Music Theory

Graduating DMA student shares College of Music experience, future plans

Anonymous — Thu, 02 May 2024 06:00:00 +0000

Graduating DMA student shares College of Music experience, future plans Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 05/02/2024 - 00:00

Adam Goldstein

When Joy Yamaguchi graduates from the University of Colorado Boulder’s College of Music next week with a Doctor of Musical Arts degree (violin performance + Music Theory Certificate), the work she started here will continue well beyond her official stint as a student.

“I’m looking forward to further developing the projects I started through my research here at CU Boulder,” says Yamaguchi. “Completing this degree has helped me realize my strength and solidify my focus as a multifaceted artist.”

Yamaguchi came to CU Boulder as a doctoral student with credentials as an accomplished teacher, performer and entrepreneur. She started playing violin at age 8 (she describes her musical roots as being a “Suzuki violin kid”), and went on to earn a bachelor’s in music from the University of Minnesota and a master’s from Florida State University.

Our College of Music offered Yamaguchi opportunities to expand her already refined approach as a musician, educator and artist. Thanks in part to the mentorship of top-notch faculty and the availability of top-tier academic resources, Yamaguchi has deepened her connection to music—and to the history of the art form.

Her time at CU Boulder saw Yamaguchi researching and creating a new edition of two violin sonatas by Nobu Kōda, a Japanese composer of the Meiji era whose works were historically excluded from the classical canon, due in part to the fact that she was a woman.

The DMA program also offered Yamaguchi the chance to create a new curriculum for beginning string students. This curriculum, which focuses on teaching music theory through composition and improvisation, wasn’t just theoretical: Yamaguchi had the chance to put the system into practice with students at El Sistema Colorado.

In addition, Yamaguchi—who’s also the inaugural recipient of the András Szentkirályi Memorial Scholarship—found opportunities to present her research, insights and innovations to an audience beyond our campus. In 2023, she presented during the National American String Teachers Association’s annual conference, specifically detailing research that drew connections between bell hooks’ pedagogical framework and music education.

All of these accomplishments align with the mission that Yamaguchi had in mind when she decided to pursue her doctoral work at CU Boulder. “I was looking for a program that would allow me to gain hands-on teaching experience and explore my interdisciplinary research interests,” she says.

“I was very fortunate to have a graduate teaching assistantship throughout my degree,” she adds, explaining that the assistantship allowed her to interact firsthand with students, and to learn the ins and outs of the academic world. “I taught lessons to undergraduate and graduate students, assisted with music theory courses and grew my understanding of the inner workings of academia.”

All of this valuable experience is set to pay off in very practical ways. This spring, for example, Yamaguchi will head directly from Boulder to Wisconsin where she’ll manage this year’s Blackbird Creative Lab, a prestigious musical immersion event hosted by Grammy Award-winning musicians—surely only the first of many ways that she’ll carry what she learned at our College of Music into the wider world.

“The DMA challenged me in ways that were expected and unexpected,” she concludes. “Throughout, I’ve been very grateful for the community of teachers and colleagues who have supported me. The relationships I’ve formed at CU will continue.”

Congratulations, Joy—and to all our fantastic 2024 graduates!

When Joy Yamaguchi graduates from our College of Music next week with a Doctor of Musical Arts degree, the work she started here will continue. “Completing this degree has helped me realize my strength and solidify my focus as a multifaceted artist,” she shares.

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College of Music announces new music theory faculty member

Anonymous — Tue, 05 Mar 2024 16:51:37 +0000

College of Music announces new music theory faculty member Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 03/05/2024 - 09:51

Sabine Kortals Stein

Photo credit: Rosen-Jones Photography

The University of Colorado Boulder College of Music is thrilled to announce that Assistant Professor of Music Theory Leah Frederick will join the College of Music this fall.

“Although we’re sad that Steve Bruns is retiring, we’re very excited to have Leah Frederick join the music theory area,” says Professor of Music Theory Keith Waters, who chaired the search committee. “Leah has taught in some of the highest-ranking music programs including those at Indiana University, Oberlin College and Conservatory and—most recently—the University of Michigan.”

