Music Research and Cultural Studies at WMU School of Music

Congratulations to recent MA graduate Tré Bryant who will be attending Michigan State University this fall to pursue his DMA in Composition, working with Dr. David Biedenbender. Tré recently defended his MA thesis, "The Sounds Between Lordan and Yharnam: Exploring Motivic Recontextualization in Non-Linear Narratives" (Dr. Cristina Fava, advisor) in which he explored the role of music in some FromSoftware games. At MSU, Tré will continue his orchestral conducting studies along with composition and ludomusicology. He writes: "I'll continue ludomusicology research at MSU, as I've got a couple of research ideas rolling around including composers using established music in remakes of games, and looking at how officially organized video game music concerts might bring (or don't) 'legitimacy' to video game music for broader audiences." Congratulations, Tré, and Go Green!

Congratulations to recent The Irving S. Gilmore School of Music graduate Elizabeth Sweet-Breu who will be attending the University of Texas at Austin in the fall to pursue a PhD in Musicology. They are excited to continue exploring expression and perception of identity in twentieth and twenty-first-century programmatic music, particularly film music. Elizabeth earned their BM in music education at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville in 2021 and their MM in horn performance at WMU in 2023.
We are so proud of you, Elizabeth!!!

WMU College of Fine Arts

Congrats Tré Bryant on successfully defending his MA thesis on music in FromSoftware games and presenting a stimulating talk this evening!

What a wonderful visit from Dr. Ryan Thompson (Michigan State University) on music in video game remakes!

Center for Contemporary Music, Improvisation, and Experimentation

We are looking forward to welcoming our guest speaker, musicologist Ryan Thompson this Friday, April 5, at 2pm in Dalton 2113. Dr. Thompson (Michigan State University) will be presenting on how composers rework original material for rereleases of games such as Final Fantasy VII: Remake and The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening. Please join us!

Co-sponsored by Center for Contemporary Music, Improvisation, and Experimentation

The Irving S. Gilmore School of Music

WMU College of Fine Arts

WMU College of Fine Arts

The Irving S. Gilmore School of Music s

Another call for papers that may be of interest for our ludomusicologists:

The Ludomusicology Research Group is pleased to announce the Ludo2024 Thirteenth European Conference on Video Game Music and Sound, hosted by Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona at the Technocampus – UPF in Mataró, Spain, 11 – 13 July next year. The organizers of Ludo2024 are now accepting proposals for research presentations.

We welcome proposals on all aspects of sound and music in games.

This year, we are particularly interested in papers that support the conference theme of ‘Sound, Music, and Space’. Papers on this topic may include:
- Soundscapes (e.g. relations between ambient music and environmental sound)
- Spatiality and technology (e.g. spatial audio in games)
- Music in ludic spaces (e.g. pen & paper sessions, LARPs)
- Alien spaces (e.g. musical soundtracks and building fantastic realities)
- Crossover spaces and sound (e.g. game sound vs. other media realities)
- Sound, theatrical spaces and games (e.g. performances in games; game performances outside games)

Presentations should last twenty minutes and will be followed by questions. Please submit your paper proposal (c.250 words) with a short provisional list of literature by email to ludomusicology -at- gmail.com by February 29th, 2024. We aim to communicate the programme decisions by March 14th, 2024. If you require more information, please email the organizers.

We encourage practitioners and composers to submit proposals for showcasing practice as research. The conference will be held in person, but with remote access options available.

www.ludomusicology.org |
Hosted by Lidia López Gómez, Tecnocampus – UPF, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.
Organized by Melanie Fritsch, Andra Ivănescu, Michiel Kamp & Tim Summers.

www.ludomusicology.org

Tomorrow! Come hear Detroit-based artist Deidre Dssense Smith in Dalton Recital Hall as part of the Bullock Performance Series! https://wmich.edu/music/events/bullockseries

The Irving S. Gilmore School of Music
WMU College of Fine Arts

We are looking forward to welcoming D.S.Sence back to WMU for the Bullock Series next Wednesday!

Bullock Series Bullock Series events are held on Wednesdays in the Dalton Center Recital Hall on the main campus of Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Mich. The series showcases guest artists, WMU faculty artists and ensembles, and WMU student ensembles. Each event starts with a pre-concert talk at 7 p.m. I...

