Goodspeed Notes
Newsletter of the University of Chicago
Department of Music
Volume 19 • Autumn 2016
Goodspeed Notes
Volume 19 • Autumn 2016
Greetings from the Chair
Dear Friends,
Contents
I write as the new chair of the Music Department with warm greetings. The
indomitable Anne Robertson who had so ably led our Department the past two
4
Philip Glass’s Residency
16
Student Happenings
years was suddenly called to greater glory as interim Dean of the Humanities
8
A Voice As Something More
20
Faculty Updates
Philip Gossett served in several decades ago). Anne has left the Department in
In Memoriam: John Eaton
years.
6
9
10
11 13
14 Howard Sandroff Bids Farewell
Clague Wins First NEH Public Scholar Grant
Barbara Schubert: Accolades for 40 Years
Lorenz’s Catálogo Fantástico Commissioned for Schubert Tribute
18 25 26
27
Alumni Notes
Division this past month (a few of you may recall that this was the same position
Department Staff Briefs
excellent shape, and we are grateful for her service over the past two eventful
In Memoriam: Maria Chow
Student Composers Featured in Ear Taxi Festival
72nd Season of University of Chicago Presents
With Thanks...
Many friends and alums have generously donated to the Department of Music in the last calendar year (see back
cover). Your gifts help support our students in numerous small but important ways: to visit an archive while
developing a dissertation proposal, to travel to a conference in order to read a first scholarly paper, or to have a
new composition performed. Every gift makes a difference. Thank you.
music.uchicago.edu/give
There is much new in Goodspeed Hall that we can report to you. In the
wake of our external review in 2015, we welcomed our new Don Michael Randel
Ensemble-in-Residence, the fabulous Imani Winds. We have also added new
colleagues to the faculty in key areas: Jessica S. Baker (PhD ‘15, University
of Pennsylvania) in ethnomusicology, Jennifer Iverson (PhD ‘09, University
of Texas) in music theory, and Sam Pluta (DMA ’12, Columbia University) in
composition. I hope you will get to know them through their write-ups in the
“Faculty Updates” section.
We also said a fond goodbye to Howard Sandroff, Senior Lecturer and Director of the Computer Music Studio, who retired
last December after more than three decades at UChicago. So, too, Melvin Butler departed for the Frost School of Music at
the University of Miami, while Kaley Mason moved to the opposite end of the country for his new position at Lewis and Clark
University in Portland. Amy Briggs, Lecturer and Director of Chamber Music, headed for the mountain views and running trails
of Boulder, CO; Daniel Pesca has joined us in her place. Finally, we have bid farewell to two of our long-standing ensembles-inresidence, the Pacifica Quartet and eighth blackbird. We sorely miss all who have left us and wish them every continued
success!
We welcome—and welcome back—several visitors in 2016–17. This fall, Calvin Bower, Professor Emeritus from Notre
Dame, returns for what has become his biennial visit to teach the History of Music Theory. Lars-Christian Koch, Professor of
Ethnomusicology at the University of Cologne, revisits Chicago to co-teach a seminar with Phil Bohlman in the winter quarter.
And Lawrence Earp, Professor of Music at the University of Wisconsin and also a past guest professor in the Department, will
teach an early music proseminar in Spring 2017.
The accomplishments of our alumni continue to amaze
Upcoming
UChicago Alumni
Receptions:
and delight us. You’ll read about how Mark Clague (PhD
’02) blazed the trail in the new NEH Public Scholars Grant
competition, and how Ricardo Lorenz (PhD ’99) composed a
major new work for the celebration of Barbara Schubert’s
40th year as conductor of the University Symphony
Orchestra.
As always, we very much look forward to seeing many
of you at the alumni receptions at the annual meetings of the
AMS / SMT Annual Conference, Vancouver, B.C.
Friday, Nov. 4, 9:00pm - Midnight
Sheraton Vancouver Wall Centre Hotel (Azure Room)
Cover: University Symphony Orchestra practices at Symphony Center in
downtown Chicago, under the baton of Barbara Schubert.
Photo by Matt Marton.
Layout and design by Luke Ramus.
Articles compiled and edited by Emily Anderson, James Burke, Melanie
Cloghessy, Peter Gillette, Luke Ramus, and Laura Swierzbin.
SEM Annual Conference, Washington, D.C.
Saturday, Nov. 12, 10:00pm - 1:00am
Omni-Sheraton Hotel (Room TBA)
AMS, SMT, and SEM this fall!
Warmest wishes,
Thomas Christensen, Chair
Philip Glass’s
Residency at
UChicago Music
currently hearing notes in his head that he’s never heard
performed by several pianists. The various interpretations,
He discussed the increasingly frequent occurrence of
composer himself, brought to the etudes were striking. The
by Pierce Gradone
Glass admitted that the initial impetus for the etudes
before, and incorporating them into his recent scores.
long-time collaborators believing that they’ve discovered
errors in his scores, only to find out that these are not the
result of a bad copyist, but of an 80-year-old composer
still searching for new sound worlds. This evolution was
evident in the performance of his Etudes, a collection of
short piano works composed over a period of several years.
was to create works that he could perform himself, thus
styles, and viewpoints that each pianist, including the
concert was a fitting end to the residency, as it succinctly
characterized much of Philip Glass’s aesthetic project. The
unmistakable sound of Philip Glass still permeates each
and every measure, but the intimacy and subtle stylistic
changes reflect an artist seeking constant transformation
and refinement, whose appetite for new collaborators,
sounds, and listeners will, it seems, never be sated.
explaining the earlier etudes’ surprising lack of traditional
The pioneering composer
returned to his alma mater for
an exciting three-day residency
Philip Glass’s recent residency at the University of
Chicago was the highlight of an already fabulous year of
visiting performers, composers and scholars. For Glass,
the residency was a kind of homecoming, as his earliest
attempts at composition occurred in the Harper Memorial
Library when he was an undergraduate at the University in
the 1950s. Throughout his visit, he noted the significant
changes at the University of Chicago since his days as a
student, especially the Logan Center and the commitment
to the arts that it represents.
A unique figure in American art music, Philip Glass
has managed to forge a thriving career independent from
4
accompany composers of his stature. Glass’s three-day
residency was a whirlwind of activity, with a film screening,
concerts, talks and interviews throughout the University
community, including a private meeting with the
University’s composition students. The talk was a blend of
personal history and anecdotes, discussions of aesthetics,
technique, and the practicalities of being a composer
in the 21st century. Glass was particularly passionate
about the need for intercultural and interdisciplinary
exchange. He remarked that his collaborations with South
American and South Asian musicians exerted an enormous
impact on his musical practice, while he also stressed the
importance of respectful representation of those cultures.
Glass also discussed the sometimes surreal and even
comical experience of composing for film, describing
an instance in which Martin Scorsese demanded that a
trombone melody be stricken from the score. Glass, already
choice but to acquiesce! This speaks to an overarching
theme in Glass’s career, and one that may have a great
deal to do with his success. That is, he emphasized the
virtuosity. As the years progressed, Glass found himself
composing etudes that he could never play, with notes
that he would have never written years earlier, resulting in
the concert in Mandel Hall featuring the complete etudes
importance of being open to a wide variety of musical
experiences, whether it be composing for film, ballet,
popular music, or opera, or collaborating with improvisers
and practitioners from Western and non-Western
traditions. More specifically, he urged composition
Below: Glass on stage with Aaron Diehl, Maki Namekawa, Timo Andres,
and Lisa Kaplan, after the performance of his complete Etudes.
Bottom: Glass in a public conversation with University Professor Augusta
Read Thomas about artistic collaboration.
students to create their own opportunities. For Glass,
this meant forming his own ensemble in the 1960s and
performing his own works throughout New York City, and
eventually, the world. He recalled the steadily growing
audience that he and the ensemble drew, culminating with
the monumental premiere of Einstein on the Beach at the
Metropolitan Opera House, an enormous endeavor that
nearly bankrupted Glass himself, a reminder of the oft-told
anecdote of Glass taxiing opera patrons during the run of
Einstein to make ends meet. Glass was forthright about
the struggles of following an artistic path that, at the time,
did not conform to what he perceived as the modernist
norms prevalent in the 1950s and 1960s, admitting that he
was only able to earn a living solely from composing in his
early 40s.
Glass was also surprisingly honest about his
recent artistic development when he noted that he is
Glass laughs with UChicago composition students.
Goodspeed Notes • Vol. 19 • Autumn 2016
Goodspeed Notes • Vol. 19 • Autumn 2016
institutional affiliations, positions and accolades that often
an accomplished and world-renowned composer, had no
5
Howard Sandroff Bids
Farewell to Many Decades of
Students
Sandroff with students at a musique concrète editing event.
for laptop. His acoustic works have likewise been heard
at UChicago. To celebrate the opening of the exhibit,
in Budapest in 2012, his third quartet last year in Kyoto.
PhD ‘01) gave the world premier performance of Howard’s
around the world: his second string quartet was premiered
A native Chicagoan, Howard studied at the Musical
College of Roosevelt University and at MIT. He is veteran
of the U. S. Air Force, having served from 1967 until 1971.
Interactive Improvisation for Computer and Sound
Sculpture.
Surely Howard’s work with his students over the
During his years at the University, the Computer Music
years will be his most important and enduring legacy
by Anne W. Robertson
part owing to Howard’s ingenuity in securing grants from
“Introduction to Computer Music” and electives such as
Howard Sandroff, composer, sound artist, and Senior Lecturer in Music and Director of the Computer Music
served as consultant), the Women’s Board and Arts Council
Studio steadily expanded and updated its equipment, in
the Yamaha Corporation of America (for which he also
colleague at Chicago.
welded steel. He has recently expanded this interest
and computer (1996) was performed at I.R.C.A.M. at the invitation of Pierre Boulez and took on a new life in its
installations and robotics. His sculptures bear an uncanny
performing electronic works.
extreme economy of material and complexity. In 2005, a
Andrew Patner (formerly of WFMT radio), who observed: “No one makes such combinations [of live performance
Hall was accompanied by a display of his sculptures in
year on the faculty, Patner similarly wrote, “each piece is highly polished, each piece has been put through really
sculptures alongside his scores in its 2012 exhibit, The
Throughout his career, Howard worked with prominent composers and musicians. His Tephillah for clarinet
arrangement for alto saxophone. CSO clarinetist John Bruce Yeh repeatedly sought out Howard as a partner in
Among Howard’s many compositions, his Chant de femme received special acclaim, not least by the late
In the early 2000s, Howard took up sculpting in
to include computer-controlled interactive sound
at Chicago. His courses, which included the staple
“Acoustics and Psychoacoustics of Music,” were perennial
favorites. His studio door was always open, and he was
invariably willing to help all students, whether beginners
or seasoned studio users. As one graduate composer noted,
“He knows his stuff: he has lived through the history of
computer music.”