At Oberlin, Frederick was involved in the redesign and launch of its new undergraduate music theory curriculum. While at Indiana University, she served as editor of the Indiana Theory Review and was awarded the Wennerstrom AI Fellowship for outstanding teaching.

Continues Waters, “Along with tremendous teaching expertise, she’s a practicing violist and a rising star in the music theory world. She will be a tremendous asset across the College of Music—including our Master of Music program in music theory where our graduates have gone on to join the faculties and teach at the Eastman School of Music, Cleveland Institute of Music, Harvard University, Wake Forest University and elsewhere.”

“I’m delighted to join the theory faculty at the University of Colorado Boulder’s College of Music,” says Frederick, who specializes in mathematical approaches to music theory.

“One of the reasons that I was drawn to the field of music theory is the fact that it offers us so many different ways to think about and engage with music. I believe that music is an ideal medium through which students can embrace curiosity and learn to effectively communicate their own perspectives and ideas—skills that are essential to the College of Music’s mission to develop universal musicians.

“I look forward to growing with and learning from the CU Boulder College of Music community in pursuit of this goal.”

Frederick earned a PhD in music theory from Indiana University as well as a BS in mathematics and a BMA in viola performance from Pennsylvania State University. Her scholarship examines ways in which musical objects can be represented with mathematical structures—particularly the interpretive nature of this mapping. Her current project uses transformational theory to study relationships between patterns in instrumental spaces (i.e., the layout of notes on an instrument) and the corresponding pitch relationships they produce.

Frederick’s recently published work employs geometric and transformational techniques to examine the properties of diatonic versus chromatic musical space. Her writing on voice leading in mod-7 space appears in the Journal of Music Theory and Music Theory Spectrum; her dissertation on this topic was awarded the Society for Music Theory’s 2020 SMT-40 Dissertation Fellowship and Indiana University’s 2018-20 Dean’s Dissertation Prize. A related conference paper received Music Theory Midwest’s 2018 Arthur J. Komar Award.

Frederick currently serves as co-chair of the Society for Music Theory’s Mathematics of Music Interest Group, on the Executive Board for the Society for Mathematics and Computation in Music and on the Editorial Board for Music Theory Online.

Welcome!

Assistant Professor of Music Theory Leah Frederick will join the College of Music in fall 2024.

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Upholding the impact and legacy of composer George Crumb

Anonymous — Tue, 06 Feb 2024 07:00:00 +0000

Upholding the impact and legacy of composer George Crumb Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 02/06/2024 - 00:00

Marc Shulgold

Photo: Bruns and Crumb at a recording session of “Metamorphoses, Book II” at Swarthmore College in 2021.

Writing music can be a lonely occupation—very private, very demanding. So it’s no surprise that most composers come across as intimidating individuals. Not so with an affable gentleman like George Crumb, although you’d never expect it from listening to his complex, often transcendent music.

“My mom connected with him,” recalls CU Boulder College of Music Associate Professor of Music Theory Steven Bruns, who will retire in May. “She always said George seemed like a nice fellow from down the street.” Anyone who spent some time with the late composer (including this writer) walked away amazed at how instantly likable he was. Yet, as Bruns is well aware, when Crumb died on Feb. 6, 2022, at age 92, the world lost one of its most brilliant and influential music makers.

Bruns and Crumb each served as faculty members at the College of Music—Crumb, from 1959 to 1964 and Bruns from 1987 to his pending retirement. But they shared more than that: A close, long-lasting professional relationship and a deep friendship that began in 1992. “I first met George in Prague, where I was lecturing on his music at a week-long Crumb Festival,” Bruns recounts, “I wrote my dissertation on Mahler and later published an article that traced the many connections between his music and Crumb’s. George wrote to express his delight with my perspective.

“That whole experience changed my life. I continued to write about Crumb’s music and eventually became his archivist.”

