Newsletter Department of Music Fall 2015 From the Chair ow more than ever, the Department of Music feels like an extended At a time when so many are subject to hardship and violence, family. Just in the last year, five of our members have had children: our common occupation seems all the more life-affirming. The trans- N Zosha Di Castri and David Adamcyk’s daughter Leonora, Mariusz formative power of music has been demonstrated by projects such as Meskens Ad by Photo Kozak’s son Timothy, Taylor Brook’s daughter Thora, Benjamin Aaron Fox’s repatriation of Alaskan indigenous songs, George Lewis’s Steege’s son Julian, and Galen De Graf’s daughter Hedwig. The Whispering Bayou civic artwork imagining the future of Houston, ongoing renewal of our community reminds me of the many long and Chris Washburne’s teaching at the Sing Sing Correctional Facility. lives that our Department has touched. When alumni from the last Every day, our Department introduces people to new musical experi- half-century—including the founding editor of Current Musicology— ences and ideas that will continue to live within them for years. Our flocked to the journal’s 50th anniversary conference in the spring students go out into the world well prepared to realize all kinds of of 2015, the intermingling of generations yielded unprecedented dreams. As I contemplate the generations of our Department family encounters and exchanges of ideas. The conference and the accompa- reflected in this newsletter, I am ever more convinced that our shared nying exhibition in the Music and Arts Library, both expertly planned aspirations will lead to a better future. and executed by graduate students, demonstrated a felicitous esprit de I look forward to hearing from you. Please send me your news corps and aptly conveyed the intellectual foment that has produced so by email ([email protected]) or postal mail at the address on the many influential articles in Current Musicology over the decades. back of this letter, follow the Department on Facebook and Twitter That special energy also drives the achievements of the dedicated (both @departmentchair and music@columbia) and watch for our undergraduate musicians in the Music Performance Program, most newly designed website, music.columbia.edu. of whom are not majors or concentrators in music. Generous gifts from parents of Columbia undergraduates have provided exceptional Yours sincerely, opportunities for student musicians. In 2015 the Columbia University Susan Boynton Department Chair Orchestra performed for the first time in Alice Tully Hall—an unfor- [email protected] gettable experience for performers and audience alike. 2015 also saw the release of the Louis Armstrong Jazz Performance Program’s first recording (Young Lions, vol. 1). 2 New Faculty transmission des musiques de tradition Ë Alessandra Ciucci orale,” which is part of the “Constantine Matthew New Core Lecturers capitale de la culture arabe” year of the Goodheart in Music Humanities Alessandra Ciucci is a Centre National de Recherches Préhis- joined the Depart- composer, impro- Mahir Cetiz earned toriques, Anthropologiques et Historiques ment of Music as viser, and sound his DMA from (CNRPAH) in Algeria. Assistant Professor artist who com- Columbia Univer- of Ethnomusicology Professor Ciucci has been a recipient of a pleted a PhD at sity, where he on July 1, 2015. Fulbright Award (Morocco), a fellowship the University of studied with Fred Professor Ciucci from the Jewish Foundation for the Educa- California at Lerdahl, Fabien received her PhD tion of Women, and a grant from the Amer- Berkeley in 2013. Lévy and Tristan in music (Ethno- ican Institute for Maghrib Studies. Before Following an early Murail. He has an musicology) from coming to Columbia she was on the faculty career as a free-jazz pianist, he has developed undergraduate The City University of New York at The at Northeastern University. a wide body of work that explores the degree from Ankara Graduate Center. She was a Mellon Post- relationships between performer, instrument, State Conservatory, where he studied cello, Doctoral Fellow in the Department of Music and listener. His diverse creations range from piano, conducting and composition. He also New Mellon large-scale microtonal compositions to open at Columbia in 2008–2010, and is also an Postdoctoral Fellows has masters’ degrees in composition from the undergraduate alumna of the Department improvisations to immersive sound installa- University of Memphis and conducting from of Music at Columbia with a BA from Vilde Aaslid is an tions—all unified by the analytic techniques Hacettepe University in Turkey. As the Columbia’s School of General Studies. interdisciplinary and performative methodologies that bring recipient of “the musician