AMS Newsletter February 2016
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AMS NEWSLETTER THE AMERICAN MUSICOLOGICAL SOCIETY CONSTITUENT MEMBER OF THE AMERICAN COUNCIL OF LEARNED SOCIETIES VOLUME XLVI, NUMBER 1 February 2016 ISSN 0402-012X Breathtaking Vancouver: AMS/SMT 2016 AMS Louisville 2015 There are two events I long will associate with the Louisville eighty-first Annual Meeting 3–6 November Sheraton Vancouver Wall Centre’s floor-to- of the American Musicological Society. The www.ams-net.org/vancouver ceiling, wall-to-wall windows will offer spec- first was the presence in the Galt House Ho- tacular views of the city and its surroundings. tel of dozens of professional or highly prac- Vancouver is awesome: a bustling, ethnically The hotel is located within walking distance ticed bodybuilders, members of the group diverse city with a thriving arts scene and of the Orpheum Theatre, home of the Van- Kentucky Muscle, who were attending a marvelous cuisine, where the glass of sky- couver Symphony Orchestra, the Vancouver competition in the hotel concurrent with scrapers reflects the natural splendor of the Art Gallery with its famous Emily Carr col- our gathering. In stark and sobering contrast coastal mountains, the rainforest, and the lection, and the restaurants and boutiques of were the terrorist attacks that took place in Salish Sea. This year, the AMS invites you to Robson Street and Yaletown. Departing every Paris, France on Friday, 13 November. With the heart of this beautiful city for the Society’s ten minutes, the C23 shuttle runs from the so many of our members having connections Annual Meeting to be held jointly with the hotel to Yaletown and on to historic China- to Paris, professional and/or personal, I was Society for Music Theory from 3 to 6 Novem- town, the location of the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen gratified to see that for the rest of the meeting ber. As you plan your trip, I encourage you Classical Chinese Garden, named World Top people noticeably took time to contemplate to visit the award-winning local blog vancou- City Garden by National Geographic. The how the world had changed, including several verisawesome.com for the latest news about Wall Centre is a mere 1.2 miles from Stanley sessions that began with a moment of silence. attractions, great food, and craft beer. Now, it Park with its seawall walkway and 1,000 acres I want to thank the members of the Pro- is my pleasure to introduce you to some Van- of rainforest, and an inexpensive Aquabus gram Committee—Albin Zak, Anne Stone, couver tourism and event highlights. trip from the artisan workshops, comedy im- Jonathan Bellman, Holly Watkins, Daniel As you take in the conference proceedings prov theatre, and public market on Granville Melamed, Roger Freitas—for participating planned by the Program Committee, chaired Island. every step of the way in the process of as- by Anne Stone (Graduate Center, CUNY), Local arts groups are planning extraordi- sembling the Louisville program. The Local and the Performance Committee, chaired nary performances for the weekend of the Arrangements Committee, chaired by Seow- by Steven Zohn (Temple University), the AMS/SMT meeting. Early Music Vancou- Chin Ong and with the great help of Caro- ver will present renowned cornettist Bruce line Ehman, organized a wonderful array of In This Issue… Dickey and Czech soprano Hana Blažíková activities, both in the hotel and in and around along with early music stars from the Pacific President’s Message .............. 2 the city, all topped off with the fortuitous Northwest including Monica Huggett and JAMS News ................... 3 occurrence of the New Music Festival simul- Roland Jackson Award............ 3 Stephen Stubbs in “Breathtaking,” a program taneously taking place on the University of AMS Public Lectures ............ 5 exploring the cornetto’s ability to imitate the Louisville campus! And as usual, Bob Judd, Al Recent Board Actions .............5 human voice. The concert will take place just Hipkins, and their team made sure that every- Awards, Prizes, Honors ........... 6 three blocks from the Wall Centre at Christ thing went off with few hitches—and those What I Do in Musicology ........ 11 Church Cathedral, Vancouver’s oldest surviv- that arose were deftly dispatched. According What is the AMS Council? ....... 11 ing church. Music on Main, an organization to long-time attendees, graduate students, Career / Life Intersections ........ 12 that has attracted international attention for first-timers, editors, and sales folk in the Ex- Treasurer’s Message .............. 12 its innovative programming, will present its hibit Hall—and just about everyone else I Elections 2016 ..................13 Modulus Festival. A multi-format celebra- spoke with—the meeting was a great success. Louisville Post-Conference Survey .. 