In fact, the professor’s work continued to involve more than organizing Crumb’s papers and manuscripts. “I’ve had access to an amazing amount of material,” Bruns says. “I was able to scan so much—his sketches, his letters, photographs, almost everything.” He’s still working on this massive project and there’s more: Bridge Records, the label run by Crumb’s devoted friends David and Becky Starobin, recently released the complete works of the composer on 22 CDs—Bruns was a key participant, attending recording sessions and writing liner notes.

You’d think that digging through Crumb’s library of papers and collaborating with the Starobins on the Bridge recordings would keep the professor busy enough in his upcoming retirement. Well, guess again. Bruns has also been involved in a film project about the late composer.

“The film is built around a concert that was held in May 2022 of Crumb’s ‘Ancient Voices of Children’ [1970], three months after George died,” explains Bruns. Among the performers at this program by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in New York were soprano Tony Arnold, pianist Gilbert Kalish and percussionist Daniel Druckman. “That performance is the point of departure for a one-hour documentary that will include various interviews,” adds Bruns. “I’m one of the talking heads.” Directed by Tristan Cook, “Ancient Voices: A Film for George Crumb” will have its world premiere at the Big Ears Festival in Knoxville, Tennessee, in late March.

The point of the film—and the theme of his continuing post-academic labors on behalf of the late composer—is simple: “I want to tell people who he was, to keep his music alive.”

That goal may sound puzzling, knowing how brilliant a composer Crumb was, knowing the praise his works consistently received, the well-attended performances in concert halls around the world and the awards he won—the Pulitzer Prize in 1968 and a Grammy in 2001, among many other honors. But that’s no guarantee of a permanent place in the consciousness of a fickle public.

“George was extremely self-critical and very humble. He never engaged in catty talk about his composer colleagues,” adds Bruns. In other words, he kept a low profile and was hardly the self-marketing sort. So, what does the future hold for his music now that he’s gone? Where does one look for Crumb’s works and what role will Bruns play in that search?

“I’ll do all I can to invite new listeners into the sound world of George Crumb,” Bruns replies. He’s working on a book about the composer, hoping to educate a wider audience about the impact of the man’s music. Meanwhile, the collected compositions are not gathering dust, he reports. “There are at least a half-dozen works that are solidly in the repertoire. In addition to regular concert performances, there are multiple recordings of nearly every composition. For example, more than 20 pianists have released recordings of ‘Makrokosmos, Volumes I & II’ [1972 and 1973]. A good starter piece is ‘Vox Balaenae’ [‘Voice of the Whale’], Crumb’s dream-like trio for flute, cello and piano.”

Those who experience Crumb’s music are in for an amazing surprise, Bruns promises. “Every piece creates a powerful connection with an audience.”

Associate Professor of Music Theory Steven Bruns and the late, renowned composer George Crumb shared a close, long-lasting professional relationship and a deep friendship that began in 1992. As Bruns nears retirement this spring, he reflects on his role as Crumb’s archivist and biographer.

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Alumnus Dylan Fixmer—composer with a cause

Anonymous — Wed, 29 Nov 2023 07:00:00 +0000

Alumnus Dylan Fixmer—composer with a cause Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 11/29/2023 - 00:00

Marc Shulgold

Not one to mince words, College of Music alumnus Dylan Fixmer gets right to the point: “I want music to have a purpose,” he says. But finding his purpose didn’t come right away.

Fixmer earned a bachelor’s degree in music education in 2010 and went straight into teaching. Which was fine. Still, he admits, “I’d been composing my whole life. I was always noodling on some sort of piece.

“Five years ago, my mom showed my wife [alumna Sarah Off] and me a song I’d written many years ago. I guess I’ve always been a composer.”

But first things first: With an undergrad diploma from CU Boulder in hand, he spent a decade teaching in small Colorado towns such as Hotchkiss and Rifle, also serving as a counselor at the YMCA of the Rockies. Along the way, he earned a master’s in music education from Indiana University. Truth be told, Fixmer got his biggest kick out of time spent in Hotchkiss, population 875.

