Newsletter Department of Music Fall 2014 From the Chair utumn is in every way a time of harvest in the Department of Music The future looks ever brighter. Several new appointments at Columbia University. As the semester nears its end we see the fruits have strengthened our faculty, and the reach of the department is of study, practice, reflection, and research. These sustained activities expanding in exciting ways at home and abroad. Starting in the spring Meskens Ad by Photo A culminate in November and December, taking form as papers, presen- semester of 2015, we will teach Music Humanities in Paris every year tations, performances, and compositions. As the pages of this news- through the new Global Core Initiative, funded by a grant from the letter show, our faculty, students, and alumni are amply represented Andrew W. Mellon Foundation with the aim of educating Columbia in concerts, conferences, and publications throughout the world. students abroad and fostering the development of new courses on We are also a dynamic presence on campus, with close ties to campus; we are participating in both. Our steady stream of interna- all the centers and institutes that pepper the alphabet soup of inter- tional visiting scholars and students will surely be augmented by the disciplinary life at Columbia. Equally enriching are our personal and presence of the vast Serge Prokofiev Archive now on deposit in the professional relationships with faculty and students in a wide range of Rare Book and Manuscript Library, combining collections formerly departments—Anthropology, Art History, Computer Science, English housed in London and Paris. The archive’s arrival at Columbia will be and Comparative Literature, History, Latin American and Iberian celebrated in a concert presented by the Serge Prokofiev Foundation Cultures, Mathematics, Philosophy, Psychology, Religion, Slavic Lan- at the Italian Academy on April 24. During the same month we will guages—the list goes on and on. We are connected and interconnected. showcase the achievements of our undergraduates with a chamber Our crop also has a less visible yield which is just as durable as it music gala at Weill Hall (April 8), a concert of the Jazz ensembles at is unquantifiable, namely the ongoing conversations, collaborations, the Italian Academy (April 19) and the Columbia University Orches- and friendships that give our community its unparalleled vitality. The tra’s first appearance at Lincoln Center, in a gala performance at Alice structure of the department entails communicating across disciplines Tully Hall (April 18). A fuller listing of spring 2015 events appears on on a regular basis. Our undergraduate major now includes ethnomusi- the last page of this newsletter. We hope that you will join us for as cology among its general requirements as well as music theory and his- many of these events as possible, and renew or continue your connec- tory; the undergraduate program in Music Performance is growing in tion with the department by sending your news for inclusion in next synergy with the burgeoning population of undergraduate composers. year’s newsletter. Graduate students in our four doctoral programs work together in many settings, including Current Musicology and the annual Columbia Best wishes for 2015! Music Scholarship conference. They interact every day in their Susan Boynton seminars, in Music Humanities, and in the graduate student lounge. Department Chair Several faculty members serve in multiple areas of the department and [email protected] are affiliated with or jointly appointed in Columbia’s interdisciplinary centers and institutes. Such intersections and cross-sections blossom in our vibrant atmosphere. 2 New Faculty and cognitive bases of musical experience, and Zosha Di Castri Georg Friedrich Haas the phenomenology of bodily interactions in Mellon Postdoctoral musical behavior. In his work, he attempts to Fellows, 2014-16 Zosha Di Castri Georg Friedrich Haas bridge experimental approaches from embodied (DMA Composition, came to Columbia cognition with phenomenology and music Ashley Fure composes in both acoustic 2014) was appointed University as the analysis, in particular using motion-capture and electroacoustic media and collaborates Assistant Professor of MacDowell Professor technology to study the movements of frequently with artists from other disciplines. Music (Composition) of Composition in performers and listeners. His current project She earned a PhD in Music Composition from in July 2014. Her work September 2013, examines how listeners’ understanding and Harvard University and further degrees from includes concert music, having held dual experience of musical time are shaped by bodily IRCAM (Cursus 1 and 2), Oberlin Conserva- projects with