Iowa Musicology Day on April 14

The musicology faculty and students at the University of Iowa are looking forward to the fourth annual Iowa Musicology Day, to be held on April 14. The conference will be held in Room 2 (the Choral Room) of the Voxman Music Building. The conference is free and open to Iowans interested in musicology.

Conference Schedule
9:00 Registration and morning refreshments

9:30-10:30 Session 1: New Perspectives on Medieval Chant (Chair: Beth Zamzow, Kirkwood Community College)

Melanie Batoff, Luther College, “Contemplating The Social Function of the Visitatio sepulchri from Salzburg Cathedral”

Alison Altstatt, University of Northern Iowa, “Goscelin’s Songbook?: on the Origin of the Carmina Cantabrigiensia”

 

10:30-11:30 Session 2: Musical Events and Sources in Iowa (Chair: John MacInnis, Dordt College)

C. A. Norling, University of Iowa, “‘No Beautiful Whole:’ An Eighteenth-Century Don Giovanni Score in the Nineteenth-Century Operatic Cultures of Print”

Megan Small, University of Iowa, “On the Sunset Trail: The West in Iowa”

11:30- 1:00 Box Lunch (see below)

1:00-2:00 Session 3: Music and Mobilization (Chair: Jama Stilwell, Cornell College)

Elizabeth Dickhut, University of Northern Iowa, “‘Come Get My Mattress. I’ll Keep My Soul’: Music Mobilization and SNCC Through the Freedom Rides and the Albany Movement”

Marian Wilson Kimber, University of Iowa, “‘It’s up to the women’: Women’s Peace Songs for Eleanor Roosevelt in the 1930s”

2:15-3:15 Session 4: Music for Film (Chair: Eric Saylor, Drake University)

Lisa Pollack Mumme, University of Iowa, “‘I Am the One Who Runs from Both the Living and the Dead’: Action as Music in Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)”

Nathan Platte, University of Iowa, “Jazz and the Ethics of Authenticity in I Want to Live!”

3:30- 4:30  Session 5: Introduction to the Arthur and Miriam Canter Rare Book Room, Katie Buehner, Music Librarian, Rita Benton Music Library

More Conference Information

Location: The new Voxman Music Building is located on the corner of Clinton and Burlington Streets. Paper sessions will be held in Room 2, the Choral Room, on the bottom floor across from the stairs. If you take the elevator down, the door to the room will be on your left.

Lunch: Box lunches will be available courtesy of the University of Iowa Musicology Society in the lower level commons.

Parking: There are two paid parking garages in close proximity to the Voxman Music Building.

1) Directly across Burlington St. at the corner of Burlington and S. Clinton Streets, attached to the Old Capital Mall. Entrances to the ramp are located on both S. Capitol St. and S. Clinton St.

2) One block over on the corner of E. Court and S. Dubuque. Take your ticket and pay in the machines in the stairwells before leaving.

Iowa City: A helpful site for the downtown Iowa City area is: http://www.downtowniowacity.com/. Those who might wish to stay nearby in Iowa City overnight can try the Iowa House in the Iowa Memorial Union , a ten–minute walk from the Music Building, or the Hilton Garden Inn directly across the street.

Opera: The School of Music will be presenting Mozart’s Così fan tutte at the Coralville Center for the Performing Arts, April 13 and 14 at 7:30 pm, and April 15 at 2 pm.

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On the Road: Spring Conferences

The spring conference season has been an especially active one for Iowans this year. The majority of the musicology faculty and students have been on the road at least once to present their research. Doctoral student Kelsey McGinnis presented “The Purest Pieces of Home: German POWs Making German Music in America” in Montréal at the Society for American Music meeting. Master’s students Andrew Tubbs and Arthur Scoleri also traveled to present papers, Tubbs at the conference Music and Action held at UCLA, where he gave “Reclaiming Their History: a Disabled Re-positioning of Cabaret.” Scoleri spoke on “Alcina and the Illusory Heart: Exploring Gender and Emotion in G.F. Handel’s Opera Seria” at NCounters: Engaging Music Research + Practice, held in Edmonton, Alberta. Two musicology students presented papers at the Midwest Graduate Music Consortium at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Master’s student C.A. Norling gave “An Atmosphere of the West: Highlighting the Exotic in Puccini’s La fanciulla del west,” and Tubbs presented “Cripface: Overcoming Disability and Finding a Musical Voice in The King’s Speech.”