“I put together a little 8^th-grade jazz band,” he reminisces, somehow managing to keep a straight face as he listed the instrumentation: “We had two tubas, a bass clarinet and drums. I played piano and there were some other instruments. But the best part was, they played my compositions.”

Are we starting to see a pattern here? Fixmer, 35, recalls that, yes, while pursuing his degree at our College of Music, he studied composition and theory with noted Professor of Composition Carter Pann. Even as he pursued his graduate degree in music education and found work in the classroom, life as a composer continued to beckon. “I was always going through textbooks on composing,” says Fixmer, exemplifying the college’s universal musician mission. “I wanted to expand my vocabulary.”

And so it came to pass, in a big and meaningful way. Fixmer not only found life as a composer, but he found a way of writing music with a purpose. “I’m not sure I’d ever want to write a piece of absolute music,” he admits, referring to a composition that is simply a collection of melodies with no storyline or subtext. Instead, Fixmer creates for a reason.

Consider his Violin Concerto, premiered by the Greeley Philharmonic in September 2022—in partnership with the Greeley Family House and other homelessness assistance organizations to increase support for the unhoused. This work has such an extraordinary backstory that it deserves a movie treatment. Off performed the premiere on an instrument once owned by Terri Sternberg—an accomplished musician who had fallen on hard times, became homeless and died in 2013. Learning her story propelled Fixmer to create a heartfelt concerto that generated critical raves, a radio broadcast on Colorado Public Radio and eventually helped bring attention to the cause of homelessness as far away as London and Paris.

His deep concern about people goes beyond writing a thoughtful piece of music, he stresses. “In Greeley, I’m on a homelessness task force. That’s part of my desire in identifying topics to write about—ones that focus on human connections.”

Those connections now include some of Fixmer’s neighbors in Northern Colorado. Recently, another of his orchestral works was premiered by the Greeley Philharmonic where he now serves as composer-in-residence and where he’s created an impactful education outreach program. His “Seven Symphonic Portraits: A Weld County Reflection”—commissioned by the Greeley Philharmonic and the Weld Community Foundation—was unveiled in October at the Union Colony Civic Center. “It’s for the people of Weld County,” he says, “to describe the experience of living here, of what brings people to this county.”

There’s not enough space to cover all that the JW Pepper Editor’s Choice Award recipient has to offer. No space to discuss his children’s Spanish-language opera, “Clara y los Cuarto Caminos” (“Clara and the Four Ways”). Nor to get around to his side career in a guitar-fiddle duo with his wife, appearing at folk festivals playing bluegrass and traditional foot-tapping Irish tunes. No time to write about a commissioned work aimed at increasing interest in mental illness.

Once again, Fixmer—with recent commissions and premieres under his belt from UC Health, Opera Guanajuato and the Crested Butte Music Festival, among others—doesn’t mince words. “I don’t want to be typecast,” he says.

Alumnus Dylan Fixmer’s variegated and prolific career aims to inspire empathy and advance community engagement.

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Daphne Leong’s got rhythm

Anonymous — Wed, 18 Oct 2023 06:00:00 +0000

Daphne Leong’s got rhythm Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 10/18/2023 - 00:00

Marc Shulgold

College of Music Professor of Music Theory Daphne Leong.

We all know about rhythm in music: Just count to four. Accent the second and fourth beats, bob your head in time and shake those shoulders. If it’s in three beats, start waltzing. Simple, right? Well, guess again. Do you know about asymmetrical meters, ametric music, polymeter, metric modulation, timeline notation and feathered notes?

When it comes to 20^th- and 21^st-century music, Professor of Music Theory Daphne Leong—along with her colleagues in the world of rhythm in music performance and scholarship—engages in intense research and endless experimentation which brought her to Montreal’s McGill University for a recent residency. In the midst of it, she served as director of a three-day conference in September, “Rhythm in Music since 1900.”

