage of the Generated Chords in the Aggregates from the First Movement of Charles Wuorinen’s Third Piano Sonata
Lydia Lee, College-Conservatory of Music, University of Cincinnati
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Dinner break 6:00 p.m.
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UCI Symphony Orchestra, 8:00 p.m., Irvine Barclay Theatre
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Saturday, May 28
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Coffee and pastries 9:00–9:15
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Session 4, Nineteenth-Century Music
9:15 a.m.- 11:15 p.m.
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Dr Joe Davies, chair, Marie Skłodowska-Curie Global Fellow, UCI & Maynooth University

Ableist Histories of Modal Theory: A.B. Marx and Heinrich Schenker as Case Studies
Tekla Babyak, Independent Scholar, Davis, CA
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Musical Sehnsucht: Linear and Rhythmic Strategies in Brahms’s Vocal Quartets
Jason Lee, University of British Columbia
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Analyzing Deception in Opera and Lieder
Edward Klorman, Schulich School of Music, McGill University
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“Rough Jointing” (Die harte Fügung) as an Organizational Principle in Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana
Ji Yeon Lee, Moores School of Music, University of Houston
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Coffee break 11:15 a.m.-11:30 a.m.
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Session 5, Heavy Metal Music
11:30 a.m.- 12:30 p.m.
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Andrew Aziz, chair, San Diego State University
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Functions and Characteristics of Heavy Metal Supersections
Michael Dekovich, University of Oregon
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What is a riff? A Structural Definition and its Analytical Consequences for Process and Form in Heavy Metal
Ciro Scotto, Ohio University
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Lunch break 12:30 p.m.-2:00 p.m
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Business meeting 2:00 p.m.-2:15 p.m.
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Session 6, Music on Film
2:15 p.m.-3:45 p.m.
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Evan Ware, chair, California State Polytechnic University
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Tension, Text, and Timbre at the Climax: An Analysis of Burlesque (2010)
Madison Stepherson, University of Oregon
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Sounding Out Dystopia: Timbre and Ecological Recovery in Thom Yorke’s ANIMA (2019)
Nathan Cobb, University of California, Santa Barbara
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Tonal Rumble: (Bi-)Tonality and Transformation in West Side Story
Andrew Aziz, San Diego State University
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Coffee break 3:45 p.m.-4:00 p.m.
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Keynote lecture 4:00 p.m.
Canonic Upheavals: Clara Schumann Then and Now
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Dr Joe Davies, Marie Skłodowska-Curie Global Fellow
University of California, Irvine & Maynooth University

From President Amy Bauer:
"Another domino falls, as the WCCMTA conference scheduled for April 17-19 at the University of California, Irvine is cancelled. We thank everyone who applied, and look forward to a redoubled conference next year."

West Coast Conference of Music Theory and Analysis
29th Annual Meeting
April 17-19, 2020

Joint Meeting with the Pacific-Southwest Chapter of the
American Musicological Society

University of California, Irvine,
Irvine, California

CALL FOR PAPERS
The WCCMTA program committee invites proposals for 20 minute talks on any theoretical or analytical topic. Proposals should consist of a 350–500-word abstract, not counting necessary examples or references (supplementary materials are limited to three additional pages). Since
proposals are to be reviewed blind, please list your presentation title, name, and contact information in the cover email; do not reveal your identity within the proposal itself.

The program will be preceded by a two-hour workshop on theory pedagogy taught by Dr. Janet Bourne of the University of California, Santa Barbara. Further information on our joint keynote speaker, workshop details, and a
separate CFP for PSC-AMS will be forthcoming. Amy Bauer and Stephan Hammel will serve as local arrangements coordinators for the joint conference.

Please email your proposal to [email protected] as a Word or pdf file by February 21, 2020, 9 p.m. P.S.T.

Program Committee:
Amy Bauer (University of California, Irvine), Chair
Andrew Aziz (San Diego State University, California)
Alfred Cramer (Pomona College, California)
Russell Knight (Scripps College, California)

The 28th annual meeting of the West Coast Conference is now complete. There were many highlights, including Gretchen Horlacher's keynote on de Keersmaeker's choreography to Reich's Piano Phase. Lei Jiang and Mutian Du from East China Normal University in Shanghai told us about Allen Forte's influence on a Chinese composer, Luo ZhongRong, who has written twelve-tone music with subsets derived from the pentatonic scale through set-class relationships. And there were a variety of other papers on topics ranging from salsa to Huangmei Opera to Schubert to Schoenberg to The Carter Family.