The 2024 North American Conference on Video Game Music (NACVGM) will take place practically in our backyard, at Michigan State University! Here is the call for papers that may be of interest:

Scholars are invited to submit proposals for the eleventh North American Conference on Video Game Music, which will take place March 16–17, 2024 at Michigan State University in East Lansing. The conference organizing and program committee is composed of Dana Plank (program chair, independent scholar), Ryan Thompson (host, Michigan State University), Jim Buhler (UT Austin), Karen M. Cook (University of Hartford), Julianne Grasso (Florida State University), Neil Lerner (Davidson College), Elizabeth Medina-Gray (Ithaca College), Pete Smucker (Stetson University), and Matthew Thompson (University of Michigan).

The keynote speaker for this year’s conference will be Laura Intravia.

We are soliciting proposals for presentations on any aspect of music and/or sound in games, including, but not limited to:

❖ The history of music and/or sound in video games
❖ Approaches to analyzing game music and/or sound
❖ Intersections of game music and/or sound and other media (film, TV, etc.)
❖ Critical and/or hermeneutic approaches
❖ Case studies of specific games
❖ Game music and/or sound and pedagogy
❖ Ethnographic approaches
❖ Performance of game music and/or sound inside and outside of games
❖ Intersections of game music and/or sound, identity, and social justice

We are soliciting proposals for 5–7-minute performances of game audio or game inspired music. Please see our website (link below) for more information.

Additional information regarding the conference:
❖ Papers can be either
➢ twenty minutes in length (with an additional ten minutes for discussion)
➢ ten minutes in length (with an additional five minutes for discussion).
❖ Papers can be delivered either live or as a pre-recorded video.
❖ Proposals are limited to 250 words and should include the title of the paper, but should otherwise include no identifying information, including metadata.
❖ Please provide appropriate, robust content or trigger warnings in the body of your proposal if your talk will contain sensitive material.
❖ In the body of an email, include your name, institutional affiliation (if applicable), contact information, and the title of your paper.
❖ Email proposals to nacvgm -at- gmail.com by November 30, 2023. Successful candidates will be notified on or around January 15, 2024.

For further information, please feel free to write to nacvgm -at- gmail.com, or visit the conference website at https://vgmconference.weebly.com/.

MuRCS faculty Dr. David Code shared recent research he’s been working on, including projects developed while he was in residence at RITMO -Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Rhythm, Time and Motion at the University of Oslo last year at today’s Convocation in Dalton Center. He shared his metronome that is capable of replicating asymmetrical beats, which he named Asym, Maître Gnome. Check it out here: https://asym-co.de/ =c4zs3ja02ury2vaq9caj5wzb32s22za32x&z=--Brown%20m1%20micro

Congrats to Haden Plouffe who successfully defended their MA thesis, “Final Songs: Music and the Voice in Nier: Replicant Ver. 1.22474487139…”! This thesis, advised by Dr. Maria Cristina Fava (with committee members Lauron Kehrer and Lisa Renée C***s), examines the approach to character leitmotif and the centrality of voice as an expressive and dramatic layer of the video game’s soundtrack. Well done, Haden!

Come and interact with our own Dr. Lauron Kehrer as she presents on her book on q***r hip hop artists. The Irving S. Gilmore School of Music

Attention graduate students! Here is an opportunity to share your research at a graduate music studies conference.

CALL FOR PAPERS
themus (The Music Society at Temple)
Tenth Annual Meeting
Temple University, Philadelphia, PA
Friday, March 31, 2023
https://sites.temple.edu/themus/conference/current-conference/

themus (The Music Society at Temple) is excited to announce a call for papers for its tenth annual graduate conference, which will take place on Friday, March 31, 2023, at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. To celebrate the tenth anniversary of themus, we welcome proposals from all disciplines under the music studies umbrella, as well as affiliated research, that demonstrate how the field has changed in the past decade and where our discipline is headed in the future.