Leong introduces Miles Okazaki—guitarist and composer, Princeton University—at last month’s “Rhythm in Music since 1900” conference, Schulich School of Music, McGill University.

“It was all about rhythm in concept and practice,” says Leong. “We brought in performers from different genres—jazz, rock, shakuhachi (a traditional Japanese flute). We had a fantastic lecture-recital on how to understand and perform rhythm in Iannis Xenakis’ music. It was a collaboration among performance, scholarship and pedagogy.” While at McGill, she held the title of Distinguished Visiting Professor and Schulich Dean’s Chair in Music. Leong has served on our faculty at the CU Boulder College of Music since 2000.

McGill percussionists perform Xenakis’ “Peaux.”

A native of Saskatchewan, where she earned an undergraduate degree in piano performance, Leong continued her studies at the Eastman School of Music before arriving in Boulder. Growing up in Canada proved helpful, incidentally, since the start of her McGill residency in January kicked off with record snowfall. No biggie for her.

Good thing she was able to get around in all that nasty weather, since Leong says she was kept very busy in Montreal. Besides planning and directing all the activities of the heavily attended international conference, she also managed to teach a graduate seminar and collaborate with the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology (CIRMMT), a hi-tech facility located on the McGill campus. “I designed a pilot experiment for them that involves performers,” she says.

Leong shares about the wide-ranging subject covered in the September conference at McGill, beginning by voicing a seemingly simple question: “How do we understand rhythm?” She follows up her question with another: “Do we play rhythm exactly as written?” Of course, there’s more to it than that. “All composers are open to interpretation,” she reminds us, also referencing some of the rhythmically inventive “old-school” composers of the last century: György Ligeti, Conlon Nancarrow, Steve Reich and others. She further mentions the new generation of music makers of the current century—ones who are moving beyond the boundaries pushed by those earlier pioneers—, giving special attention to fellow Saskatchewanian Nicole Lizée, a featured participant in the McGill conference.

Now back in Boulder, Leong isn’t done traveling. In early December, she’s off to California to join Takács Quartet members in a Bartók symposium, presented in conjunction with the quartet’s complete Bartók series at San Jose State. “This won’t be held just with academics in attendance,” she stresses. “Members of the public will be there, too, providing their impressions.”

When it comes to 20th- and 21st-century music, Professor of Music Theory Daphne Leong—along with her colleagues in the world of rhythm in music performance and scholarship—engages in intense research and endless experimentation which brought her to Montreal’s McGill University for a recent residency.

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Meet Izzy Fincher: Spring 2023 Outstanding Graduating Senior

Anonymous — Thu, 20 Apr 2023 06:00:00 +0000

Meet Izzy Fincher: Spring 2023 Outstanding Graduating Senior Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 04/20/2023 - 00:00

Sabine Kortals Stein , Kathryn Bistodeau

Congratulations to Izzy Fincher—the College of Music’s Outstanding Graduating Senior this spring—who will graduate with a BM in classical guitar performance, a BA in journalism, and a business minor with a Music Entrepreneurship Certificate and a Music Theory Certificate, exemplifying the College of Music’s universal musician mission. Each semester, outstanding students are selected based on academic merit, a strong record of musicianship, and a record of service and leadership. As part of this award, Fincher will be recognized and deliver a speech at the College of Music commencement ceremony on May 11.

“I’m so grateful and honored to have been selected for this award,” says Fincher. “I’ve had such an incredible experience here at the College of Music over the past five years and it means so much to receive this recognition at graduation.”

Fincher has also been named Outstanding Graduate of the CU Boulder College of Media, Communication and Information (CMCI).

As a student, Fincher was involved with several student groups, including as a writer and editor at the CU Independent, and as a member of the College of Music’s Diverse Musicians’ Alliance (DiMA).

“DiMA has been one of my favorite experiences over the past five years,” says Fincher. “It’s been wonderful to be part of such a supportive, diverse community. I’m Japanese-American and a really important part of my identity is advocating for marginalized, BIPOC composers and musicians—that’s something I’m really passionate about.”