In honor of Howard’s retirement, a concert of
aesthetic consistency with his compositions in their
electronic and electroacoustic works composed by his
concert of Howard’s music that was held in Fulton Recital
Several of the composers attended the event, including
with electronics in real time] more lyrical than Sandroff.” Reviewing a concert given in honor of Howard’s 25th
the Fulton lobby. Regenstein Library likewise featured his
the intellectual and artistic equivalent of what coal is put through to produce a diamond.” Other notices of
Music of Howard Sandroff and the Computer Music Studio
former students was held on April 25 in Fulton Hall.
Jong Yeoul Chong, who flew in with his wife from South
Korea. Fine performances of the electroacoustic works
were delivered by Alejandro Acierto (clarinet), Ben Melsky
(harp), and Matthew Oliphant (horn).
Howard’s music over the years appeared in Fanfare Magazine, the American Record Guide, The Musical Times, The
New York Times, the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun Times. Howard himself often compared his compositions to
mobiles, a collection of fixed elements that are continually changing their association with other fixed elements
which are not born of evolutionary development but by his interest in arresting time and space.
In recent years, Howard’s works garnered high-profile performances by the Chicago Pro Musica, the Ultima
Festival in Oslo (1999), and the m-cluster festival at the Berlin Academy of Art (2004); in the two latter venues,
he was the featured composer. In 2005 Howard was guest of the Week of Contemporary Music in Bucharest; in
2009 his music was performed by the New York City New Music Ensemble and at an all-Sandroff concert (Soundly
Sandroff) mounted by CUBE; and in 2010 the Sonic Peripheries Festival in Bremen, Germany played his music.
Howard’s tribute featured works by:
Ben Sutherland (PhD ‘01)
Tim Edwards (PhD ’98)
Andrew McManus (PhD ’14)
Matt Malsky (PhD ’90)
Gustavo Leone (PhD ’94)
Sebastian Huydts (MA ‘04)
Mark Volker (PhD ‘03)
Jong Yeoul Chong (PhD ’03)
Eun Young Lee (PhD ’11)
Pieter Snapper (MA ‘99)
Krysztof Wolek (PhD ’07)
Allison Ogden (PhD ’08)
Francisco Castillo Trigueros (PhD ’13)
Alex Berezowsky (PhD ’13)
William Coble (PhD ’12)
Goodspeed Notes • Vol. 19 • Autumn 2016
Studio for more than three decades, retired from the University last December. Howard has long been an
of the University; and the Illinois Arts Council.
international presence as a composer of computer and electronic music, as well as a highly regarded teacher and
Goodspeed Notes • Vol. 19 • Autumn 2016
Howard (computer) and Ben Sutherland (percussionist,
The following year Howard visited Beijing for the Musicacoustica Festival, where he performed his unnamed piece
6
7
A Voice As
Something More
neubauercollegium.uchicago.edu/events/uc/a_
voice_conference.
“A Voice as Something More” was generously sponsored
by the Neubauer Collegium, the Franke Institute for the
Neubauer Hosts International
Conference on Voice Studies
Humanities, and the Department of Music, with additional
support from the Departments of Germanic Studies, Cinema
and Media Studies, Classics, East Asian Languages and
Civilizations, the Japan Committee and the China Committee
of the Center for East Asian Studies, the Center for Theater
and Performance Studies, the Reva and David Logan Center for
the Arts, and the Film Studies Center.
by Jessica Peritz
Clague Wins
First NEH
Public Scholar
Grant
This past November, the Neubauer Collegium for Culture
and Society hosted a three-day international conference
devoted to an interdisciplinary rethinking of voice studies.
The conference, conceived and organized by Professors Martha
Feldman (Departments of Music and Romance Languages
and Literatures, University of Chicago) and Judith Zeitlin
(Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations,
University of Chicago), grew out of the Neubauer faculty
research seminar The Voice Project, founded in 2013 by
Feldman and David Levin (Departments of Germanic Studies,
Cinema and Media Studies, and Theater and Performance
Studies, University of Chicago) with a group of faculty
by Anne W. Robertson
members from various departments.
The title “A Voice as Something More” responds to
Mark Clague (PhD ’02), Associate Professor of Musicology
Slovenian philosopher Mladen Dolar’s 2006 monograph
A Voice and Nothing More. The conference, on the whole,
executed a shift away from the predominantly philosophical,
psychoanalytical, disembodied conceptions of voice current
nowadays toward a range of approaches concerned with the
aural, material aspects of voice. Dolar (University of Ljubljana)
served as the conference respondent, offering closing remarks
concrète composer and audio-visual theorist of film and sound
Michel Chion (University of Paris III: Sorbonne Nouvelle)
delivered a fascinating keynote address exploring the gendering
of writing and voice in cinema (given in French with English
translation).
On Friday morning, James Chandler (Departments of
English and Cinema and Media Studies, University of Chicago)
chaired the session “Staging the Voice,” featuring talks by
Sarah Hamilton Nooter (Department of Classics, University of
Chicago), Jonathan Zwicker (Department of Asian Languages
and Cultures, University of Michigan), and David Levin. Jacob
Smith (Department of Radio/Television/Film, Northwestern
University) chaired the panel “Voice and Technology,” with
presentations by Andrew F. Jones (Department of East
Asian Languages and Cultures, University of California,
Berkeley), Laurie Stras (Department of Music, University of
Southampton), Berthold Hoeckner (Department of Music,
University of Chicago), and Tom Gunning (Departments of
Cinema and Media Studies and Art History, University of
8
Chicago).
Saturday’s sessions brought together James Q. Davies
(Department of Music, University of California, Berkeley),
Judith Zeitlin (Department of East Asian Languages and
Civilizations, University of Chicago), Marcelle Pierson (PhD
‘15; Department of Music, University of North Carolina
Chapel Hill), and Shane Butler (Department of Classics, John
Hopkins University) to present papers in the panel “Theories
of the Voice,” chaired by Paola Iovene (Department of East
University of Michigan, is among the first class of winners of
the new Public Scholar Grant of the National Endowment of
the Humanities. The NEH Public Scholar Program was created
in 2014 to support “well-researched books in the humanities
intended to reach a large readership.” Clague’s one-year
fellowship, which began in June, is allowing him to complete a
book titled O Say Can You Hear: A Tuneful History of “The StarSpangled Banner”.
Mark writes: “My interest in the national anthem is an
Mark Clague, PhD ‘02
Asian Languages and Civilizations, University of Chicago).
outgrowth of my teaching of an American music survey course.
Rings (Department of Music, University of Chicago), Martha
sounding board of identity, helping us (re)imagine what it means to be American. In this way, the book is a broad endorsement of
Robert Polito (MFA Writing Program, The New School), Steven
Feldman, and Neil Verma (Department of Radio/Television/
Film, Northwestern University) closed out the day with talks
on “Intermedial Voice,” chaired by Seth Brodsky (Department of
Music, University of Chicago). After Dolar’s trenchant closing
remarks on Sunday, all presenters and chairs participated in a
lively round-table discussion, inviting questions and responses
from the attendees.
A volume of essays based on the conference
presentations is in preparation, edited by Feldman and Zeitlin.
For further information—including participant biographies and
abstracts and The Voice Project’s website—please visit:
continued 
My book makes a broad argument about the role that music has played in civic life, not only as a sonic symbol of nation, but as a
music and music education.”
Some of Clague’s research on this topic is already available in the Star Spangled Songbook, and in the recording project Poets
& Patriots. His website at www.starspangledmusic.org provides a resource for teachers wishing to explore the anthem beyond
its surface mythology.
The national anthem is not Mark’s only project to gain public attention. In March, some fascinating discoveries that he
made while reexamining the original score and an early recording of Gershwin’s An American in Paris caught the attention of
The New York Times, which published an article entitled “Have We Been Playing Gershwin Wrong for 70 Years?” (www.nytimes.
com/2016/03/02/theater/have-we-been-playing-gershwin-wrong-for-70-years.html) As Clague explains, the famous taxi
horns in this piece should probably be playing pitches different from the ones we are accustomed to hear.
Congratulations to Mark on these wonderful examples of music scholarship that is accessible to everyone!
Goodspeed Notes • Vol. 19 • Autumn 2016
Goodspeed Notes • Vol. 19 • Autumn 2016
at Sunday’s round-table session. On Friday, French musique
and Director of Entrepreneurship and Career Services at the
www.nytimes.com/2016/03/02/theater/have-we-beenplaying-gershwin-wrong-for-70-years.html
9
the Music Director and Conductor of the USO, and in 1986, she assumed her present position as Director of Performance
Programs.
Together with the Music Department faculty, Barbara helped articulate the central, twofold mission of musical
performance at the University: first, that acquiring and building skills in performance has the power to shape thinking
in important ways and increase a life-long appreciation of musical practice and the works that it produces; and second,
that the scholarly study of music is enormously enhanced by practical knowledge of the enactment of music. These two
tenets have continued to guide our Performance Program, which under Barbara’s leadership now encompasses eighteen
continued on page 12 
Lorenz’s Catálogo Fantástico
Commissioned for Schubert Tribute
by Anne W. Robertson
An exciting new symphonic work written in honor of
Barbara Schubert by noted composer and UChicago alum
Ricardo Lorenz (PhD ‘99) enjoyed its world premiere in
the final concert of the USO’s 2015-16 season in June.
