Historians, Theorists and Ethnomusicologists at Stony Brook University

The Stony Brook Character
By fulfilling the vision of founding members such as David Lewin, Leo Treitler, Charles Rosen, and Sarah Fuller, the Stony Brook Department of Music represents today a unique musical and cultural community characterized by an exceptional integration and interaction among the various sub-disciplines of history, theory, ethnomusicology, composition, and performance. Students in the various degree programs interact as members of a comprehensive music department, combining music studies with work in other related fields such as women's studies, cultural studies, philosophy, or history, with an emphasis on the 20th and 21st centuries. The rapid growth and success of the Stony Brook music department since its founding continues today thanks to faculty chosen not only for their stature as scholars but also for their rapport with students, their ability to work cooperatively with their colleagues, and their commitment to the values of the department.

Current Faculty include:
Sarah Fuller: Medieval and Renaissance
Mauro Calcagno: Late Renaissance and Baroque
Ryan Minor: 19th Century
David Lawton: 19th Century Opera
Benjamin Steege: Late 19th and 20th Centuries
Judith Lochhead: 20th - 21st Centuries
Frederick Moehn: Ethnomusicology (Latin America)
Peter Winkler: Popular Music

Sample Seminar Topics:
Manuscript Culture and Notation in the Middle Ages and Renaissance
Recent Research in 14th-Century Music
Analysis of Early Music
Lecture-Workshop in Baroque Performance Practice
17th Century Venetian Opera from Monteverdi to Cavalli
Claudio Monteverdi's Madrigal Books
Music and/as Religion in the Long Nineteenth Century
New Approaches to Wagner's Ring Cycle
Music and Mass Culture in Europe, 1868-1914
Music Theory, Science, and Modernity
Debussy and Modernism
Repetition
Phenomenological Approaches to Music Analysis: Placial Mappings of Music
The Composer in the 21st Century
The String Quartet at the turn of the Millennium
Music of Cuba
Ethnomusicology and Social Theory
Music and Race

Some Recent Stony Brook Dissertations (completed or in progress):
Katherine Kaiser, Singing Subjects/Vocal Objects: The Recorded Voice in Modern Music
Kathleen Hulley, Sonorous and Sexual Bodies: Shifting Representations of Women in German Opera, 1900-1915
Kassandra Hartford, Race, Nation, Musical Modernism: Rio de Janeiro, Paris, and New York, 1914-1945
Cordelia Chenault, Behind a Flourishing Avant-Garde: An Institutional History of Recent Opera Production in Germany
Christine Fena, Composing ‘the land of sewing machines and typewriters’: Ultramodern Music and the American Industrial Landscape (1905-1935)
Steven Gehring, Spirituality, Modernity and Postmodernity in Post-War Music: Pärt, Coltrane and Harvey
Jason Hanley, Metal Machine Music: Technology, Noise and the Body in Industrial Music.
Margaret Martin, Cultivating the Vernacular: Bang on a Can and the New American Musical Avant-Garde. (AMS 50)
Mark Berry, Musical Borrowing, Dialogism, and American Culture, 1960-1975:Bob Dylan's Self Portrait, George Rochberg's Third String Quartet, and Herbie Hancock's "Watermelon Man"
Deborah Heckert, Composing History: National Identity and the Uses of the Past in the English Masque, 1860-1918
Brian Locke, Music and ideology in Prague, 1900-1938
Kirsten Yri, Medieval Uncloistered: Uses of Medieval Music in Late Twentieth Century Culture
Jennifer Shaw, Schoenberg’s Choral Symphony, Die Jakobsleiter, and Other Wartime Fragments
Lisa Barg, National Voices, Modernist Histories: Race, Performance and Remembrance in American Music, 1927-1943 (AMS 50)

Graduate Study at Stony Brook:
The Graduate Program at Stony Brook distinguishes itself from other graduate programs in the United States in several ways. The Department of Music:

• Encourages interdisciplinary study both within and outside of music. Students may pursue other music-related programs such as performance or composition in tandem with work devoted to the history-theory program. And students may combine music studies with work in other related fields, such as women's studies, cultural studies, philosophy, or history. At the doctoral level, work in related fields may be included in the program of study.
• Offers an outstanding and internationally renowned faculty with broad-based expertise in many areas of music history, music theory, ethnomusicology, composition, and performance.
• Places a special emphasis on music of the 20th and 21st centuries, which is manifest in specific course and degree requirements and in the general music-making activities of the Department.
• Promotes the interaction between the various sub-disciplines of music—history, theory, ethnomusicology, composition, and performance. Students in the various degree programs often take courses with one another and interact as members of a comprehensive music department.

• Interact with faculty on a regular basis, receiving individualized attention and close supervision.
• Have the opportunity to teach music courses as part of the program of study, either as assistants of faculty or individually.
• Devise a unique course of study at the doctoral level, working in consultation with a Directing Committee. Each faculty member of this committee helps to oversee the student's progress toward completion of degree requirements.
• May take courses in the New York Metro Consortium, which includes Columbia, NYU, Princeton, CUNY, and others.
• May complete graduate certificates in Women’s Studies, Cultural Studies, and Philosophy and the Arts.

NB: The Department does not offer unique degrees in history and theory. Rather, the program in the history and theory of music requires students to be knowledgeable about both historical and theoretical issues of music, recognizing that the two domains of musical study are intricately entwined with one another.

Stony Brook Graduates are teaching at:
McGill University, Middlebury College, Indiana University, University of British Columbia, The University of San Diego, Dalhousie University, The College Conservatory of Music-University of Cincinnati, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Syracuse University, Wilfrid Laurier University, Brandeis University, Western Illinois University, and the University of Colorado at Greeley

About the Music Department at Stony Brook
Stony Brook's music programs have grown out of an unusual partnership between the academy and the conservatory. Our degree programs are designed to favor interaction among musical disciplines that have traditionally been kept separate. We believe that a sound education for any musician or musical scholar must involve three things: a solid theoretical grasp of musical structure, an understanding of the historical and cultural forces that shape music, and practical experience with music-making on a professional level. The performance programs at Stony Brook all have an academic component, and the programs in history/theory and composition are enriched by daily contact with students and faculty in the performance programs. Our graduate courses typically have a healthy mix of students from all areas: in a course in computer music you might find a clarinetist exploring computer-interactive performance working next to a musicologist using sound-processing equipment to transcribe an improvised solo.

Interdisciplinary studies are central to the educational philosophy of the department. A number of courses are team-taught by two or more faculty members, examining topics from several disciplinary viewpoints. Many courses examine music in a broader social context. The music of the 20th (and 21st!) century is a particular emphasis of both our performance and academic programs, but other musical eras and traditions are also amply represented. Students can choose seminars from a broad spectrum of topics, ranging from medieval music theory to popular music. We frequently offer courses or productions in collaboration with the departments of Philosophy, Comparative Studies, Theater Arts, and Art, the programs in Cultural Studies and Womens' Studies, or the Stony Brook Humanities Institute. The department encourages the development of professional competence in more than one area of musical study. Opportunity for advanced work in more than one area is innate to the design of the programs at the doctoral level. For students at that level who propose to do serious work both in performance and in some other area, the decision to pursue either the D.M.A. or the Ph.D. degree will depend upon the balance of emphases in the intended program of study.

for more information, please contact:
Ryan Minor at: Ryan.Minor@stonybrook.edu