Proposals should be sent using this form (https://forms.gle/JkN3Mw5aD5UKr4UF9) by 11:59 PM ET on Friday, December 30, 2022. No information that identifies the author should appear in the proposal title or abstract (including the file name). Proposals should include:
- Your name (as you’d like it to appear in the program), email address, institutional affiliation, and paper title.
- An anonymized abstract of 200–250 words suitable for publication in the program.
- A biography of no more than 100 words suitable for publication in the program.
All those submitting proposals will be notified of the outcome by January 31, 2023.

The conference features two keynote speakers. Dr. Nina Eidsheim has written books about voice, race, and materiality and is Professor of Musicology at the University of California, Los Angeles. She is also a vocalist and the founder and director of the UCLA Practice-based Experimental Epistemology (PEER) Lab, an experimental research Lab dedicated to decolonializing data, methodology, and analysis, in and through multisensory creative practices. Matthew D. Morrison, Ph.D., is a native of Charlotte, North Carolina, and is an Assistant Professor in the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music in the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. His research focuses on the history of popular music and the relationship between music and identity, and it has been funded by the American Council of Learned Societies, Harvard University, the American Musicological Society, Mellon Foundation, the Library of Congress, the Tanglewood Music Center, and the Center for Popular Music Studies/Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Matthew’s forthcoming book, Blacksound: Making Race in Popular Music in the United States, is under contract with the University of California Press.

Please address any queries to [email protected]. For more information, please visit the conference website.

2023 Conference – themus 2023 Conference CALL FOR PAPERSthemus (The Music Society at Temple)Tenth Annual MeetingTemple University, Philadelphia, PAFriday, March 31, 2023themus (The Music Society at Temple) is excited to announce a call for papers for its tenth annual graduate conference, which will take place on Friday, Mar...

MuRCS faculty Dr. Lauron Kehrer and Dr. Cristina Fava are catching up Leo Walker and Colin Rensch, both alums of our MA program, at the joint AMS/SEM/SMT conference!

Did you know? The WMU School of Music offers BA and MA degrees in music! The BA degree is a liberal arts-style degree for students interested in the academic study of music. Students take courses in music (including performance), select a minor in another field, study a world language, and complete a capstone project in their senior year. The MA is a graduate research degree in musicology, music theory, ethnomusicology, music technology, or other interdisciplinary subject that culminates in a written thesis and public presentation. We also have an Accelerated Graduate Degree Program that allows students to complete a BA (or BM) and MA in five years. Graduates of our programs have gone on to graduate work at Princeton University, the University of Florida, Bowling Green State University, and more. Students in these programs work closely with faculty in the Music Research and Cultural Studies Area.

Admission to both the BA and MA requires an application with samples of written work, as well an interview with faculty – there’s no required audition.

To learn more about the BA: https://wmich.edu/music/academics/undergrad/researchandculturalstudies

To learn more about the MA: https://catalog.wmich.edu/preview_program.php?catoid=37&poid=11634

Apply today!

Another opportunity for graduate students to share their music studies research next spring!

The Music Graduate Student Association (MGSA) at Case Western Reserve University (Cleveland, OH) is now accepting abstracts for its Graduate Student Conference, “Playing the (Heart)Strings: Music, Wellness, and the Body,” slated to take place on-campus (virtual option TBD) on Friday, March 31 and Saturday, April 1, 2023. Keynote presentations will be made by Dr. Maria Cizmic, of the University of South Florida, and Dr. Jillian Rogers, of Indiana University.

Papers which focus on the history, philosophy, or practice of music’s connection with the body are welcome. Relevant areas include, but are not limited to, physical or mental health and wellness, trauma, anatomy and physiology (broadly-conceived), and disability. Eligible graduate students in any music-related field, such as musicology, ethnomusicology, performance, performance practice, music education, and music theory, are encouraged to submit abstracts of their work. Abstracts should be no more than 300 words and should include the title, author's name, and institutional affiliation (with degree program or specialization) at the top of the document.

Abstracts should be emailed as attachments (.docx format) to program committee chair Samuel Nemeth at stn17 -at- case.edu by 11:59pm on Friday, October 14, 2022. Students will be notified of their application status by Thursday, December 1.

Good luck, and all our best,
The Case Western Reserve University Music Graduate Student Association
https://community.case.edu/musicgsa/home/

Home - Music Graduate Student Association | Case Western Reserve University The Music Graduate Student Association works to provide sustained support for current and prospective graduate students in the Department of Music at Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) in all aspects of graduate life. We foster intellectual and professional development through sponsorship of aca...