Lorenz’s Catálogo Fantástico: Fantastic Catalogue of
Strange and Unusual Subjects was commissioned under
the auspices of the Department’s Leona Bachrach Gerard
Barbara leads a rehearsal of the University
Symphony Orchestra at Symphony Center.
Endowment Fund for Music.
Lorenz writes: “Through this 27-minute-long
composition, I wanted to draw a musical connection
between Barbara’s longstanding contribution as Conductor
10
40 Years
by Anne W. Robertson
The University paid tribute to Barbara Schubert at the final USO concerts in June by commissioning a new orchestral
work by Ricardo Lorenz (PhD ‘99; see opposite page) and by holding a dinner in Fulton Hall in her honor. The
Humanities Division likewise presented her with the Janel Mueller Award for Excellence in Pedagogy.
A beloved figure throughout the University, she has long worn many different hats. In addition to her role as
conductor of the USO, she serves as Senior Lecturer, Director of the Performance Program, and Director of the New
Music Ensemble. Barbara’s reach and influence extend throughout the University and beyond, as she has helped
(literally) thousands of students at UChicago appreciate and cultivate their passion for making music. Some say she is
also a matchmaker—quite a few marriages and other pairings have emerged out of the ranks of the USO!
When Barbara came to the University in 1975 as a graduate student in musicology, student musical performance
at UChicago was centered on three ensembles: an orchestra and chorus that dated back to the beginning of the
University and a collegium musicum. By 1977, Barbara had formed a New Music Ensemble. Four years later, she became
Chicago’s most fundamental goal of offering a rigorous
and at the same time daring curriculum. In Catálogo
Fantástico, I borrowed the titles of four courses listed in
the 2015-16 College Catalogue as source of inspiration
for the movements. The fantastic titles of the courses
Ricardo Lorenz, PhD ‘99
spawned music that evokes the relationship between
different subject matters, between coursework and extra-
Skepticism); our longing for past religious experiences
become extremely porous and often vanish.”
philosophy and magic trickery (I. Wonder, Magic and
and objects (II. Archaeology of Religious Experience); the
curricular activity, between laboratory and concert hall
Venezuelan-born Lorenz is Professor and Chair of
challenge and irony behind studying the brain with our
Composition in the College of Music at Michigan State
the consequences put upon ordinary people caused by
internationally at Carnegie Hall, the Santa Fe Chamber
brains (III. Peering Inside the Black Box: Neocortex); and
the collusion of governments and markets (IV. States,
Markets, and Bodies). The unusual subjects of these
courses generated equally unusual musical subjects—I
mean melodies and motives—that provide continuity
and musical logic for each of the movements. The
result is a suite-like symphonic work comprising of four
movements that are contrasting in character. In a place
where knowledge, thought, and creativity of the highest
order reign across the board, the boundaries between
University. His works have been heard nationally and
Music Festival, and other festivals in France, Spain,
Mexico, and Turkey. Lorenz’s orchestral compositions
have received performances by the Chicago Symphony
Orchestra, the American Composers Orchestra, and the
New World Symphony. He has served as composer-in-
residence for the CSO’s Armoniá Musicians Residency
Program, the Billings Symphony, and Music in the Loft
chamber music series. Lorenz is currently writing a
commissioned concerto for violinist Andrés Cárdenes.
Goodspeed Notes • Vol. 19 • Autumn 2016
Goodspeed Notes • Vol. 19 • Autumn 2016
Accolades for
Last year was a landmark
for Barbara Schubert — her
fortieth anniversary as
conductor of the University
Symphony Orchestra.
of the University Symphony and The University of
11
different ensembles and programs, involves more than 700 student musicians annually from across campus, and
presents more than 100 concerts each year.
As conductor of the USO, Barbara exposes students and audiences to a broad range of the orchestral repertoire.
USO seasons open with the highly enjoyable Halloween concert, in which the players join Barbara in wearing
costumes—Barbara’s is always eagerly anticipated—and they traditionally include memorable performances of
the major orchestral masterworks of the present and previous two centuries, along with more eclectic programs,
including silent films with live orchestral accompaniment. Barbara contributes actively to the University’s mission
to reach out to neighboring communities—for one recent concert she invited dancers from the Hyde Park School of
Dance to perform.
Student admiration for Barbara, not simply in recent years but over many decades, is striking. The letters
solicited for the Janel Mueller Award, which was presented at the hooding ceremony for the Humanities Division
in June, attest that she is the consummate conductor, that she teaches students how to play better than they ever
Ear Taxi Festival Provides Thrilling
New Platforms for UChicago’s
Composers
Student composers speak about the
exciting new works they’ve written for
Chicago’s largest new music festival ever.
thought they could, that she knows the score inside and out, she exhibits superb podium technique (as one student
wrote, she “works magic” with her baton), and that she is a wonderful female role model—all this rolled into a single
person. One student sums up Barbara’s work with the USO in this way:
“Barbara Schubert is intimidating as heck but that’s only because she’s just so gosh darn good at what she does.
Barbara Schubert can fix anyone’s out of tune notes by simply staring into their souls. Barbara Schubert can make
awesomeness out of musical mush.”
It is easy to see why Barbara is the doyenne of student musical performance at Chicago and deserving of so
many honors. We know our friends and alums join us in congratulating her on her outstanding accomplishments.
Tomás Gueglio-Saccone inside the bell tower at Rockefeller Chapel

“Invention—An Ascent is centered around two
of the carillon’s most salient features: its wide
dynamic range and the complexity of its resonance.
These two characteristics appeared to be quite
suitable to create a kaleidoscopic texture, in which
different pitches are repeated at different volumes and,
occasionally, in different locations of the instrument.
The result is a floating texture out of which moments of
songlike melody emerge. Invention is dedicated to Joey
Brink, with gratefulness and admiration.”
- Tomás Gueglio-Saconne

Goodspeed Notes • Vol. 19 • Autumn 2016
piece I’ve written with a specific performance venue
in mind. Months before starting to compose, I paid a
visit to Preston Bradley Hall at the Chicago Cultural
Center. In the space, light shines through the 38-foot
Tiffany glass dome and glitters off the mother-of-
pearl mosaics surrounding the curved ceiling. Vines
and floral designs snake through the mosaic in ornate
curves and branches. These features inspired the
flickering melodies traced by subgroups of the quartet,
and the textures woven from string pizzicati and piano
harmonics.”
- David Clay Mettens
Other PhD composition student composers with
pieces being performed at Ear Taxi include: Pierce
Gradone, Timothy Page, and Igor Santos.
Preston Bradley
Hall in the Chicago
Cultural Center
Goodspeed Notes • Vol. 19 • Autumn 2016
is unique in my output as a composer. It’s the only
Highlights from the Barbara Schubert Tribute Concert
12
“My piece for the Ear Taxi Festival, Tangled lines,
luminous tangents (for the Civitas Ensemble),
13
classes, generated and pursued intriguing programs, and
performed their own quartet concerts and as part of Contempo.
The entire concert audience was invited to toast and thank the
group with a post-concert reception after their final concert on
by Amy Iwano
April 24, with Don and Carol Randel present. We will treasure
The University of Chicago Presents’ 72nd season featured 26 performances
and artist residencies with Third Coast Percussion, Philip Glass, the Assad
Brothers, and Miguel Zenon.
The Academy of St Martin in the Fields Chamber
expansive and epic Schubert Octet. The Europe-based, highlydebut, stunning audiences with the level of its ensemble
and now New York Philharmonic Principal Clarinetist Anthony
McGill, performed as part of MfM’s 50th anniversary season
tour. A highlight of Chicago’s cultural season was a residency
with celebrated composer and UChicago alumnus Philip
Glass (AB ’56). He spent three days on campus with students,
faculty and audiences as the 2016 Presidential Arts Fellow,
culminating in an evening of his complete Piano Etudes in a
sold-out Mandel Hall, for which he was joined in performance
by Timo Andres, Aaron Diehl, Lisa Kaplan, and Maki Namekawa.
The Artemis Quartet performed at the top of Spring Quarter
with its newest member, Chicago native violinist Anthea
and their own personalities to their performance. The concert
Italian Baroque gems.
supported by the Center for Latin American Studies.
Logan Center, including a collaboration with pianist Marc-
Series expanded to five concerts this season, presenting
affiliation with the University. The Quartet had been in
the Baroque era. Bach Collegium Japan, led by conductor/
honor of being the first group to be named as the Don Michael
in Rockefeller Chapel as part of its 25th anniversary tour.
UChicago is proud to have provided the launch pad for the
Goodspeed Notes • Vol. 19 • Autumn 2016
harpsichordist Masaaki Suzuki, made a glorious Chicago debut
Kristian Bezuidenhout, who gave a harpsichord recital three
seasons ago, returned to present a fascinating and dynamic
fortepiano program. In a rare holiday program several days
before Christmas, UChicago Presents hosted the very final
Andre Hamelin, as it concluded its final year of official
residence at UChicago since 1998 and since 2013 carried the
Randel Ensemble-in-Residence with the University of Chicago.
Pacifica Quartet’s career and to have served as a concert
partner as the group honed its artistic presentations and
burnished its performances, rising to win numerous awards,
commissions and honors and become one of the leading string
tour performance of Anonymous 4 in Rockefeller Chapel.
quartets touring and recording internationally, which they
Frank McGuire, packed Mandel Hall, partially supported by the
Indiana University.
debut of the astounding German recorder player Dorothee
have UChicago Presents audiences – from the outstanding
Marco Testori on baroque cello, who offered a program of
years, as they worked with students and faculty, played for
Early music master Jordi Savall, along with bodhran player
Nicholson Center, and the series concluded with the Chicago
Oberlinger, joined by Alexander Puliaev on harpsichord and
14
The Pacifica Quartet performed three concerts at the
accomplish alongside their full time teaching positions at
The University of Chicago has benefitted greatly – as
artistry and full generosity of the Pacifica Quartet over the
Saxophonist Miguel Zenon
University community to benefit from a variety of ensembles
opening concert doubled as the Julie and Parker Hall Annual
genre and repertoire.