Fincher also notes DiMA’s Persevering Legacy project as being particularly inspiring. The project elevates the stories of women composers, aligning classical music with social activism. “The Persevering Legacy events had a really big impact on me, inspiring me to seek out diverse composers and champion their works which has become a really important mission for me as a musician,” she shares.

“For my senior recital, I’m programming three female composers—that’s more than half of my program and that’s something I know I wouldn’t have been aware of or really advocated for unless I’d been a part of DiMA.”

Fincher felt especially supported and inspired by faculty from across campus—taking classes at the College of Music, CMCI and the Leeds School of Business.

“I’m grateful to all the wonderful faculty members I’ve studied with during my time at CU Boulder,” she says. “In particular, I wanted to thank my thesis advisor, Professor Chang, for all of his support this past year, Professor Nytch with the Entrepreneurship Center for Music [ECM]—and all of those incredible entrepreneurship opportunities—and my guitar teacher Professor Spera, of course. He’s been so encouraging over the past five years, it’s been incredible.”

To incoming freshmen, Fincher says she highly recommends the Music Entrepreneurship Certificate. “The College of Music is such a wonderful resource and we learn so much about music here,” she says. “The ECM adds to that by offering important practical skills that we’ll need in the real world beyond the classroom.”

After graduation, Fincher is headed to the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee where she’ll pursue a master’s degree in classical guitar performance under René Izquierdo. “He’s a legend in the guitar world, so I’m really looking forward to studying with him,” she says.

Congratulations to Fincher and all of the College of Music’s 2022-23 outstanding students, selected by faculty vote:

Outstanding Graduating Senior—Izzy Fincher, classical guitar performance
Outstanding Junior—Ben Golden, music education—instrumental (trumpet)
Outstanding Sophomore—Anna Kallinikos, trumpet performance
Outstanding Freshman—Chloe Ehrmantraut, viola performance

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Graduate student spotlight: Andres Orco

Anonymous — Tue, 04 Apr 2023 06:00:00 +0000

Graduate student spotlight: Andres Orco Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 04/04/2023 - 00:00

MarieFaith Lane

The College of Music is committed to supporting students in expanding their skill sets through certificate programs in a variety of areas. Venezuelan Andres Orco is a DMA guitar student in our Thompson Jazz Studies Program with a special interest in advanced rhythm and meter in jazz; as such, he’s also pursuing a Certificate in Music Theory.

“I was drawn to CU Boulder for many reasons,” shares Orco, who earned a bachelor’s in music from the Berklee College of Music and a master’s in music from the New England Conservatory. “The faculty in both the jazz and theory departments, the student-faculty ratio and the teaching opportunities afforded to me as a Teaching Assistant.”

For his Certificate in Music Theory project, by combining music theory with ethnography, Orco analyzed modern repertoire and interviewed 15 professional jazz musicians including Vijay Iyer, Terri Lyne Carrington, Miguel Zenon and Mary Halvorson.

“The certificate is a pared-down master’s in music theory. I have always gravitated toward music theory, although I was more interested in studying jazz. Through the certificate program, I received a multidisciplinary education that has made me a more well-rounded musician and educator.”

Evolution of 21st-century jazz
“Jazz has always been an exceptionally sophisticated music. In the past 30 years, there’s been an increase in the use of rhythmic complexity, such as polyrhythms, asymmetrical meters and displacement as a compositional tool,” says Orco. “The modern jazz musician—coming from a tradition of rhythmic sophistication in improvisation—is now expressing rhythmic ambiguity in already ambiguous spaces. This, in my opinion, is an evolutionary marker in the music.”

Current theoretical literature isn’t sufficient to explain modern jazz
“There are two reasons why the current theoretical literature isn’t sufficient to explain modern jazz,” continues Orco. “First, most scholars discussing rhythm and meter in music have focused on Western classical music. As a result, analytical models have biases that can sometimes work when analyzing jazz … but often falter. Rules have to be broken and the music is essentially made to conform to the model, rather than the other way around.