Thanks to Alan Dodson and his colleagues at UBC, and especially to their graduate student helpers. We will see you again next year, probably in Irvine, CA.

The abstracts for the 28th annual meeting in Vancouver are now available on our website, wccmta.com.

Program

28th Annual Meeting, May 3–5, 2019

School of Music, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada

All papers will be in Room 113 in the Music Building (6361 Memorial Rd)

Friday, May 3

12:00 p.m.-1:00 p.m. Registration & Refreshments

1:00 p.m.-3:00 p.m Workshop on the Rhythmic Analysis of Non-Western Music
John Roeder and Michael Tenzer, University of British Columbia

3:00 p.m.-3:15 p.m. Coffee break

3:15 p.m.-4:45 p.m Session 1, Meter and Metric Dissonance
Alan Dodson, chair, University of British Columbia

Finding the Salsa Beat from the Positional Listening
Perspective on the Dancing Salsero/a
Rebecca Simpson-Litke, University of Manitoba

Metrical Dissonance and Subliminal Hypermeter in Schubert's Sonata Forms
John Hei Yeung Lai, University of British Columbia

Hemiolas in Non-Isochronous Meters
Jay Smith, Texas Women’s University

4:45 p.m.-5:00 p.m. Coffee break

5:00 p.m.-6:00 p.m. Session 2, Musical Encounters Across Cultures
Michael Tenzer, chair, University of British Columbia

Marwa Blues: The Indian Topic in the Music of George Harrison
Emily Vanchella, University of California, Santa Barbara

A Modal Curiosity in Huangmei Opera:
The Impact of Fieldwork on World Music Analysis
Anna Wang, Harvard University

Dinner on your own

Friday evening concert: Vancouver Symphony Orchestra with Canadian pianist Louis Lortie, 8 p.m. at the Orpheum Theatre (601 Smithe St.): works by Beethoven, Debussy and Tchaikovsky

Saturday, May 4

8:30 a.m.-9:00 a.m. Registration & Coffee

9:00 a.m.-10:30 a.m. Session 3, Pitch-Space
Amy Bauer, chair, University of California, Irvine

Sigfrid Karg-Elert on the three-dimensional pitch-space locations and functional meanings of the diminished seventh chord
David Byrne, University of Manitoba

A Cascading Canon System and Its Hyper-Hexatonic Design in Holst’s “Lovely Venus”
Dustin Chau, University of Kansas

The Dramatization of an “Irrationally Functional” Harmonic Space:
Thomas Adès’s Powder Her Face
Kyle Shaw, California State University, Bakersfield

10:30 a.m.-10:45 a.m Coffee break

10:45 a.m.-12:15 p.m Session 4, Tonality in the Early 20th Century
Richard Kurth, chair, University of British Columbia

Tonal Function as a Signifier in Schoenberg’s Atonal and Twelve-Tone Music
Jack Boss, University of Oregon

How Schoenberg Defines Formal Functions Without Tonal Harmony
Andrew Eason, University of Oregon

Tonal Relations in Sibelius's Swan of Tuonela
Alexandre Negri, University of British Columbia

12:15 p.m.-1:15 p.m. Lunch break

1:15 p.m.-2:00 p.m. WCCMTA business meeting

2:00 p.m.-3:30 p.m. Session 5, Form in Popular Music
John Roeder, chair, University of British Columbia

The Ballad vi Chord in Pop Rock and its Relation to Phrase Rhythm
Stanley Ralph Fink, Florida State University

Anti-Telos Choruses in Recent Pop
Drew Nobile, University of Oregon

Form and the Jam: Defining Improvisation in the Music of Dave Matthews Band
Micheal Sebulsky, University of Oregon

3:30 p.m.-3:45 p.m Coffee break

3:45 p.m.- 4:45 p.m. Session 6, Repetition and (Ir)regularity
Ève Poudrier, chair, University of British Columbia

Escaping the Duple Default: Two Examples of Phrase-Rhythmic 'Zehntaktigkeit'
Grant Sawatzky, University of British Columbia

Repeat and Repeat Again: A Reexamination of Fuzzy Contour in Steve Reich's The Desert Music
Kristen Wallentinsen, Albuquerque, New Mexico