of the year award” Professor Ciucci’s research interests include music scholar with forth the unique and subtle acoustic proper- from the British Council, he lived in the music of Morocco, North Africa, the interests in text and ties of individual musical instruments. Manchester, UK for two years while studying Mediterranean, music and migration, music improvisation. Goodheart’s approach results in a “generative at Royal Northern College of Music and and gender, sung poetry, and popular music She completed her foundation” for exploring issues of percep- working as a pianist, composer and conduc- of the Arab world. Her articles appear in PhD in Critical tion, technology, cultural ritual, and the tor. From 2003–2006 Cetiz was a faculty Ethnomusicology, the Yearbook for Traditional and Comparative psycho-physical impact of acoustic phenom- member in Bilkent University in Ankara, Music, the International Journal of Middle Studies in Music at ena. He has won numerous awards and teaching composition and music theory East Studies, Mondi Migranti, Cahiers de the University of honors, including the 2014 Berlin Prize, and courses. He is an active conductor and musiques traditionnelles, in the Sage Encyclope- Virginia in 2014, supported by a Jefferson a 2013–14 Fulbright Grant to the Czech pianist. His compositional interests include dia of Ethnomusicology, and in several edited Scholars Foundation fellowship. Her current Republic where he worked with the historic musical traditions of the Middle East and volumes. In November she presented book project examines the cultural and quartertone pianos designed by Alois Hába. India, medieval polyphony and the percep- “Performing Tradition in Contemporary aesthetic interrelation of improvised music tion of musical gestures. He has composed Morocco: The Case of ‘Abidat rma,” at the and poetry, building on her dissertation on works for orchestra, pieces for acoustic international conference “Savoir-faire et jazz poetry intersection. Her work on Charles ensembles of different sizes, as well as solo Mingus recently appeared in the Journal of instrumental pieces and pieces for electron- the Society for American Music. She is also an ics. Works by Cetiz have been performed by active performer of the Norwegian hardanger the International Contemporary Ensemble, fiddle and practitioner of traditional Ensemble Intercontemporain, the New York Norwegian singing and dancing. Philharmonic, BBC Symphony, BBC 3 Philharmonic and Tonhalle-Orchester Ë Ë Zürich. Last year, Cetiz was a compos- Caleb Mutch Two New Postdoctoral Carmel Raz was er-in-residence at CIRM (Centre National de completed his PhD Fellows in the Columbia appointed a Society of Fellows in the Création Musicale) and took part in the in 2015 with a postdoctoral fellow Humanities “MANCA Festival” in Nice with La plus dissertation on the at the Columbia étrange des créatures (for soprano, bass development of the David Gutkin Society of Fellows clarinet, and electronics). concept of the completed his in the Humanities Ë cadence in tonal PhD in Historical and Lecturer in Mario Diaz de theory. His research Musicology at Music beginning Leon earned his areas include the Columbia in 2015 July 1, 2015. Raz DMA in composi- development and and was appointed received her PhD tion from Columbia transmission of music theory in antiquity a postdoctoral in music theory from Yale in May 2015. in 2013, and was and the medieval period, approaches to fellow at the She holds a Diplom in violin from the appointed Core music historiography in the Romantic era, Columbia Society Hochschule für Musik in Berlin, and a MA Lecturer in Music and historically informed approaches to of Fellows in the in composition from the University of Humanities for Schenkerian analysis. He has presented parts Humanities and Lecturer in Music beginning Chicago. Her primary research interests focus 2015–2017. His of his dissertation research at the annual July 1, 2015. His research focuses on European on the music and neuroscience of the early work “Veni Lumen meetings of the Society for Music Theory and American music from the early twentieth Romantic period, in particular the influence Cordium,” for string orchestra and electron- and Music Theory Midwest, and has century through the present, with an emphasis of models of embodied cognition on musical ics, was premiered in March 2015 by The delivered papers on other subjects at past on technologies of mediating music (from works, instrument design, and aesthetics. String Orchestra of Brooklyn. A large- meetings of the Society for Music Theory notation to television), processes of canon Additional interests include Scottish ensemble collaboration with Nate Young and the Music Theory Society of New York formation, and the