From the PresiDeNt smt NAshViLLe 2008 My most vivid memory The Society will meet jointly with the AMS from our recent meeting from November 6 to November 9 at the in Baltimore is of the mo- Renaissance Nashville Hotel in Nashville, ment on Friday morning Tennessee. Gretchen Horlacher will chair SMT when I walked into the the Program Committee and Melanie Lowe Ne w s l e t t e r graduate student breakfast ([email protected]) is the chair of local meeting. The room was arrangements. A Publication of the packed, the bagels were The Renaissance Nashville Hotel is located Society for Music Theory long gone (Note: I promise in the heart of Music City. Within walk- we will double the bagel budget for next ing distance are B.B. King’s Blues Club, the year), and the students were buzzing, with Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, discussions and introductions going on right the honky tonks and live music venues of and left. Our Graduate Student Workshops, the historic Second Avenue District and News From this year led by Cristle Collins Judd and by Lower Broadway, the historic Printer’s Alley, the society James Hepokoski and Warren Darcy, were with its “Bourbon Street” flair, as well as the once again a roaring success. Over the course Schermerhorn Symphony Center, home of OffICERS AND CoMMITTEES of the weekend I met a number (though not the Nashville Symphony Orchestra, and the Pages 2–5, Sidebars enough) of our newest members. Nothing Frist Center for the Visual Arts. Adjacent to better attests to the vibrant health of SMT the Renaissance is the beautiful Nashville AWARDS than the number, energy, and intellectual fer- Public Library, whose Civil Rights Collection Page 6 ment of our student members. is especially rich—it overlooks the very streets While this fine state of affairs is the prod- that saw the Nashville sit-ins that ultimately InTEREST GROUPS uct of the work of many hands over many desegregated the city’s lunch counters in Pages 9–10 years, I must give immediate credit to our 960. Further afield are the Grand Ole Opry, Past President, Bill Caplin. Bill’s work on the intimate Bluebird Café (the place to be all aspects of Society management has been heard for songwriters in Nashville), and the News oF iNterest exemplary, and it has been both educational Station Inn (Nashville’s premiere bluegrass and a pleasure to be his shadow this past year. and roots music listening room), NEWS ITEMS As I sat as a lurker on the Executive Board During the summer, the August Newslet- Pages 10–11 (under the old bylaws, the President-Elect ter and SMT home page will provide specific was a non-voting member), I was always im- information about the program and hotel ac- IN MEMORIAM pressed by the creative and thoughtful com- commodations. Pages 12–13 ments of my colleagues. So a special thanks goes to the departing members of the board, smt GrADUAte stUDeNt CALLS FOR PAPERS Janna Saslaw and Frank Samarotto, as well as WORKshoP ProGrAm Pages 12–13 Vice President Robert Hatten. Credit for our The SMT Graduate Student Workshop continued health and growth also goes to our Program (GSWP) conducts educational many committees, especially the Commit- workshops at national meetings for graduate UPCOMING CONFERENCES Page 14 tee on the Status of Women, Diversity, and students in music theory led by scholars in a Professional Development Committees. They particular field. Unlike paper presentations, help keep the door to SMT open wide, and these are interactive working sessions empha- INTERNATIONAL SOCIETIES assist and encourage young scholars once they sizing instruction, participation, and collab- Pages 15–16 enter the profession. Last but not least, I want orative learning. GSWP provides a pedagogi- to acknowledge the good works of the leaders cal dimension to the Society, a vehicle for REGIONAL AND and participants in our many special interest increasing student membership, and a means AFFILIATE SOCIETIES groups, including our newest SIGs, Disabil- of introducing emerging scholars to their col- Pages 16-19 ity and Music, and Mathematics of Musical leagues and the profession as a whole. Analysis. These groups collectively show that GSWP will offer two concurrent three- CALENDAR OF EVENTS “music theory” encompasses a wider range hour workshops at the 2008 SMT National AND DEADLINES of intellectual and musical pursuits than ever Meeting in Nashville on Friday morning, No- Back Page before. vember 7, 2008. Professor Robert Hatten of As you have already heard from mailings Indiana University will conduct a workshop and e-mails, as of January st we have been on “Musical Meaning in Beethoven,” and Pro- directly in charge of collecting our dues and fessor John Roeder of the University of British Volume 31 member information, services that were for- Columbia will conduct a workshop on “Ana- Number 1 