4:45 p.m.-5:00 p.m Coffee break

5:00 p.m.-6:30 p.m Keynote Address
“The Embodiment of Piano Phase: de Keersmaeker’s Choreography”
Gretchen Horlacher, Indiana University

6:00 p.m Conference Dinner

Sunday, May 5

8:30 a.m.-9:00 a.m. Registration & Coffee

9:00 a.m.-10:00 a.m. Session 7, Polyphony
Drew Nobile, chair, University of Oregon

O V, Where Art Thou? Notre Dame Polyphony, "Dominant" Sonorities, and a New Approach to Diatonic Set Theory
Jessica Fulkerson, Brandeis University

Give Me That Old-Time Cantus Firmus:
An analysis of vocal polyphony in the Carter Family’s early recordings
Brent Lawrence, University of Oregon

10:00 a.m.-10:15 a.m Coffee break

10:15 a.m.-11:15 a.m. Session 8, Sets and Symmetries
Russell Knight, chair, Scripps College

Nested Symmetries: Musical Idea and Levels of Symmetry in Roger Sessions’ 5 Pieces for Piano, #1
Laura Hibbard, University of Connecticut

The Creative Use of Allen Forte’s Pitch-Class Set Theory in Chinese Composer Luo ZhongRong’s String Quartets
Lei Jiang and Mutian Du, East China Normal University, Shanghai

11:15 a.m. –11:30 a.m Coffee break

11:30 a.m.- 12:45 p.m. Session 9, Form and Narrative in 19th-Century Music
Alan Dodson, chair, of University of British Columbia

What Harold Saw in Italy: A Case for Narrative Agency
Ian Gerg, Chestnut Hill College, PA

Process as Expression: Thematic Narrative in F***y Hensel’s Sonata Forms
Tyler Osborne, University of Oregon

Sunday afternoon opera: Faust, Vancouver Opera, 2 pm at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre (630 Hamilton St.), featuring Canadian superstars David Pomeroy, Simone
Osborne, and Robert Pomakov

The WCCMTA program committee invites proposals for 20 minute talks on any theoretical or analytical topic for our 28th annual meeting May 3–5, 2019 at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver. Proposals should consist of a 350–500-word abstract, not counting necessary examples or references (supplementary materials are limited to three additional pages). Since proposals are to be reviewed blind, please list your presentation title, name, and contact information in the cover email; do not reveal your identity within the proposal itself.

The program will be preceded by a two-hour workshop on techniques in the rhythmic analysis of non-Western music taught by Professors Michael Tenzer and John Roeder of the University of British Columbia. Our keynote speaker will be Gretchen Horlacher of the School of Music at Indiana University, Bloomington. Alan Dodson will serve as local arrangements coordinator.

Please email your proposal to [email protected] as a Word or pdf file by January 31, 2019, 9 p.m. P.S.T.

Program Committee:

Amy Bauer (University of California, Irvine), Chair
Alan Dodson (University of British Columbia, Vancouver)
Russell Knight (Scripps College)
Richard Kurth (University of British Columbia, Vancouver)
John Roeder (University of British Columbia, Vancouver)
Michael Tenzer (University of British Columbia, Vancouver)

On the way back from the 27th annual meeting of the West Coast Conference at San Diego State University. It was a beautiful weekend: lots of sunshine and warm temperatures, just what this Oregonian needed. Papers ranged from Mozart and Beethoven through Schoenberg to Death Metal (with leitmotivic partitions!). Amy Bauer gave a fascinating keynote; an intro to post-spectral music. See you next spring in Vancouver.

West Coast Conference of Music Theory and Analysis
April 6-8, 2018
School of Music and Dance, San Diego State University

Program

Registration: 1:00–2:00 pm Friday
SDSU Music Building (Front Entrance)

Session I (Friday, 2:00–5:00): Transformation and Space (Russell Knight, chair)
Smith Recital Hall

“Gustav Holst's Terzetto ​and Its Maximally Smooth Triad of Keys”
Dustin Chau (University of Kansas)

“The Space Between: Connecting Narrative and Tonal-Center Relationships in the Music of Dave Matthews Band”
Micheal Sebulsky (University of Oregon)

“Lotus, Blossom, and Dream: Octatonicism in Toshio Hosokawa’s Lotus under the Moonlight: Hommage à Mozart”
Hei Yeung John Lai (University of British Columbia)