Salvant, who enraptured the packed house. Pianist/composer
noted for dynamic performances, adventurous collaborations,
Treasure: Reimagining Laura Nyro with his quartet, vocalists
to commissioning new works, has been appointed as the Don
Spektral Quartet. Vibraphonist/multi-instrumentalist Warren
2017-18 school years. As such, Imani Winds will have a strong
and gave a school matinee performance for Chicago Public
school year. They will work with undergraduate students
Century Band brought Caribbean rhythms and lots of smiles
University Symphony Orchestra and other ensembles, giving
of jazz and island traditions. Alto saxophonist Miguel Zenon
school matinees and family concerts through the University’s
and local musicians through a partnership with the Segundo
performances under the auspices of UChicago Presents – with
his Identities Are Changeable project that explores the identity
a concert inspired by Chicago poet Gwendolyn Brooks on May 3
Endowment for the Arts, the Center for Latin American
Jazz Concert featuring the glowing vocalist, Cecile McLorin
Billy Childs presented his Grammy Award-winning Map to the
inspirational outreach programs, and a strong commitment
Becca Stevens and Alicia Olatuja, and the Chicago-based
Michael Randel Ensemble-in-Residence for the 2016-17 and
Wolf made his Chicago debut as a leader of his Wolfpack
presence across the University community throughout each
School students at the Logan Center. Dion Parson and the 21st
and graduate student composers. They will interact with the
to audiences’ faces with their infectious and unique hybrid
master classes, workshops and coachings, as well as performing
spent three days in Chicago, working with students, faculty
Arts and Public Life program. Additionally, they will give public
Ruiz Belvis Cultural Center, sharing discussion and music from
their Mandel Hall debut scheduled for January 20, followed by
of Nuyoricans. His residency was supported by the National
in the Logan Center.
Studies, and the Center for the Study of Race, Politics and
Imani Winds has distinguished itself by enriching the
David Logan Foundation.
bridging European, American, African and Latin American
gave a dynamic performance at International House with the
Jean Francaix, Gyorgy Ligeti, Elliott Carter and John Harbison
their newly-released CD of music by Steve Reich. They shared
two of the quintet’s own members. Their list of collaborators
Center Family Saturdays, as well. Also part of the Music Across
including cellist Yo-Yo Ma, clarinetist David Shifrin and
performed a charming concert of ancient Armenian village folk
Brubeck brothers, Jason Moran and chanteuse Rene Marie.
Eastern Studies.
the group participating in numerous residencies throughout
lectures and talks with guest artists given by faculty and
instrumentalists.
Patrick Fitzgibbon, Berthold Hoeckner, Travis Jackson, Robert
growing subscriber base and enthusiastic audiences. The series’
Lawrence Zbikowski, as well as the Pacifica Quartet.
Recognized as North America’s premier wind quintet,
traditional wind quintet repertoire while meaningfully
Culture. The series received major support from the Reva and
Third Coast Percussion, in residence for a third year,
traditions. Their repertoire includes works by Mendelssohn,
premiere of a work by Donnacha Dennehy and on the heels of
– as well as Paquito D’Rivera and Mohammed Fairouz and
their music with audiences at Rockefeller Chapel and the Logan
reads like a Who’s Who list for both classical and jazz genres,
Genres series, the enchanting Armenian a cappella trio, Zulal,
pianist Gil Kalish, as well as jazz greats Wayne Shorter, the
melodies, presented in collaboration with the Center for Middle
Additionally, their commitment to education runs deep, with
the U.S. and fostering its own chamber music festival for young
Jazz at the Logan continued in a third season with a
UChicago Presents audiences enjoyed pre-concert
graduate students, including Seth Brodsky, Abigail Fine,
Kendrick, Woo-Chan Lee, Augusta Read Thomas, Dan Wang,
Goodspeed Notes • Vol. 19 • Autumn 2016
artists with local connections: the Assad family – Sérgio,
Guitarists Sérgio, Odair, and Clarine Assad
a diverse selection of music from medieval times through
At the same time, the University is excited to welcome
the Quartet’s successor. The Don Michael Randel residency
Imani Winds, the internationally-touring wind quintet
playing. Musicians from Marlboro, including Chicago native
The Howard Mayer Brown International Early Music
Concert Series.
with their differing instrumentation as well as approaches to
acclaimed but rarely touring Arcanto Quartet made its Chicago
and panel discussion with the Assad Brothers were partially
they will give a concert in Mandel Hall as part of the Classic
the relative frequency of the rotation, the residency allows the
in Mandel Hall with a delightful program that included the
Odair, and Clarice Assad – who brought the warmth of Brazil
UChicago Presents’ series often – as early as next April when
provides for a resident ensemble for up to three years. Through
Ensemble opened the season and the Classic Concert Series
Kreston, and the series was capped by a concert with more
their legacy and look forward to welcoming them back to the
15
Student Happenings
Abigail Fine has been awarded a Charlotte W. Newcombe
performed by the Washington National Opera at the Kennedy
her dissertation, “Objects of Veneration: Music and Materiality
2015), by the [Switch~ Ensemble] at the Queens New Music
Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship to support the completion of
in the Composer-Cults of Germany and Austria (1870-1927).”
She looks forward to a productive year of writing, and in
Spring Quarter she is eager to explore a related topic with
undergraduates in a seminar of her design, entitled Beethoven
or Bust: Musical Canon-Building in 19th-Century Culture.
Pierce Gradone recently completed a year long fellowship
in the Arts + Science + Culture Initiative at the University
of Chicago. As part of the fellowship, he traveled in July to
Festival (May 2016), and by saxophonists Chien-Kwan Lin,
Timothy McAllister, and Otis Murphy at the American
Saxophone Academy (July 2016). Last November, his piece
“Sleeping I am carried…” was read by the Brussels Philharmonic
during the [‘tactus] Young Composers Workshop (November
2015) and selected for a performance with that orchestra in
December 2016. He was honored with a 2016 ASCAP Morton
Gould Young Composer Award.
the Soundscape Festival in Italy for the premiere of his work
Ameera Nimjee spent the 2015-2016 academic year both in
(Oberlin, Eastman Broadband Ensemble). A larger version
dancer and musician. Upon her return to Chicago, she spent
Bizzarie di Figure for sinfonietta, conducted by Tim Weiss
of this piece was subsequently performed at the Wellesley
Composers Conference in Massachusetts under the baton of
James Baker (Talea Ensemble). Pierce was recently awarded a
commission from the Fromm Music Foundation at Harvard
University for a new work for Ensemble Dal Niente and the Ear
Taxi Festival in October.
Sarah Iker accepted a position as Adjunct Assistant Professor
at the University of Notre Dame for 2016-2017, where she
teaches music history and theory. She married Benjamin
Hansberry, a music theory PhD candidate at Columbia
University, in August 2015.
Mili Leitner was awarded the JaFran Jones award for the
best student paper at the Midwest Chapter of the Society for
Ethnomusicology, presented at SEM’s 2015 annual meeting.
Her paper, entitled “Composing Racial Diversity in Israel,”
was part of the panel “Owning Music, Owning the Nation,”
which comprised three first-year University of Chicago
Ethnomusicology graduate students. Joseph Maurer, who
presented work on the music of the Tea Party as part of the
same panel, received an honorable mention.
Anabel Maler published a chapter entitled “Musical
Expression Among Deaf and Hearing Song Signers” in the
Oxford Handbook of Music and Disability Studies (Oxford
University Press, 2015). She also received a grant for the
2016-17 year from the Center for Gesture, Sign, and Language
in order to carry out a project on sign language and musical
expression with Heather Lumsden-Harden, a colleague from
the Department of Psychology.
Chicago and in India, where she also performed as a Kathak
Top Left: Ted Gordon stands next to the Buchla Model 100, part of the
collections of the Music Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
December 2015.
Top Right: From the fieldwork of Nadia Chana, towards her dissertation
on healing practices and the relationships that people forge with the
natural world: a Catholic priest blesses pilgrims who have waded into Lac
Ste. Anne, Alberta, Canada. Photo: John Walsh.
for Ethnomusicology and the American Council on Southern
Jess Peritz and Tommaso Sabbatini, both PhD students in
Maria Welch, Ethnomusicology, was awarded the Fulbright
Ethnomusicology at Hildesheim, Germany. She participated
undertaking dissertation research in Europe. Jess will be in
research with the Guarani of the Atlantic rainforest coastal
funded by the University of Chicago Centre in Delhi—an
from the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation for Venetian
across the Division of the Humanities. She also designed and
to May 2017 thanks to a Chateaubriand fellowship from the
the Opening and Closing Ceremonies of the Jubilee Games in
American Musicological Society’s Eugene K. Wolf Travel
embark into the field in January 2017, having been awarded a
to share their latest findings about vocal music in the Italian
the rest of the year preparing for candidacy and teaching
as a lecturer in the College. She gave several conference
papers, most notably at the annual meetings of the Society
Asian Art, as well as the International Doctoral Workshop in
Music History, will spend part of the 2016-17 academic year
IIE for 2015-2016 and will spend nine months conducting field
in a workshop on metadata held in Colombo, Sri Lanka and
Italy from September through March, sponsored by a grant
ongoing project that involves several faculty and staff from
Studies. Tommaso will be doing research in Paris from January
coordinated a series of music and dance performances at
French Embassy in the United States and a grant from the
Dubai, attended by over 14,000 audience members. She will
Fund. They plan to meet up sometime in Paris in the winter
Doctoral Fellowship from the Social Sciences and Humanities
Enlightenment (Jess’s topic) and late nineteenth-century
Research Council.
Parisian féerie (Tommaso’s topic) over wine and cheese.