electron- professorships at the actions and gestures. tory (B.Mus), and the Interlochen Arts Acad- ics, installations, and collaborations with video Hochschule für Musik in Basel, Switzerland, emy. She won the Kranichsteiner Music Prize at and dance. Zosha has made appearances with and the Kunstuniversität in Graz, Austria. Haas the 2014 Darmstadt Internationalen Ferien- the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the L.A. has emerged as one of the major European Magdalena Stern-Baczewska kursen für Neue Musik, and the 2014 Busoni Philharmonic and has worked with many local composers of his generation. His music Magdalena Prize from the Akademie der Künste in Berlin. groups including Talea Ensemble, Wet Ink, synthesizes in a highly original way the Austrian Stern-Baczewska, an Other honors include a 2013 Impuls Interna- Ekmeles, and Ensemble Pamplemousse. She tradition of grand orchestral statement with award-winning soloist tional Composition Prize, a 2012 Darmstadt was the recipient of the Jules Leger Prize for forward-looking interests in harmonic color and recording artist, Stipendienpreis, a 2012 Staubach Honorarium, New Chamber Music for her work Cortege in and microtonal tuning that stem from both was appointed Lecturer and a 2011 Jezek Prize. Notable recent projects 2012, and participated in Ircam’s Manifeste French spectralism and a strand of American in Music and Director include Ply, a 55-minute electroacoustic Festival, writing an interactive electronic work experimentalism. Haas’s hour-long in vain, for of the Music Perfor- ballet commissioned by IRCAM for the 2014 for Thomas Hauert’s dance company ZOO. 24 musicians, is widely regarded as one of the mance Program in July ManiFeste Festival in Paris; Feed Forward, a Current projects include an evening-length most original and path-breaking new composi- 2014. She performs internationally as a pianist sinfonietta commissioned by Klangforum Wien collaborative interdisciplinary work with David tions in the past quarter-century. He has (recently named a Yamaha artist) and a for the 2015 Impuls Festival in Graz; Albatross, Adamcyk and ICE, and a piece for the Cecilia composed several operas and concertos and a harpsichordist. Baczewska has served on the for large ensemble and electronics, commis- String Quartet. variety of chamber works, including seven faculty of the Mannes College New School for sioned by the San Francisco Contemporary string quartets. He has received numerous Music, John J. Cali School of Music, Montclair Music Players; and Something to Hunt, a septet national and international prizes, including the commissioned for the 2014 Internationalen Julia Doe State University, and Manhattan School of Kompositionspreis of the SWR Symphony Music’s Pre-College Division. Every summer Ferienkursen für Neue Musik in Darmstadt. Julia Doe is currently a Orchestra (2010) for limited approximations she joins the faculty of the International Ë Mellon Postdoctoral and the Grand Austrian State Prize for Music Keyboard Institute and Festival and the New Bryan Parkhurst earned his PhD in philosophy Fellow at Columbia (2007), the country’s highest artistic honor. York Piano Festival. Her guest teaching and music theory from the University of Mich- and will become an appearances also include remote master classes igan, where he was supported by a Regents Assistant Professor Mariusz Kozak using Yamaha Disklavier and the Remote Fellowship and a Rackham Predoctoral Fellow- (Historical Musicology) Lesson technology. She is a recipient of the ship. He is currently researching a book about in July 2015. Doe holds Mariusz Kozak joined Outstanding Achievement Award from the Hegel and Hauptmann. Additionally, Bryan a Ph.D. in musicology the Columbia Polish Ministry of Culture. Magdalena is is interested in Marxist philosophy generally from Yale University. She is a scholar of University as an Artistic Advisor to the International Chopin and Marxist aesthetics in particular, as well as eighteenth-century opera, with particular Assistant Professor of Competition at the Kosciuszko Foundation in the grand question of whether and how it is emphasis on the music, literature, and politics Music in July 2013 in New York. possible for music to be philosophy (Marxist of the French Enlightenment. Her current book after serving as a or otherwise). Bryan’s publications appear in project examines the development of opéra- post-doctoral scholar Music Theory Online, The Journal of Aesthetic comique in the final decades of the Old Regime, and visiting assistant Education and The Journal of Interdisciplinary as it engaged with emerging discourses of professor of music theory at the Indiana Humanities. national and cosmopolitan musical style. Doe’s University Jacobs School of Music. His research