“Dynamized Space and Sedimented Time: Louis Andriessen's 'De Stijl' and Potential Relationships Between Painting and Music”
Damian Blättler (Rice University)

Reception: 5:30–7:00
Faculty/Staff Club Patio

Session II (Saturday Morning, 9:00–12:30): Schoenberg and Ligeti (Jack Boss, chair)
Rhapsody Hall (Room 113)

Coffee and Registration (9–9:15)

“Fantasia as Form: Logic and Freedom in Schoenberg's Phantasy for Violin and Piano Accompaniment, Op.47”
Rina Sugawara (University of Minnesota)

“Twelve-Tone Homophony: Texture, Form and Comprehensibility in Schoenberg’s Third String Quartet”
Dan Viggers (Washington University in St. Louis)

Coffee Break and Registration (10:45–11:00)

“Death Metal Dodecaphony: Partition Schemes in Ron Jarzombek's Twelve-Tone Music”
Michael Dekovich (University of Oregon)

“Ligeti's Machine: An Examination of Rhythm in György Ligeti's Late Works”
Lauren Halsey (University of Washington)

Lunch & Business Meeting: 12:30–2:00
Scripps Terrace and Rhapsody Hall

Keynote: 2:00–3:00
Amy Bauer (University of California at Irvine)

Break: 3:00–3:15

Session III (Saturday Afternoon, 3:10–6:00): Form and Time (Andrew Aziz, chair)
Rhapsody Hall (Room 113)

“Embellishing the Verse-Chorus Paradigm: Max Martin and the ‘Descant Chorus’” (3:15–3:40)
Stanley Fink (Florida State University)

“Theorizing Silence”
Kristina Knowles (Arizona State University)

“Seeking the Post-Tonal Cadence in Alfred Schnittke’s Viola Concerto”
Anabel Maler (University of Chicago)

“Merging the Sonata and the Concerto: Analysis of ‘Compositional’ Improvisation in the High Classical Sonata”
Andrew Aziz (San Diego State University)

Conference Dinner at Eureka!

Session IV (Sunday Morning, 9:00–12:00): Narrative and Performance (Janet Bourne, chair)
Rhapsody Hall (Room 113)

Coffee (9–9:15)

“Altered Consciousness in Chopin’s Nocturne in F-sharp Minor, Op. 48, no. 2”
Ian W. Gerg (Austin, TX)

“Functions of Gesture in Music by Gubaidulina and Sciarrino” (10:00–10:25)
Sara Everson (Florida State University)

“The Deformation of the Pastoral in Rebecca Clarke’s Piano Trio”
Sacha Peiser (University of Connecticut)

“Towards a Theory of Performance: Its Rules and Layers”
Nathan Pell (CUNY Graduate Center)

Visit our website, wccmta.com, for abstracts and hotel/travel information

West Coast Conference of Music Theory and Analysis

April 6-8, 2018

School of Music and Dance,
San Diego State University

Keynote Speaker: Amy Bauer, University of California at Irvine (author of Ligeti’s Laments: Nostalgia, Exoticism, and the Absolute)

CALL FOR PAPERS

The WCCMTA program committee invites proposals for short talks (15 minutes) or long talks (30 minutes) on any theoretical or analytical topic, and on any historical era.

Proposals should consist of a 500-word abstract, not counting necessary examples or references (these supplementary materials are limited to four additional pages). Authors should indicate whether proposals are for a 15-minute or 30-minute presentation. Since proposals will be reviewed blind, please list your presentation title, name, presentation length, and contact information in the cover email; do not reveal your identity within the proposal itself.

Please EMAIL your proposal to [email protected] as one or more attached pdf(s) by January 15, 2018.

Program Committee:
Andrew Aziz (San Diego State University), chair
Jack Boss (University of Oregon), ex officio
Janet Bourne (University of California at Santa Barbara)
Russell Knight (Scripps and Pomona Colleges)

We had our 26th annual meeting at the University of Victoria last weekend. It was a beautiful venue, the food was great, and the quality of the papers and discussion was as high as it's ever been. Many thanks to Harald Krebs for hosting and taking care of the local arrangements. We're scheduled to meet at San Diego State from April 6-8 next spring; check this page and wccmta.com for details in the fall.

I bought a "domain" for the new WCCMTA website, which you can now find at http:\\wccmta.com. Check it out; it has complete information about the 2017 Victoria conference!