Anabel Maler, with Jeannette Jones, Jessica Holmes, and Katherine Meizel,
organized the panel “Listening Beyond Hearing: Music and Deafness” at
2015 American Musicological Society meeting.
Bottom: Congrats to our most recent graduates (left to right): Cesar Favila, Peter Smucker, Marcelle Pierson, Genevieve Dempsey, and Lauren Eldrige,
flanked by faculty (left to right) Robert Kendrick, Steven Rings, Melvin Butler, and Seth Brodsky.
region on the borderlands between Sao Paolo and Rio de
Janeiro, Brazil. She presented her work in May at the Federal
University of Rio de Janeiro ethnomusicology workshop
“Musica em Debate” at the invitation of former Tinker visiting
professor Samuel Araujo, a trip which was sponsored by a
Graduate Council travel grant, and she was awarded a travel
grant by the CSRPC for additional fieldwork in 2016-2017.
Goodspeed Notes • Vol. 19 • Autumn 2016
Goodspeed Notes • Vol. 19 • Autumn 2016
Center as part of the American Opera Initiative (December
In 2015-2016, David Clay Mettens’s compositions were
16
17
Alumni Notes
The 2015-16 works of Jacob Bancks,
“The Sacred Sound of Congado:
Penn, was recently named William R.
Boston as Assistant Professor of Music.
This book deconstructs the aims,
started work on a new book devoted to
all levels of orchestra: professional (Quad
and Gender in Afro-Brazilian Religious
moments when the dean’s office releases
Shadow, has also just been published by
ethnographers in the French empire by
his articles have appeared, among these
PhD ’12, were a study in composing for
City Symphony, writing—of all things—a
bassoon concerto), college (Augustana,
where he remains happily employed),
youth symphony (Greater Twin Cities
Youth Symphony, with whom he toured
Argentina in June 2016), and high school
like to thank the American Association of
University Women (AAUW) for providing
the generous funding for a dissertation
write-up fellowship 2015-2016.
Dr. Kathryn Pohlmann Duffy, PhD
scores). Repeat performances brought
Innovation in Teaching Award at Grand
him to various exotic locales (Chicago,
Nashville and Sarajevo), and he has
continued his various collaborations with
Julia Bentley, Kuang-Hao Huang, and the
U.S. Marine Band. He and Kara welcomed
Henry Michael (Bancks Baby #5) on July
13.
Chelsea Burns, PhD ’16, presented at
’95, was selected for the Excellence and
View University. The award honors a
faculty member who demonstrates a
commitment to enhancing student
learning through interdisciplinary
connections, who utilizes creative and
effective teaching strategies, and who
demonstrates a genuine care and concern
for students.
the national Society for Music Theory
Alisha Lola Jones, PhD ’15, is
completed and defended her dissertation,
in the Department of Folklore and
conference in the autumn of 2015. She
“Listening for Modern Latin America:
Identity and Representation in Concert
Music, 1920–1940” in Spring Quarter of
2016, and left Chicago to begin a position
as Preceptor at Harvard University in the
fall semester, 2016.
Mary Channen Caldwell, MA ’10, PhD
’13, is currently Assistant Professor of
Music at the University of Pennsylvania.
She recently received a grant from the
John Anson Kittredge Fund, which will
support archival research on her ongoing
book project, titled Seasonal Refrains: A
Calendar of Song in Premodern Europe.
She has forthcoming publications in
Plainsong & Medieval Music and in an
edited collection published in the Early
Drama, Art, and Music series out of the
Medieval Institute at Western Michigan
University.
Genevieve E. Dempsey, PhD ’16,
completed and defended her dissertation,
Assistant Professor of Ethnomusicology
Ethnomusicology at Indiana University.
Jones’ research has been published in
edited volumes such as African American
Music: An Introduction, Volume 3; The
Kenan, Jr. Professor of Music. At the odd
its grip on him, he is trying to finish a
book tentatively titled Chopin’s Things
(on the relationships among various
Chopin relics and his music).
Rehanna Kheshgi, PhD ’16, has accepted
a postdoctoral fellowship at Yale
University’s Institute of Sacred Music
to begin in September 2016. As one of
seven ISM Fellows, Rehanna will pursue
a research project which brings an
interdisciplinary approach to the study of
sacred music in the borderlands of South
Asia, examining how indigenous worship
practices historically recast in a Hindu
light are being transformed into raw
materials for supporting political claims
for tribal sovereignty in Assam, India.
This research will contribute to wider
travel grant to the US territory of Guam
to expand her fieldwork on musics of
the African Diaspora to include the
Pacific Islands. Invited to publish her
new research in a special forum of the
Amerasia Journal (UCLA), Jones focuses
on Afro-Pacific women’s musical
responses to the #BlackLivesMatter and
#SayHerName movements in the US that
were presented during the quadrennial
Festival of the Pacific Arts (FestPac).
Jeffrey Kallberg, PhD ’82, still serving
as Associate Dean for Arts & Letters at
where she was recently promoted to Full
Professor. Last year she published a new
monograph with Routledge - Focus: Music
in Contemporary Japan (2015) - as well
as the article “Drumming to One’s Own
Beat: Japanese Taiko and the Challenge
to Genre,” in Ethnomusicology, Volume
60, Number 1, pp. 22-52. She was
recently appointed Editor of the Society
of Ethnomusicology Newsletter, and is
looking forward to embarking on new
comparative research on religious dance
in Bali and Japan while on sabbatical
next year.
Vanderbilt University, recently gave the
of belonging within shifting frameworks
of the nation-state.
by many ensembles including Radius
Humanities Institute (CAHI) research
’03, continues to work at Union College,
performance, by grounding experiences
and the role of the body in sacred
Gnosticism, and Mysticism in African
she received a College of Arts and
Jennifer Milioto Matsue, MA ’96, PhD
Gregory Melchor-Barz, MA ’92, PhD
Since graduation, Eun Young Lee,
American Religious Experience. In 2016,
University of Chicago Press.
debates on borderland subjectivities
Oxford Handbook on Voice Studies;
and There is a Mystery: Esotericism,
Her book, Haydn’s Sunrise, Beethoven’s
PhD ’11, has had works commissioned
Ensemble, the Diablo Symphony, Left
Coast Chamber Ensemble, Dinosaur
Annex, and Antico Moderno, among
others. She has received a number of
awards and fellowships including the
League of Composers Competition,
Composers Competition newEar
Contemporary Chamber Music Ensemble,
and the Black House New Operas Project.
Ablaze Records recently released New
’97, Professor of Ethnomusicology at
keynote address, “Queering the Field:
Sounding Out Ethnomusicology,” at
the annual Post-IP International Post-
Graduate Forum for Studies in Music and
Dance in Portugal. While in Portugal, he
presented the paper, “Music, Advocacy,
the faculty at Northeastern University in
It exposes how settlers, indigenous
musicians, and local administrators cocreated colonial knowledge, unveiling
music’s role in the negotiation of
for Oxford University Press with Will
Cheng. His current field research focuses
on the culture of drag queens and the
performance of national identity in
Israel.
Music at the University of California, San
from the American Council of Learned
Societies for her book, Sounding the
French Empire: Colonial Ethnographies
of Music and New Media, 1860-1960.
music and water. Meanwhile, some of
one devoted to Verdi’s late-1840s list
of possible opera subjects (Argomenti
d’opere), presented at a conference held
in Turin’s Accademia delle Scienze on the
composer’s 200th anniversary of birth
(2013).
dynamic national identities, still
Ana Sánchez-Rojo, PhD ’16, won a
La République, la musique, et le citoyen,
undergraduate seminar of her own
relevant today. In March, Pasler’s book
1871-1914, published by Editions
Gallimard in their Bibliothèque des
histoires (2015), won a Prix des Muses-the Prix de l’Essai--from the Fondation
Singer-Polignac for the best books on
music published in French in 2015.
In January 2016, this book, with the
Stuart Tave Fellowship to teach an
design in the spring of 2016, Music of
the Latin American Outlaws. She joined
the faculty of the Newcomb Department
of Music at Tulane University as an
Assistant Professor of Musicology in the
autumn of 2016.
participation of the Garde Républicaine,
Michelle Urberg, PhD ’16, joined the
fête,” a two-day music festival at the
(Tacoma, WA), in the Scandinavian
served as the inspiration for “Orsay en
Musée d’Orsay in Paris, its first ever,
during which she delivered two talks.
She is currently editor of AMS Studies in
Music (Oxford University Press) and on
the Board of Governors of the University
of California Humanities Research
Institute.
Editor of The Works of Gioachino
Field: Sounding Out Ethnomusicology
Diego, was recently awarded a fellowship
Deirdre Loughridge, BA, ’04, has joined
Africa, equatorial Africa, and Indochina.
co-editing the volume Queering the
the Boston Conservatory as a faculty
Tufts University in September of 2016.
to comparative musicology in North
Alberto Rizzuti, PhD ’01, has been
the University of Lisbon. He is currently
Jann C. Pasler, PhD ’81, Professor of
member in 2014 and began teaching at
analyzing long forgotten contributions
and Activism in Ethnomusicology,” at
Choral Voices, vol. 1, which includes her
composition, “Ching Ching.” She joined
processes, and colonial agendas of music
recently appointed Associate General
Rossini (Kassel, Baerenreiter, 2008-); in
this capacity he will help both Stefano
faculty at Pacific Lutheran University
Studies department in January 2016 as
a Visiting Instructor and will return for
the 2016-2017 school year as a Visiting
Assistant Professor. She defended her
dissertation “Music in the Devotional
Lives of the Birgittine Brothers & Sisters
at Vadstena Abbey (c. 1370-1545)”
in May and graduated in August. In
November, she will be presenting her
dissertation at AMS in Vancouver and
looks forward to seeing everyone there.
Claudio Vellutini, PhD ’15, spent
Castelvecchi (General Editor) and Philip
an enjoyable and productive year as
production of new volumes. The next
Visiting Assistant Professor at Indiana
Gossett (Senior Consulting Editor) in the
volume, whose appearance is scheduled
for the end of 2016, is Vocal Chamber
Music, edited by Philip Gossett and
Daniela Macchione. In the academic
year 2015-16 Alberto has taught both
graduate and undergraduate courses
in History of Music Civilization at the
University of Turin, where he has served
a Postdoctoral Resident Scholar and
University’s Jacobs School of Music,
where he taught graduate courses and
worked on a number of conference
papers and article drafts. He is very
excited to start his new position as
Assistant Professor at the University of
British Columbia (Vancouver).