We hope everyone is enjoying the last bit of summer and is excited to return in the fall! Here is an opportunity for students to share their research this fall at a regional conference:

AMS-Midwest Chapter Meeting, Fall 2022
Hosted in person by Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH, October 15-16, 2022. Deadline for abstract submission: Friday, August 19, 2022, by 11:59 PM, EST

The Midwest Chapter officers are pleased to announce that the Fall 2022 meeting will be held in person on Saturday and Sunday, October 15-16, at Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio. There will be an option for remote participation for those who—for whatever reason—cannot attend the conference in person.

Proposals for presentations, workshops, roundtables and/or special sessions, poster presentations, and papers with a performance component are welcome on any topic related to musicology.

Abstracts should be no longer than 250 words and should clearly indicate the scope of the research, methodology, and conclusions. Paper presentations will be limited to twenty minutes, with an additional ten minutes allotted for questions and discussion. Workshops, roundtable discussions, and special sessions may not exceed 90 minutes. Speakers at the 2022 Spring meeting are not eligible to submit a paper abstract for the 2022 Fall meeting; however, they are welcome to submit proposals for poster presentations or participate in roundtable discussions. Only one submission per person is allowed.

The 2022 Fall Conference will take place in collaboration with the BGSU New Music Festival, which takes place from October 12-15 and is one of the most renowned festivals for contemporary music in the United States. The program can be found here: https://www.bgsu.edu/musical-arts/maccm/new-music-festival.html. In place of a conference keynote, there will be a roundtable with musicologists and composers discussing current issues of contemporary music.

Complete Guidelines for Paper Submission may be found at:

https://sites.google.com/site/amsmidwest/chapter-meetings/guidelines-for-paper-proposals.

We have instituted an easy online submission process available at the chapter website:
https://sites.google.com/site/amsmidwest/chapter-meetings/abstract-submission-page.

After you submit an abstract, you will receive a confirmation that your proposal has been received. Blind copies of all proposals will be forwarded to the Program Committee.

You need to be a current regular or student member of the AMS-Midwest Chapter for your abstract to be considered (chapter membership is not the same as national membership in the AMS). To join or renew your membership for 2022–2023, please visit our membership page:
https://sites.google.com/site/amsmidwest/join-or-renew-membership.

Submission of an abstract denotes the speaker’s willingness and availability to attend the 2022 Fall Chapter meeting.

We encourage both graduate and undergraduate students to present their work at our meetings. In addition to the abstract and other requested information, students submitting proposals must name and provide the email address for an advisor or other faculty member who can verify the student presenter’s readiness to present at a professional meeting. Student members of AMS-Midwest are invited to compete for one of the annual awards for outstanding papers: the awards offered by Indiana University Press and A-R Editions, Inc. as well as the Michael Budds Student Paper Prize. Students wishing to compete for the awards are expected to submit their final text, including handouts and/or slides, as an email attachment to Harris Saunders, Chair of the Program Committee, at [email protected], by Saturday, October 8, 11:59 PM, EST. For updated details of the awards, see:

https://sites.google.com/site/amsmidwest/chapter-meetings/awards.

The Chapter also offers limited support for travel and lodging to student presenters. Details for both opportunities can be found at the Guidelines for Paper Submission, and on the AMS-Midwest website.

Thank you for your interest in the upcoming meeting of the AMS-Midwest Chapter at Bowling Green State University.

We hope to see you in Bowling Green!

AMS Midwest - Awards The AMS Midwest Chapter offers two annual prizes for outstanding student papers read at its meetings. Students wishing to compete for the annual prizes offered by Indiana University Press and A-R Editions, Inc. should submit their final text as an email attachment to the chair of the program

Last but not least for this academic year: Congratulations to Leo Walker for having completed his MA in Musicology and successfully defended his thesis “’Who Gives This Woman?’: Ted Hearne’s Musical Exploration of Sexual Violence.”
As Leo is getting ready to start his PhD at the University of Florida, he tells us: "I am deeply appreciative of those who have supported me during my time at WMU. It has truly been such a pleasure being surrounded by a robust community of talented artists and scholars, all of whom have shaped me into the person I am today.”
Good luck with your future endeavors Leo!