merly provided by the University of Califor- lyzing Contemporary Music.” Participants are nia Press. UC Press will still serve as our encouraged to attend the Graduate Student February 2008 (continued, p. 2) (continued, p. 12) publisher for Spectrum, and we look forward to wider dissemination of our scholarship society for music theory through their CALIBER Web site. The benefits of this new arrangement will be many: im- 2008 executive Board proved revenue, enhanced member services (through our soon-to-be-improved Web site), and better demographic knowledge of who our members are, what they need from their So- ciety, and how to meet those needs. This would not have been possible without many, many Justin London hours of work by our Executive Director, Vicky Long. Vicky, working with our treasurer President, 2009 David Smyth and members of the Networking Committee (especially Larry Zbikowski and Department of Music Richard Plotkin), insured a smooth transition to our new Web-based member services. Carleton College With these changes come challenges. While we will realize additional income from our Northfield, MN 55057 new arrangement, there are also added costs, including an expansion of the duties of our [email protected] Executive Director, increased Web design and maintenance costs, and banking fees. We now William Caplin face what might be termed a “structural” problem: while SMT has grown enough so that we Past President, 2008 now have the fixed costs of many of our larger sister societies, at the same time we lack their Schulich School of Music economies of scale. The Executive Board and I will be keeping a close watch on the Society’s McGill University “bottom line” in the coming year, and we will report back to you in August (and at our 555 Sherbrooke Street West 2008 meeting) as to how our new business plan is working. Meanwhile, I would ask you to Montréal, PQ H3A E3 query your colleagues in other departments, and ask what they pay for annual dues, journal Canada subscriptions (which in many societies are not included in the membership fee), and meet- [email protected] ing fees. I think you will find that SMT remains quite a bargain. Another big change in SMT’s operations is also afoot, and this involves Society publica- Jane Piper Clendinning tions. While we may not think of them this way, all of our publications—Spectrum, MTO, Vice President, 2009 and the SMT Newsletter—are de facto electronic publications. MTO, of course, has been College of Music in the vanguard of online journals, and continues apace. But Spectrum is available both in Florida State University print and online (and for more and more institutional subscribers, only online), and our Tallahassee, FL 32306-80 Newsletters are all available as PDF documents. Our Web site should be considered one of [email protected] our “publications” as well. This coming year we will be continuing discussions launched by Nancy Rogers Past President Caplin regarding how we collectively manage and support all of our publica- Secretary, 2008 tions. Our goal is to determine the best way to get scholarly and professional information to College of Music our members, and for the SMT to be a more useful (and frequent) presence in their teach- Florida State University ing and scholarship. Stay tuned, as I hope to have more to report about this in our August Tallahassee, FL 32306-80 Newsletter. [email protected] —Justin London David Smyth ActioNs oF the eXecUtiVe BoArD Treasurer, 200 Since the publication of the August 2007 Newsletter, the Executive Board has approved the School of Music following motions: Louisiana State University 1. to approve the following Mission Statement: “The Society for Music Theory pro- Baton Rouge, LA 70803-2504 motes the development of all aspects of the discipline of music theory. The Society [email protected] construes this discipline broadly to be the formal study of music of the Western tra- dition and beyond, all approaches, from conceptual to practical, and all perspectives, Victoria Long including those of the listener, composer, performer, and teacher. The Society fur- Executive Director (ex officio) thers the dissemination of music theory through the hosting of annual conferences, [email protected] the publication of journals both print and online, and the ongoing maintenance of an online presence, as well as outreach to other scholarly societies. The Society active- ly seeks to support other publications, workshops, interest groups, and any such ac- tivities that serve the diverse goals of the study of music theory. The Society is equally Michael Buchler, 2008 committed to diversity and gender equity, actively seeking to promote the health and Florida State University welfare of its scholarly community.” Catherine Nolan, 2008 2. to approve the minutes of the 2006 Executive Board meeting in Los Angeles.