15 tion of music composed during the last fifty A wide range of program sessions and paper News Briefs ...................16 years, the Modulus Festival features a variety topics offered something for just about every Grants, Fellowships ..............17 of informal and intimate musical experiences. taste or interest, whether the side-by-side dis- Committee News ...............18 Past festivals have included collaborations cussions on Cole Porter and Ernst Bloch (Fri- Study Group News ..............20 with dancers, choreographers, world music day evening) or a single time slot that includ- CFPs, Conferences ..............22 performers, and the DOXA Documentary ed sessions on nationalism, twentieth-century Papers Read at Chapter Meetings ...23 Film Festival. The festival’s main venue, the avant-garde music, performance practice, Financial Statement .............29 Yaletown Roundhouse Community Arts early modern Italy, and a half-dozen others Obituaries ....................30 continued on page continued on page President’s Message Sitting down to write on New Year’s Eve, as I in Louisville, therefore, it had a basis in an of excellence now do, emphasizes my sense of endings and unusually strong the tradition of new music in musicology beginnings. Of course, this moment for most in the city. Through a stroke of serendipity without regard scholars represents the precise middle of the unanticipated five years ago when Louisville to subject or ap- year with a “New Year’s Day” not on 1 Janu- was chosen as our meeting site, the 2015 New proach speaks to ary, but rather on 1 July. The AMS observes Music Festival at the University of Louisville, the importance that “academic” calendar for its financial ac- celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of the of diversity and counting and other business matters, but in Grawemeyer Award and featuring the 2003 inclusiveness in terms of our scholarly programs, a different Grawemeyer Award Winner Kaija Saariaho, our exploration cycle obtains in which our “New Year’s Eve” ran concurrently with our meeting. of music and un- occurs at the annual Business Meeting when Clearly this was an opportunity not to be derscores the role Ellen T. Harris we celebrate that year’s prizes and awards. It is missed. Not only was the AMS able to pro- music plays in human society. also at the conclusion of the Business Meeting vide a shuttle bus to major events at the New As we move into 2016, we have specific that all committee and elected positions begin Music Festival, but the Program Committee, things to which we can look forward. Primary and end. And to a larger extent, the Annual given the opportunity for the first time to cre- among these is the move of the AMS Office Meeting concludes a year of preparation and ate a session of its own making, chose to high- to New York University. Our current arrange- publication that starts again with the submis- light the Festival with a panel entitled “Wom- ment at Bowdoin College ends officially on sion of paper abstracts and prize nominations en Composing Modern Opera.” Among the 30 June 2016, but we hope to have made our for the following year. With this moveable composers whose work was to be discussed, transition ahead of that other “New Year” on “AMS calendar” now poised between 2015 Saariaho took pride of place. It seemed natu- 1 July. We now know that we will be housed at and 2016, I find myself reflecting on the state ral, therefore, for the AMS to extend an invi- 194 Mercer Street, just off Washington Square of AMS at the end of the old year and on the tation to Saariaho to attend and participate in in the center of the NYU campus. The AMS enormous changes that will occur in the new. was organized and founded in New York City, The Annual Meeting in Louisville served as If you’re interested in how music growing out of the disbanded New York Mu- a terrific conclusion to the Society’s 2015 pro- sicological Society, and incorporated in the grammatic year. One of the ironies of being works or the work music does, then State of New York. Gustave Reese, one of its President is that the crush of duties makes it you are welcome in the AMS founding members, its first Secretary, and the difficult to attend as many papers as I would person who wrote to Otto Kinkeldey at Cor- like. Those I did manage to hear were first- the panel, and we were thrilled with her ac- nell to inform him that he had been elected rate, and the many comments I heard during ceptance, which helped to underscore the im- in absentia as the first President of the Society the meeting reinforced my sense that the Pro- portant relationship between musicology and (!), was a member of the NYU music faculty gram Committee (Daniel Goldmark, Chair; contemporary composition and performance. throughout his career. In some ways we are Jonathan Bellman, Roger Freitas, Daniel So much of interest and importance oc- coming home. One of the exciting, new pro- Melamed, Anne Stone, Holly Watkins, Albin curred at the Annual Meeting in Louisville grams that will grow out of this affiliation is Zak) and Performance Committee (David that it is clearly impossible for me to refer to the addition of an AMS-NYU Lecture to the Dolata, Chair; Catherine Gordon, Seow Chin all of it, but one more session must be men- already established lectures at the Library of Ong, Stephen Zohn) did a truly fine job.