Closer to home, two Iowa faculty members and one student presented papers at the spring meeting of the Midwest Chapter of the American Musicological Society, held at Drake University on April 22.  Prof. Nathan Platte gave “‘Sounds Must Stir the Fantasy’: Underscore as Special Effect in The Wizard of Oz (1939),” and Prof. Marian Wilson Kimber’s paper was “Reciting Parsifal: Opera as Spoken Word Performance in America.” Kelsey McGinnis presented “‘Our thoughts were with those back home’: German POWs Making German Music in Iowa.”

The third annual Iowa Musicology Day took place on April 6 at Kirkwood Community College in Cedar Rapids and featured two Iowa faculty and four student presentations, including:

Jared Hedges, “George Crumb’s ‘Attitudes of Variation’ in Eine Kleine Mitternachtmusik”

David Lim, “Programmatic Considerations in Julius Reubke’s Organ Sonata on Psalm 94”

Andrew Tubbs, “In Search of Balance: Inversional Symmetry, Tonal Problems, and Disability Aesthetics in Schoenberg’s ‘Valse de Chopin’”

Prof. Trevor Harvey appeared on the culminating panel for the day, “Strengths and Challenges in Teaching College-Level ‘Music Appreciation’ as General Education Courses,” speaking about his “Great Musicians” course for general education students at the University of Iowa.

The last week of April, Prof. Wilson Kimber traveled to the University of Delaware to speak about Felix Mendelssohn’s string quartets before the final performance of the complete cycle of quartets, including the Octet, performed by the Calidore Quartet with Delaware’s Seraphim Quartet. The same week, Prof. Platte was a guest speaker for the Musicology Colloquium at Northwestern University, where he presented “The Trouble with Onscreen Orchestrators: Progeny and Compositional Crisis in the Four Daughters Films.”

[Photo courtesy of 42N Observations]

 

UIowans present at Iowa Musicology Day

University of Iowa students and faculty traveled to Drake University in Des Moines to present papers at the second Iowa Musicology Day on Saturday, March 26. The topics of their research included film music, the music of German POWs in Iowa, The Tempest by Frank Martin, and an early female conductor, the Countess of Radnor.  Professor Marian Wilson Kimber chaired the program committee for the event.

Pictured are Kelsey McGinnis, Prof. Nathan Platte, Tim Cuffman, Elissa Kana, and Jared Hedges.  (Not pictured: Philip Rudd.)

2016 Iowa Musicology Day Program

Prof. Eric Saylor  will host the annual Iowa Musicology Day conference at Drake University in Des Moines on Saturday, March 26, between 9 and 5:30 in Room 204 of the Fine Arts Center.  The conference brings together musicologists and students from Iowa schools to share their research.  All are welcome to attend.

9–10:30 Early Music

Marian Wilson Kimber (University of Iowa), chair

Alison Altstatt, (University of Northern Iowa), “Beating the Bounds: The Rogation Processions at Wilton Abbey”

Beth Zamzow (Kirkwood Community College), “Modal Mingling and Liturgical Quotation: A Fresh Look at the Fifteenth-Century English Carols

Melanie Batoff (Luther College), “Uncovering the Origins and Purpose of the German Visitatio sepulchri Liturgical Drama”

10:45–11:45 Women in Music

Melinda Boyd (University of Northern Iowa), chair

Haley Steele (University of Northern Iowa), “Estelle Liebling: A Biographical and Pedagogical Survey”

Philip Rudd (University of Iowa), “Lady Helen of Radnor: Countess, Conductor, Pioneer”

11:45–12:30 Keynote, Christopher M. Scheer (Utah State University)

Introduced by Eric Saylor (Drake University)

1:45–2:45 Interpretations

Melanie Batoff (Luther College), chair

MaKayla M. McDonald (University of Northern Iowa), “An Analysis of Errollyn Wallen’s Are you worried about the rising cost of funerals?”

Jared Hedges (University of Iowa), “Ekphrasis and Frank Martin’s Aesthetic Ethic in Der Sturm”

2:45–3:45 Music and Communities

Beth Zamzow (Kirkwood Community College), chair

Andrew Tubbs (Wartburg College), “Cripface: Disability Narratives in Sound”

Kelsey McGinnis (University of Iowa), “The Purest Pieces of Home: German POWs Making German Music in America”

4–5:30 Film Music

Alison Altstatt, (University of Northern Iowa), chair

Tim Cuffman (University of Iowa), “Musical Characterization of Evil in Three Shanes”

Elissa Kane (University of Iowa), “The Cohesive Function of John Corigliano’s Chaconne in The Red Violin”

Nathan Platte (University of Iowa), “Max Steiner’s Four Daughters? Paternity, Adoption, and the Trouble with Onscreen Orchestrators”