With topics ranging from the music of Frank Sinatra to Rage Against the Machine, teaching techniques to microtonal pantriadicism, music theorists from the College of Music were a marked presence at conferences around the country this spring.
Conference presentations by FSU faculty, students, and alumni (as of March 24, 2025) included:
American Musicological Society–South Central (Belmont University)
- Molly Reid (current Ph.D./D.M.), “Demanding Space: An Embodied Analysis of Luise Adolpha Le Beau’s Variations on an Original Theme, Op. 3”
- Claire Terrell (current Ph.D.), “Playlist Making as Analysis: Genre as Presentations of Gender in ‘Barbenheimer’ Playlists”
Graduate Association of Musicologists und Theorists (University of North Texas)
- Luis Matos-Tovar (current Ph.D.), “The Transition That Grows: Expanding Romantic Frameworks with the Anticipatory Transition”
Music Theory / Genre Theory (University of Texas–Austin)
- Brad Osborn (University of Kansas faculty, FSU M.M. 2006), “Verbing with Chillwave”
- Claire Terrell (current Ph.D.), “Playlist Making as Analysis”
Music Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic (Gettysburg College)
- Cameron Gwynn (current M.M.), “A Rosary of Tears: Tonal Indeterminacy in the Music of Frank Sinatra”
- Brian Junttila (current D.M.), “Music’s Role in Signifying the Progression of Difficulty in Survival Rogue-like and Sandbox Adventure Games”
- Judith Ofcarcik (James Madison University faculty, FSU Ph.D. 2013), “Listening to See: Voice and Agency
in Jeremy Dutcher’s ‘Sakomawit’” - Brittney Pflanz (current M.M.), “The Arrested Ending: Exploring Death Through Silence in Popular Music”
Music Theory Society of New York State (Fordham University)
- Stanley Ralph Fink (Drake University faculty, FSU Ph.D. 2020), “The Doppelgänger as Musical Complement in Julia Perry’s The Cask of Amontillado”
- Lina Tabak (Indiana University faculty, FSU B.M. 2019), “‘Rhythmic Venom’ or Comfortable Groove? On Microtiming in Colombian Currulao’s Isochronous Dosillo”
Music Theory Southeast (Furman University)
- Armin Akhavian (M.M. 2022, current Ph.D.), “Hypermetric Ambiguity: Between Scores and Recordings” Michael Buchler (FSU faculty), Keynote Address: “(Non) Semper Idem: Some Challenges to ‘All er Nuthin’
- Approaches to Methodology, Hierarchy, Register, and Cadence”
- Jane Piper Clendinning (FSU faculty), Workshop: “Opening Music Theory to World and Traditional Musics” Cameron Gwynn (current M.M.), Voice-Leading and Lane-Splitting: Microtonal Pantriadicism in Transformational Space”
- Evan Jones (FSU faculty), “Families of Set Classes Arising from a Cellular Automaton in Mod-12 and Other Modular Spaces”
- Brian Junttila (M.M. 2021, current D.M.), “Music’s Role in Signifying the Progression of Difficulty in Survival Roguelike and Sandbox Adventure Games”
- Robert Kelley (Lander University, FSU Ph.D. 2005), “Criterion-Referenced Grading vs. Flipped-Classroom Format vs. Visual Voice-Leading Cues: Which Undergraduate Music Theory Teaching Technique Actually Worked?”
- Dickie Lee (University of Georgia faculty, FSU Ph.D. 2017), “Force Image Schemata, Conceptual Metaphors, and Narrative in Rage Against the Machine’s Self-Titled Debut Album”
Kudos to all of our faculty, students, and alumni for this notable achievement!
