Ohio State graduate students and faculty shared their work at the 2023 joint meeting of the American Musicological Society and the Society for Music Theory in Denver, Colorado, November 9–12. Student presenters included Dylan Crosson (PhD, musicology), "On Earth as it is in Scale Degree Seven: Understanding the Mixolydian Mode in 'Revelation Song;’" Zachary Lookenbill (PhD, theory), “Temporal Transformations in the Timekeeper’s Toolkit: Metric Modulation in Popular Music Drumming;” Trinity Vélez-Justo (PhD, theory), “What’s Up, Danger?” and the Assimilative Implications of its Musical Hybridity in Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse (2018).” Gerardo Lopez (PhD, theory) gave a paper entitled “Understanding through Unintelligibility: A Close Reading of Neil Young's Voice in Trans (1982)” and he also joined the SMT Professional Development Committee. Brenna Miller (PhD, musicology) attended the meeting on a Career Development Grant in American Music. This award supports participation in annual meeting programming that deepens participants’ knowledge of American music and strengthens their professional networks. In addition, Trinity Vélez-Justo (PhD, theory), Isabelle Thomas (MA, theory), Andrea Tinajero-Perez (PhD, theory) and Ila Sharma (MA, theory; MM, composition) attended the meeting with the assistance of competitive travel grants awarded by the Society for Music Theory.

Matthew Bilik (visiting assistant professor, theory) gave a paper on "Pivot Sonority Markedness as Bass-Chord Disjunction in Pop and Rock." Jeremy W. Smith (assistant professor, theory) presented “Differentiated Instruction of Popular-Music Analysis” in the symposium Teaching Popular Music Studies: Pedagogy and Curriculum, run by the AMS Popular Music Study Group.

Anna Gawboy (associate professor, theory) discussed “Sun Ra’s Egyptian-Atlantean Magic” on the AMS program. She served as a Conference Guide for first-time SMT student attendees and completed the first year of her term on the SMT Books Award committee. In addition, she hosted a breakfast meeting for thirty-five Ohio State students, faculty, alumni and former faculty, including faculty Emeriti. Gawboy and Smith, assisted by Bilik, represented Musicology and Music Theory at the Joint Prospective Graduate Student Program Fair.

Pictured: Jeremy W. Smith and Anna Gawboy

In partnership with Dr. Stacy Hartman, Danielle Fosler-Lussier (professor, musicology) presented a 90-minute workshop for faculty advisors entitled “Mentoring Grad Students Toward Many Possible Futures.” She also participated as an invited speaker in two events — a roundtable on funding and licensing strategies for open-access publishing, and a panel on recent innovations in classroom materials for teaching music history. These panels featured discussion of Fosler-Lussier’s book, Music on the Move, which won the AMS Teaching Award in 2021.

The meeting also featured a book launch event for the new six-volume set, A Cultural History of Western Music. Fosler-Lussier co-edited volume 6 (A Cultural History of Western Music in the Modern Age) with Professor William Cheng of Dartmouth College. The volume includes a chapter by Anna Gawboy entitled “Philosophy: Theosophy and Esoteric Musical Modernism,” and a chapter by Fosler-Lussier entitled “Politics: Music, Nation States, and the ‘Small World’ in the Long Twentieth Century.” 

Pictured: Danielle Fosler-Lussier and William Cheng

At the AMS Awards Ceremony, Fosler-Lussier was awarded Honorary Membership in the society. This is the society’s highest honor: it is awarded to only a few members per year. The Honorary Membership recognizes those who make outstanding contributions to expanding the understanding of music and sound through research, teaching, learning and advocacy. Fosler-Lussier is the youngest person ever to receive this honor.