We are proud to announce that Rodrigo Valente Pascale successfully defended, for his MA in Music, the thesis titled “Aesthetic Implications of Using the Computer Medium in Music”. Rodrigo, who also completed a MM in composition here at WMU, is looking forward to joining the DMA program in composition at Boston University this fall. Congratulations Rodrigo!

Yes! These are our wonderfully skilled students! Go and be great!

Congratulations to MA student Leo Walker who will be attending the University of Florida this fall to pursue a PhD in Historical Musicology. He is excited to continue exploring the relationship between personal identity and performance of twentieth and twenty-first-century vocal music. Leo completed the BA in music at WMU in 2021 and through the Accelerated Graduate Degree Program is currently finishing his MA. Congrats, Leo! 🥳🐊

Congratulations to recent WMU grad Kennedy Dixon who will be attending Princeton University next fall to start working on her PhD in Music Composition! 🥳 Kennedy was a student in our Accelerated Graduate Degree Program and completed her MA in Fall 2021. Congrats, Kennedy, we’re so proud of you!

Call for Papers!

University of Connecticut Graduate Music Conference
Deadline for Submissions: Tuesday March 1, 2022
Conference Date: Saturday May 14, 2022
Location: ONLINE University of Connecticut (Storrs, CT)
Website: https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://uconngmc.wixsite.com/mysite__;!!PvXuogZ4sRB2p-tU!WvAa7GnN5NEvw_EXWcJ2dteC3i9qiWGFm60s9vlQ16BT1VlSfn-mfhNi5o848ITobamDywTvOw$

Keynote Speaker: Anabel Maler (University of Iowa)

The University of Connecticut Department of Music is proud to announce the call for papers for the third annual UConn Graduate Music Conference. UConn GMC welcomes submissions from graduate students in all fields of music, including but not limited to music theory, musicology, music education, and music performance. Abstracts may be on any topic related to music,
including interdisciplinary approaches. Papers will be twenty minutes followed by ten minutes of questions and answers.

The conference will take place over Zoom on Saturday, May 14, 2022. Presenters will have the choice to either present their work live (utilizing screen sharing) or share a pre-recorded video. The entire conference will take place synchronously, whether presenters choose to present live or not, and all 20 minute presentations will be followed by 10 minutes of questions. Pre-recorded presentations and live presentations will have the live transcription feature enabled on Zoom for accessibility.

UConn GMC 2022 is pleased to offer a keynote address presented by Dr. Anabel Maler (University of Iowa). Further information on Dr. Maler’s session will be available in the coming weeks.

Please submit abstracts using the following form by Tuesday, March 1, 2022:
https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://forms.gle/RorJTDEJ1u5ChwGe9__;!!PvXuogZ4sRB2p-tU!WvAa7GnN5NEvw_EXWcJ2dteC3i9qiWGFm60s9vlQ16BT1VlSfn-mfhNi5o848ITobak3SUvngA$ . Abstracts should be .pdf files, not contain any identifying information, be no more than 300 words, and may contain up to two pages of examples.

Feel free to email uconn.gmc -at- gmail.com with any questions or concerns. Should you need any accommodations throughout the application process, please do not hesitate to contact us - we are more than happy to help!

Exciting internship opportunity! Classical Interlochen Public Radio is hiring a summer intern! This person will help research, script, and produce audio for flagship programs, including The Interlochen Collection (featuring 80 years of archival recordings from Interlochen Center for the Arts), GAMEPLAY (a program about the music of video games) and Kids Commute (a daily classical music program for elementary school-aged listeners).

The dates are May 16, 2022 to August 7, 2022 with room and board provided as well as a modest hourly stipend.

https://interlochen.submit4jobs.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=85509.viewjobdetail&CID=85509&JID=336733&jcat=Summer%20Camp%20Positions

IPR Classical Music Intern (Summer) Deep in the woods of Northern Michigan, artistic disciplines merge and unbreakable bonds form. Surrounded by creative energy as you live amongst - and learn from - other expert professionals. The bridge between awestruck wonder and awe-inspiring achievements. Working joyfully. Creating a life of pur...