“Second, the jazz literature is almost entirely dedicated to a 20-year period, 1940 to 1960. Given how much the music has changed, it’s very important to research modern repertoire to continue the discussion into the 21st century.”

Amplifying the voices of expert jazz practitioners in theoretical discussions of their music
According to Orco, “While slowly settling as an academic discipline, jazz is still an oral tradition. Some of the most important theorists and historians are the players themselves, who understand this music from every aspect—theoretical, historical and embodied.

“Some recent articles discussing modern jazz simply get it wrong, and my ethnographic findings demonstrate there is a conflict between the literature and practitioner’s perspective. Scholars overlooked important organizing elements endemic in jazz and, as a result, their interpretations conflict with how jazz musicians would normally understand and analyze the music. Including the perspective of professional jazz musicians is both ethically valuable and provides ecological validity to the analysis of music.”

He explains, “Ecological validity is a judgment made on research. Essentially, it’s whether the conclusions and findings have any relevance to the studied population—‘real world’ versus study. In this case, the academic discussion of music is often not ecologically valuable because it operates in a vacuum. It’s an analysis of music as a product rather than as a practice, where only scholars are in dialogue with it … and it goes nowhere beyond a journal. Including the actual practitioner of the music involves members of the broader population, discusses the music from both practical and analytical perspectives, and is more relevant to the ‘real world’ because of the dual perspective.

“Ethical value builds from the same idea, but refers to the notion that it is ethically important to include the voice of the practitioner in jazz. Too often, this has not been the case … despite the fact that jazz is an oral tradition and some of the most knowledgeable historians and theorists of the music are the actual musicians themselves.”

An active performer in the Denver metro area, Orco is also focused on writing guitar pedagogy books and teaching aspiring guitarists of all levels and ages.

Venezuelan Andres Orco is a DMA guitar student in our Thompson Jazz Studies Program with a special interest in advanced rhythm and meter in jazz; as such, he’s also pursuing a Certificate in Music Theory. “Through the certificate program, I received a multidisciplinary education that I think has made me a more well-rounded musician and educator.”

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Grad student spotlight: Julia Sills

Anonymous — Wed, 16 Nov 2022 07:00:00 +0000

Grad student spotlight: Julia Sills Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 11/16/2022 - 00:00

MarieFaith Lane

New master’s student Julia Sills—a teaching assistant in the College of Music’s theory department—graduated with bachelor’s degrees in music theory and flute performance from Florida State University earlier this year.

In her undergraduate thesis, “An Introductory Study of LoFi Music,” Sills worked to define and provide methods of analyzing the LoFi genre—an electronic genre of music with influences from hip-hop and jazz, distinguished by purposeful degradations of sound. She created a corpus study of 100 LoFi tracks and conducted research through pop culture mediums, such as online articles and YouTube videos, to compile information about the conventions of the genre. In pursuing her master’s in music theory at the College of Music, Sills plans to continue her research in popular music with a special focus on harmony and rhythm.

“I chose to study this topic because of its pervasiveness in popular culture, especially with people in their teens through their 30s,” she shares. “I believe music that is relevant to modern popular culture should have a space in academic literature.”

Sills continues, “I believe in the importance of being a musician with diverse interests both within and beyond the field of music.

“As a theorist, my interest in researching popular music has turned me into somewhat of a pop culture historian. Researching popular music has also necessitated interdisciplinary study into copyright and intellectual property law, so as to best understand the conventions of modern popular music.”

Sills remains an active flutist and enjoys performing music by living composers. Most recently, she performed as principal flute in the Orlando Contemporary Chamber Orchestra’s “To There From Here” program.

Sills exemplifies the College of Music’s vision to develop multiskilled, multifaceted universal musicians who innovate, influence and impact a diversity of disciplines.

New master’s student Julia Sills—a teaching assistant in the College of Music’s theory department—is researching popular music with a special focus on harmony and rhythm. “I believe music that is relevant to modern popular culture should have a space in academic literature.”

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