Goodspeed Notes • Vol. 19 • Autumn 2016
Goodspeed Notes • Vol. 19 • Autumn 2016
Communities” in June 2016. She would
(Shawnee Mission East High School,
having won their international call for
18
Performing Songs of Devotion, Race,
as Full Professor since 2015, and has
19
Faculty Updates
Jessica Swanston Baker, Assistant Professor of Music
Jessica is thrilled to have joined the University of Chicago Music Department
faculty this Autumn Quarter as an Assistant Professor of Ethnomusicology. After
graduating from the University of Pennsylvania in 2015 with a PhD in Ethnomusicology,
she spent the 2015-16 academic year as the Postdoctoral Fellow in Critical Caribbean
Thomas has laid low this year thanks to a research leave supported by an ACLS senior faculty research fellowship. He is
finishing up his Book entitled Fétis and the Tonal Imagination: Discourses of Tonalité in Nineteenth Century France. If all goes
Studies at Rutgers University–New Brunswick. There, she worked on the book
Caribbean islands of St. Kitts and Nevis. This work, which comes out of her dissertation
visit in March to India where he spoke (and gave a recital) in the University’s beautiful new center in New Delhi. He has returned
racialized femininity, aesthetics, and decoloniality within the context of the post-
course on the American Musical.
Caribbean Studies Association, The American Anthropological Association, and the
Martha Feldman, Mabel Greene Myers Professor of Music
manuscript for her current project on wylers, a popular music from the small, Eastern
Wieboldt Hall for most of the year, Thomas did get out for a number of lectures and conferences. Most memorable was a one-week
research, focuses on issues of tempo perception and “fastness” as they pertain to
to the Department of Music full-time in the role of Department Chair, and is looking forward to teaching a new “signature” College
Caribbean Philosophical Association, she taught an undergraduate course on music of
the Caribbean within the department of Latino and Caribbean Studies.
In moving from South Philly to the Southside of Chicago late in the summer, Jessica will be accompanied by her husband,
Harrison (who is now chair of the math department at Gary Comer Middle School), their two-year-old daughter, Zora, and their pit
Martha taught a seminar entitled Modeling the Voice in the fall, and spent the winter and spring on leave working on a new
book project on the last castrato and the “sacred vernacular” in 20th-century Rome. In November she and Chinese Literature
professor Judith Zeitlin hosted a conference on the voice sponsored by the Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society with
bull, Lady.
support from Music, Classics, German, Theater and Performance Studies, East Asian Languages, Cinema and Media Studies, the
Philip V. Bohlman, Ludwig Rosenberger Distinguished Service Professor of Music; Director of Graduate Admissions
colloquia to Harvard, Vanderbilt, Columbia, Southampton, King’s College London, La Sapienza in Rome, and the Freie Universität
An intensive performance schedule occupied Phil Bohlman throughout much of the winter, spring, and summer.
Franke Institute for the Humanities, and the East Asian Center. Winter and spring travels have taken her for conferences and
Berlin, and for research to London and Rome. She is enjoying her current duties as President-Elect of the American Musicological
Society and looking forward to taking over the presidency from U of C alumna and former faculty member Ellen Harris toward
Together with pianist Christine Wilkie Bohlman (Humanities Collegiate Division) he brought poetry and vocal music from the
the end of the AMS meeting this November. Meanwhile the garden is planted with kale, mustard greens, garlic, arugula, chard,
Humanities Division Ensemble-in-Residence for which he serves as Artistic Director, Phil performed during a residence in UCLA
d’Albenga.
project, “Out of the Shadows.” Even as they prepared new repertory, the NBOS took a bit of time to celebrate after receiving a
Berthold Hoeckner, Associate Professor of Music
concentration camps to the stage in Miami, Madison, and the United Kingdom. With the New Budapest Orpheum Society, the
and in a series of concerts in the United States and the UK under the auspices of the Arts and Humanities Research Council
2016 Grammy Award nomination (“Best Classical Compendium”) for their double-CD, As Dreams Fall Apart: The Golden Age of
Jewish Stage and Film Music, 1925–1955 (Cedille Records, 2014).
Phil’s several research projects continue apace, including the Mellon Humanities Without Walls “A History of World Music
tomatoes, cucumbers, nasturtium, zinnias, and a number of delicious Italian varieties, including the musical zucchetta tromba
With funding from a new research grant by the Templeton Foundation that started in December 2015, Berthold has
been working on three empirical studies on the relationship between epistemic humility and wisdom, involving the aesthetic
Recording,” a collaboration with the universities of Wisconsin–Madison and Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Among the several
experience of awe, false feedback on self-assessment, and the relationship between value relativism and cultural humility. He
Religion, and Ritual (Oxford UP, 2016), which was co-edited with Music Department alum, Jeffers Engelhardt (Amherst College).
about “Panoramic Flashbacks” and “Auratic Replays.”
work!), and the publication of Song Loves the Masses: Herder on Music and Nationalism (University of California Press).
Jennifer Iverson, Assistant Professor of Music
edited volumes that have recently appeared, Phil might call attention to Resounding Transcendence: Transitions in Music,
At the beginning of 2017, Phil undertakes his second term as co-editor of the IMS journal, Acta musicologica (send him your best
Anthony Cheung, Assistant Professor of Music
On campus, highlights of Anthony’s year included a Humanities Day talk on Beethoven’s ongoing influence, a concert of
will be on leave in the fall and winter quarters to complete his book on film, while continuing to give preview papers on chapters
Music theorist Jennifer Iverson joined the faculty as Assistant
Professor in Autumn Quarter, 2016. She previously taught at
the University of Iowa (since 2009) and earned her PhD from
spontaneous compositions with saxophonist Steve Lehman using multiple tuning systems, and an evening-length improvised
the University of Texas at Austin. In the 2015-16 academic year,
by the Film Studies Center. His spatialized work Twin Spaces, Intertwined premiered at the university’s 525th Convocation at
Humanities Center. As wonderful as the California sun and unbounded
across the country, and the Spektral Quartet and flutist Claire Chase premiered The Real Book of Fake Tunes. The Talea Ensemble
and her dream job. Jennifer and her husband Darren (a structural
Orchestra began with March-April performances of Lyra, conducted by Franz Welser-Möst. Wergo just released his second
(5).
accompaniment to the 1916 silent travelogue “A Trip Through China” with composer/pianist/better-half Wang Lu, sponsored
Jennifer was an External Faculty Fellow in residence at the Stanford
Rockefeller, specially commissioned for the occasion. Jennifer Koh and Shai Wosner introduced Elective Memory in performances
research time were, Jennifer is eager to settle into a world-class city
also performed SynchroniCities at the Library of Congress and in Belgium. Anthony’s two-year residency with the Cleveland
drafter), both midwesterners by birth, are parents to Ian (7) and Della
portrait CD, Dystemporal, featuring recordings with Talea and the Ensemble Intercontemporain. Anthony received a Guggenheim
Goodspeed Notes • Vol. 19 • Autumn 2016
Goodspeed Notes • Vol. 19 • Autumn 2016
Thomas Christensen, Avalon Foundation Professor of Music; Chair, Department of Music
well, it should be published next year by the University of Chicago Press. Still, though he was hunkered down in his new office in
colonial, post-independence Caribbean. In addition to presenting this work at the
20
Fellowship for the coming year, and will spend next year in full creative mode.
Jennifer’s research concerns the mid-to-late twentieth-century,
21
Faculty Updates
particularly electronic music, the mid-century avant-garde, and disability in music. Her scholarship is partly analytical and
partly archival; she trained as a music theorist and has also spent ample time in archives in Switzerland and Germany. Jennifer’s
concert with Agata Zubel and Tadeusz Wielecki devoted to European composers, and a double-bill concert featuring interactive
Germany served as the central locus for the European avant-garde in the 1950s. The electronic music studio provided a space to
Tomorrow’s Music Today concerts presented music of our nine student composers including the dissertations of Kate Pukinskis,
book-in-progress, Electronic Inspirations, shows that the electronic music studio housed in the WDR radio station in Cologne,
reclaim wartime technology and ideas and put them to artistic use. Composers, technicians, scientists, and performers worked
collaboratively within the studio’s laboratory environment, where they developed a shared framework that applied to both
electronic and acoustic musical compositions. Jennifer’s second research area is disability studies, which analyzes historical and
cultural ideas about disabled bodies. Along this line, she has written about Bjork’s music, the film Dancer in the Dark, and the
disabled body in electronic music.
Jennifer serves on the editorial board of Music Theory Spectrum (the flagship journal for the Society for Music Theory) and
is newly elected to the Council (advisory board) of the American Musicological Society. She previously chaired the Disability and
Music Interest Group and served on the Accessibility Committee within the Society for Music Theory. Jennifer looks forward to
working with new students and fantastic colleagues in the Department!
Robert Kendrick, Professor of Music
Bob had a productive year teaching, supervising dissertations, and also serving in Romance Languages & Literatures. The
American Institute of Musicology, in its ongoing publication of the complete works of Alessandro Grandi, Opera Omnia, released
Vol. 5, Il quarto libro de motetti a due, tre, quattro, et sette voci (1616), edited by Dennis Collins and Robert Kendrick. He will
spend this year at the Franke Institute for the Humanities working on a new book project.
Sam Pluta, Assistant Professor of Music; Director, Computer Music Studio
Composer and electronics performer Sam Pluta joins the Music Department
after spending the last decade in New York City, where he received his DMA in
2012 from Columbia University. As a composer of both acoustic and electronic
music, Sam fuses these traditionally separate sound worlds, creating sonic spaces
Phil Taylor and Tomás Gueglio- Saccone.
