MUSIC THEORIST IN RESIDENCE 2011

 

LAWRENCE ZBIKOWSKY Associate Professor of Music, University of Chicago, U.S.A.

7-8/04/2011

 

 

 

 

The year 2011 saw the fourth edition of the Music Theorist in Residence Seminar. The Dutch-Flemish Society for Music Theory joined forces again with the University and the Conservatory of Amsterdam, the Orpheus Institute, and the Musicology Department of the University of Leuven to appoint an internationally recognized Music Theorist in residence. This year Professor Lawrence Zbikowsky resided at the Orpheus Institute and Leuven University.

In previous years, Professor Robert Gjerdingen (Northwestern University, Evanston, U.S.A.) in 2007-08, Professor Kofi Agawu (Princeton University, New Jersey, U.S.A.) in 2008-09 and Professor William Rothstein (Queens College and The Graduate Center, City University of New York) in 2010-2011 were in residence.


7/04/2011 @ Orpheus Instituut

 

10.00-12.00 Introduction; processes of categorization.

 

Mr Zbikowsky provided a general introduction to how he applies research on human cognition to musical analysis, and in the seminar/workshop he explored how what we now know about processes of categorization can be applied to musical analysis, using a short composition for guitar by Hans Werner Henze (from Kammermusik 1958) as an example.

 

14.00-16.00 Cross-domain mapping and analogy.

 

Here Mr Zbikowsky considered how mappings between our knowledge of other domains informs our understanding of music. The analytical portion of the seminar/workshop explored how compositional strategies are deployed in the service of a few examples of how music is used to summon images in works from the 18th century by Marais and Haydn.

 

 

 

8/04/2011 @ Leuven University

10.00-12.00 Conceptual blending.

 

This extension of research on cross-domain mapping and analogy has proven to be very useful for analyzing songs (especially early 19th-century Lieder), as well as other multimedia works. The examples for analysis will be Schubert's "Ihr Bild" and "Die Stadt" from Schwanengesang.

14.00-16.00 Music and embodiment.

 

There has been a lot of work recently on relationships between music and the body, something that is central to work on music and gesture, dance, and embodied listening perspectives. Mr Zbikowsky considered some of that work but will also apply it analytically to Richard Rodney Bennett's Impromptus (1968), a set of five short pieces for guitar.

 

 

 

Link to information on the seminars provided by Mr Zbikwoski:

http://humanities.uchicago.edu/classes/zbikowski/Orpheus.html