Steven Rings, Associate Professor of Music; Director of Graduate Student Development
This past fall (2015) Steven Rings published an essay on the popular singing voice in JAMS, as part of a colloquy convened
by UChicago’s own Martha Feldman (recently elected president of the AMS—congratulations, Martha!). Various other publications
worked their way through the pipeline, including an article on tonal qualia in early music (under review at Music Theory Online),
an essay on the Portuguese writer Eduardo Lourenço (forthcoming in the Revista Portuguesa de Musicologia), and a chapter
on “Tonic,” which appeared online as part of the Oxford Handbook of Concepts in Music Theory, which Rings is editing with
Alexander Rehding. Steve presented keynote addresses at conferences in Seattle (on Fauré), Southampton (on voice), and
Philadelphia (on Bob Dylan); and in a second plenary address at the same conference—the Music Theory Society of the Mid-
Atlantic—he explored the concept of “hearing as,” drawing on examples from A Tribe Called Quest, Kanye West, Kendrick Lamar,
and others. Steve also gave colloquium talks at Notre Dame and the University of Minnesota, as well as a handful of presentations
at the University of Chicago (most notably as part of two conferences: A Voice as Something More, organized by Martha Feldman
and Judith Zeitlin, and the 25th Anniversary of the Franke Institute). It has been a busy year administratively, as Steve finished
out his term as Director of Graduate Studies in Music, while continuing to serve as the Chair of the Society of Fellows. In the
current year (2016–17) Steve embarked on a new administrative role—with his family—as the Resident Master of Campus North
Residential Commons.
Anne Walters Robertson, Claire Dux Swift Distinguished Service Professor of Music;
Interim Dean of the Humanities Division
Anne finished her busy second year as chair in June. Her main task, in the wake of the
review of the Music Department in 2014-15, was to lead several searches for new colleagues (see
Sam has served as Technical Director and composing member of Wet Ink Ensemble,
and the Fortuna Desperata Masses” at the Annual Meeting of the American Musicological
one of the premiere new music ensembles in the country. He has written works for
numerous groups including Yarn/Wire, Mivos Quartet, International Contemporary
Ensemble, and most recently he wrote a new string quartet for University of
Chicago ensemble-in-residence Spektral Quartet. Sam is also an active electronics
performer and improviser who has toured Europe and the U.S. with groups like
The Peter Evans Quintet, Rocket Science, and the Evan Parker Electro-Acoustic
Ensemble. Sam has taught a wide range of music-related courses at Bennington College, Manhattan School of Music, Columbia
University, and at the Walden School, where he has taught the next generation of creative musicians for the past 16 years. Sam is
married to composer Sky Macklay, who recently won her second ASCAP prize for her string quartet, Many, Many Cadences.
Marta Ptaszynska, Helen B. and Frank L. Sulzberger Professor of Music
On March 14, 2016 Marta Ptaszynska’s Symphony Voice of the Winds for 100 Percussionists was premiered at the 45th
International Festival of Contemporary Music in Poznan, Poland. The work was commissioned by the festival for the Gala Opening
Night. On March 16, 2016, Ptaszynska’s Missa Solemnis ad Honorem Johannes Paulus Secundum for three soloists, two mixed
choirs, and symphony orchestra was premiered at the Chopin University of Music (former Academy of Music) in Warsaw. The
work was commissioned for the Bicentennial of Warsaw University.
above, Letter from the Chair). On the scholarly front, Anne read her paper “Obrecht, Boethius,
Society in Louisville last November, at Rice University in April, and at the Medieval Studies
Workshop at Chicago in May. She made a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Jerusalem in June to
participate in the international conference “The Poetics of Christian Performance: Prayer,
Liturgy, and Their Environments in East and West,” organized by Yossi Maurey (PhD ’05),
Associate Professor at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. After delivering a paper on the
Greek Mass in the West, she and her husband Robby lingered in this fascinating land to explore
Biblical and archeological sites before flying off to Scotland for vacation; Anne continued on
to Ghent, Bruges, and London for research in July. As delegate from the AMS to the American
Council of Learned Societies, she attended the Annual Meeting of the ACLS in Arlington, Virginia, in April. Anne was privileged
to become an Honorary Member of the AMS last November and to be inducted into the American Philosophical Society at its
biannual April gathering in Philadelphia. She became Interim Dean of the Division of the Humanities on 1 July.
Augusta Read Thomas, University Professor of Composition
Nimbus Records releases its fifth and sixth CDs in its ongoing project to release the complete works of Augusta Read
Goodspeed Notes • Vol. 19 • Autumn 2016
Goodspeed Notes • Vol. 19 • Autumn 2016
audio visual compositions and a European jazz scene presenting jazz vocalist Grazyna Auguscik and her group. The two
which envelop the audience and result in a music focused on visceral interaction
of instrumental performers with reactive computerized sound worlds. Since 2009,
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As Artistic Director of Contempo, Ptaszynska programmed three concerts of the season with music of Shulamit Ran, a
Thomas. Four major works have been premiered in the past year: “Helix Spirals” for string quartet, “Selene” for string quartet
and percussion quartet, “Klee Musings” for piano trio, and “Of Being Is A Bird (Emily Dickinson Settings)” for soprano and
23
Faculty Updates
Behind the Music:
Emily Anderson is beginning her second year
chamber orchestra. EOS (Goddess of the Dawn), A Ballet for Orchestra,
was released by the Utah Symphony in April 2016 on the Reference
Recording Label and has received superb reviews. Several other
compositions by Augusta were released on various commercial CDs this
year.
The Sovereign Prince of Monaco awarded Augusta Chevalier of the
Order of Cultural Merit. The insignia of this distinction was given by
S.A.R. Princess Caroline of Hanover at the Prince’s Palace in Monaco on
November 18, 2015.
Augusta won the Lancaster Symphony Orchestra’s Composer
Award for 2015-16. This is the oldest award of its kind in the nation,
intended “to recognize and honor living composers who reside in the
US who are making a particularly significant contribution in the field of
symphonic music, not only through their own creative efforts, but also
as effective personal advocates of new approaches to the broadening of
critical and appreciative standards.”
Envisioned, spearheaded and led by Augusta, The Ear Taxi
Augusta Read Thomas with S.A.R. Princess Caroline of Hanover.
Festival—a first-of-its-kind celebration of contemporary music in
Chicago—will send listeners on a joy ride through Chicago’s vibrant
contemporary music scene October 5-10, 2016. The festival will feature 300 musicians, 53 world premieres and four installations
in its six jam-packed days of concerts, lectures, marathons, webcasts and artist receptions.
Augusta also hosted and publically interviewed composer Philip Glass during his three-day residency at the University as a
Presidential Arts Fellow. She continues her longstanding volunteer work with The Alice M. Ditson Fund, The Royal Academy of
Music, London, The Eastman School’s National Council, and as a member of the advisory boards of several young ensembles.
Lawrence Zbikowski, Associate Professor of Music
Lawrence Zbikowski returned to his regular teaching duties, offering graduate and undergraduate classes in tonal
International Conference on Music and Emotion in Geneva, and at a conference on conceptual blending at Aristotle University
of Thessaloniki (presented virtually, using Skype for the question and answer session), and in March 2016 at the Porto (Portugal)
International Conference on Musical Gesture as Creative Interface. This past June, he served as a faculty member at the weeklong Exploring the Mind through Music gathering at Rice University in Houston. Three book chapters were published this
past year—“Musical Time, Embodied and Reflected,” in Music in Time: Phenomenology, Perception, Performance (Harvard
University Press); “Words, Music and Meaning,” in Sémiotic de la musique / Music and Meaning (Presses universitaires de Liège–
Sciences humaines); and “Musical Semiotics and Analogical Reference,” in Music, Analysis, Experience: New Perspectives in
Musical Semiotics (University of Leuven Press). Oxford University Press has contracted to publish his recently completed book
manuscript, A Cognitive Grammar of Music. This coming year Larry will be on leave, working on further studies of music and
consciousness, manifestations of cognitive extension in musical practice, music and memory, and the preconditions for the
construction of musical meaning.
department. She enjoys songwriting and performing
graduate students as well as residency activities with
other departments and centers.
Justin Peters is beginning his first year as the
locally with her new band, Dramaglider, and plans to hit
Communications and Production Assistant with UChicago
year old daughter who started kindergarten in September
distribute promotional materials, and keep performances
the recording studio in the winter of 2017. She has a 5
of 2016.
James Burke has worked in the department as the
Operations Assistant since February 2016. His academic
interests include sociolinguistics and underground music
subcultures. Besides his work at the University, he stays
busy with playing bass, guitar, and drums in several bands
and going to the lakefront with his corgi/collie mix pup,
Roxie.
Melanie Cloghessy has been with the department
for nearly 15 years now. Her first acquaintance with
the department was through John Eaton, when she
assisted him with a few Pocket Opera productions in
1999 and 2000. This led to part-time office work with
the inimitable Kathy Holmes, and eventually a full-time
position in the main office. Simply put, she is not willing
to give up the pleasure of working on a beautiful campus,
Presents. There, he helps produce programs for concerts,
running smoothly. Outside of UChicago Presents, Justin
plays vibraphone in the indie folk group Matthäus. He
also plays drums with synthpop outfit Boycut. In October,
Justin will participate in the Chicago Marathon-his first
marathon.
Luke Ramus continues his dual role of web
design and computer support for the department, and
is also excited to report the homestretch of an MS in
Human-Computer Interaction from DePaul University.
His summer was filled mostly by his capstone research
project on the role of technology in Chicago youth
violence interruption, but he also found time to finally
finish a Norse mythology-themed rock opera story album
with his band, Cirkut Mob. In February, Luke got engaged
to his sweetheart, Nicole.
Hugo J. Seda is beginning his second season with
surrounded by brilliant people, and a never-ending stream
UChicago Presents, working with concert production and
all. Western North Carolina where he was working for Brevard
of the world’s greatest music. Fate should be so kind to us
Samantha Farmilant is beginning her second
year as Marketing Coordinator for UChicago Presents and
her third year with the concert series. A native of Chicago,
Samantha received a M.M. from Cleveland Institute of
Music and a B.A. in College Musical Studies and French
educational outreach. He came from the mountains of
Music Center. He plays French Horn in an indie folk band,
Matthäus, which will release a 4 track EP in the Spring.
He is also a founding member of the Musical Activists of
Chicago, a concert series based on social justice issues.
Claire Snarski is beginning her eighth year as the
Language from Oberlin College. Prior to joining the
department’s Graphic Designer, where she creates all the
assistant at Grant Park Music Festival and as the assistant
the year traveling, enjoying the outdoors, baking, and
UChicago Presents team, she worked as the membership
to the Women’s Board at Lyric Opera Chicago. Outside
of the office, Samantha is a classical vocalist and the
Performance Program publicity materials. She has spent
learning a new skill - woodworking!
Margo Strebig is joining the department as our
associate director of The Floating Opera Company.
Director of Public Relations. This position was formerly
department’s manager, where he works with HR, budget,
to as she heads to the sunnier skies of San Diego. Margo
Peter Gillette is beginning his second year as the
payment, and Goodspeed facilities. In January, he and his
wife Lizabeth celebrated the birth of their first son, Jack.
Peter plays trumpet in a funk band, Gramps The Vamp,
which released its second album in October 2016, and
also recorded on a forthcoming release by the avant-rock
band Crown Larks.
Amy Iwano is Executive Director for UChicago
Presents, the professional concert series that presents
chamber music, recitals, early music, jazz, and Contempo
concerts. Many of the dates include pre- or post-concert
held by Rashida Black, whom we bid a fond farewell
is coming to Chicago from Detroit, where she was
Management Team Director at Detroit Passport to the
Arts. Welcome, Margo!
Laura Swierzbin recently celebrated her one-year
anniversary with the department as the Performance
Program Coordinator. In her spare time, she hosts board
game nights and stage manages for storefront theaters.
Over the summer, she spent many hours with her new
stand up paddle board on Lake Michigan.
Goodspeed Notes • Vol. 19 • Autumn 2016
Goodspeed Notes • Vol. 19 • Autumn 2016
analysis and the analysis of song, and a seminar on rhythm and meter. Last autumn, he presented keynote addresses at the 4th
as the Academic Support Specialist for the music
Music Department
Staff Briefs
lectures or discussions with the artists led by faculty or
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In Memoriam:
In Memoriam:
John Eaton: Teacher and
Colleague (1935-2015)
Maria Chow (1960-2016)
by Shulamit Ran
by Phil Bohlman
Maria M. Chow (PhD, 2005), who passed away on May 24, 2016,
maintained an uncommon commitment to diversity her entire life, as a
On March 30, 2016, a New York concert at Symphony Space, originally planned as a
festive 81st birthday concert, became instead a memorial to John Eaton, who passed away
three months earlier. In a note inviting friends and family to the memorial, Nelda NelsonEaton, John’s widow and noted singer, wrote:
“He was a great composer but he was also a great man. John believed there was a
spark of genius in everyone. He reached out to all; you were literally in his embrace within
seconds! The last person to be with John was changed profoundly by him.
“A presence like that does not leave your life. He touched my life as he touched everyone he met. That is why he is very
a home to the Chinese of many backgrounds, that distinguished her native
Hong Kong; it was pluralism, the possibility of welcoming those of different
faiths and cultural backgrounds, that offered so much potential in her adopted
home, the United States. Music, too, was at its very core diverse for Maria,
not just because of its different meanings for different people, but above all
because it so powerfully opened fields of action, in which the many, rather
than the few, could realize the ways in which they were truly diverse, hence
truly human.
Maria Chow began her music studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, from which she took her BA before embarking
much alive within us.”
on graduate studies in the United States. For her M.Div. at the Institute of Sacred Music at Yale University she explored the
In a eulogy delivered at the concert, our former colleague of the Music Department, Yale University Professor Emeritus
Protestant communities of immigrants from Asia. At Yale she channeled her studies in Hong Kong into a series of comparative
Robert P. Morgan who was a lifelong friend of John’s, said this about him:
“John was one of the finest musical minds I have known. Often described by me as a ‘genius,’ a word I rarely use, he
was knowledgeable on so many different subjects, from ancient Rome to countless matters about music, that the term not
only seemed appropriate, but necessary. And significantly, while at Chicago he received a five-year ‘genius’ award from the
MacArthur Foundation. He seemed to know everything, no matter what he was asked; and he never hesitated to offer his
opinion.”
A few brief lines cannot begin to do justice to John Eaton, the artist or the person. The composer of 25 operas and a vast
catalogue of works in many media, he was a true pioneer and a bold inventor, one who pushed the boundaries of electronics in
live performance, extended techniques, genre-bending (as exemplified by his “pocket operas”), and microtonality. The strong
experimental streak that permeated much of his music was always at the service of the music, its beauty, and power of expression.
Ambitious grand operas including The Cry of Clytemnestra, Danton and Robespierre, The Tempest, and the heretofore unperformed
The Reverend Jim Jones and King Lear are a few examples of operas that engage with large themes and that speak to distant and
recent history, myth, great literature and above all, the human condition, as do his pocket operas created for a compact group of
singers and instrumentalists. Whether grandiose or intimate, his work never fails to reflect John’s fierce belief that music has the
power to change the world.
Among his last works was a University of Chicago commission honoring Contempo – the Contemporary Chamber Players
– on its 50th anniversary, premiered on January 24, 2015 with the composer in attendance. A setting of poetry by John Donne,
Karen Swenson, Frederick Borsch, and Dante, this extended song cycle, in the words of the composer as written to me “…really
means more to me than any piece I’ve ever written; and certainly has the largest range and depth of expression.” Prophetically,
this composition is titled The End of It.
John was a true renaissance man, a riveting storyteller, a supremely devoted family man and friend. His wit was legendary, as
was his voracious appetite for life, for beauty, food, wine, Rome…. His infectious, roaring laughter, the huge fur hat that adorned
his head, his multiple pairs of Great Danes of notable names (who could forget Fasolt and Faffner, or Cassandra a.k.a. Cassie?)… It
seems almost incomprehensible, difficult to accept, that he is no longer with us. But his art will remain alive—through the huge
repertoire of operas, song cycles, and much more, that are John Eaton’s enduring legacy.
diverse experiences that constituted the lives of Chinese Christians in Hong Kong, focusing on liturgy and hymnody in the
community studies in North America, researching one of the first studies of sacred music in the congregations of Chinese
Christians. Distinguishing Maria’s research from many studies of American congregations was her recognition that sacred music
did not primarily bring about consolidation, but rather it became a force for engendering new religious allegiances and generating
new repertories. It was her extensive experience with hymnody across diverse Asian congregations—globalization avant la lettre—
that she brought to the University of Chicago project, “Music in American Religious Experience,” which she co-directed with Edith
L. Blumhofer and me from the late 1990s until the appearance of the project’s major publication, Music in American Religious
Experience (Oxford University Press, 2006), which Maria co-edited.
During her PhD studies in the Music Department at Chicago Maria Chow did about everything a student could do, and it was
in the very diversity of course of study that she found her distinctive voice. A historical musicologist, she took courses in all the
subdisciplines, including music sociology, which Christian Kaden brought to Chicago from Germany during the mid-1990s. She
was a superb pianist, and during her Chicago years she continued to teach a large number of students. Maria was keenly interested
in studies on religion and history in East Asia, and it was hardly surprising that Anthony Yu of the Divinity School was keenly
interested in the dissertation work that began to take shape, eventually also on her dissertation committee. Maria’s dissertation,
a study of the development of the very concept of music in the early decades of the National Conservatory of Shanghai, grew
around the confluence of these many disciplinary streams. Today, we might more easily categorize these streams as ontology,
discourse history, institutional history, or prosopography, but the freshness of Maria’s dissertation was that she moved beyond
the categories in search of the deeper meaning of music itself, emerging in pre-revolutionary China as it became one of the most
influential forces in a global music history.
In the years after her PhD Maria Chow took a series of visiting positions. The most extensive of these was at Depauw
University in Greencastle, Indiana, where the photo accompanying this obituary was taken in ca. 2009–10. During her years at
Depauw, however, Maria felt again the need to exercise music scholarship beyond the classroom in a diverse society. It was also
her commitment to the confluence of East Asian and North American music and the arts that led her to take a position at Faitan
College in New York, where she played a singularly important role in establishing the music curriculum for the bilingual college.
It was in this position that Maria turned most fully as an activist toward the struggle for human rights in China, where without
fear she worked at the very front lines of conflicts over religious and minority freedom. Maria is survived by her husband, Stephen
Gregory.
It was like Maria to say little about her social and political activism, while carrying the good fight forward and coupling
it with her devotion to teaching music. The diversity that her life celebrates, nonetheless, was one that she reached without
Goodspeed Notes • Vol. 19 • Autumn 2016
Goodspeed Notes • Vol. 19 • Autumn 2016
musicologist and as a human being. It was diversity, the capacity to provide
struggle, for it resided deeply in the human spirit. We may now remember her for the commitment to diversity that guided her
life, for our common lives in the Music Department at the University of Chicago are better for the years Maria Chow spent with us.
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Jonathan S. Stern
Martha K. Stone
Catherine Sweitzer
Marvin Tetenbaum
The American
The Lawlor Foundation
Elsbeth Thilenius
Otto G. Thilenius
Melinda J. Thomas
Michele M. Thompson
Beverly Tignor
Thomas P. Tignor
Masashi Toshino
Jean M. Treese
Debra J. Tucker
Homer H. Turner
John R. Twombly
Pio D. Uliassi
Irving Ungar
Sharon L. Vadas
N. Van Der Meulen
Kenneth L. Vaux
Frederick D. Vu
Robert E. Walsh
Jonathan T. Wang
Dr. Luisa Y. Watts
Linda B. Weiser
Wells Fargo Matching
Patricia A. West
Kenneth Wester
Marie L. Wester
Virginia J. Wheeler
Mary F. Wille
Kathryn Williams
Seck L. Wong
Richard R. Wotkun
Nicholas J. Yasillo
Andrew S. Yeh
Hyung-Gon P. Yoo
Dr. Matthew Zuckerbraun