Mindful Explorations presents IU East Music Research Day on Wednesday, November 3, in Springwood Hall Room 217. The day features four scholars in the fields of music theory and musicology and their paper presentations.

The event is free and open to the public.

The schedule of presenters is:

William Helmcke – 9:30-10:45 a.m.
Chris Brody – 11 a.m. to 12:15 p.m.
Jeffrey Sposato – 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Peter Smucker – 2-3:15 p.m.

William Helmcke will present a “Musical Meaning in Chopin: Markedness, Domain Separation, and the Signification of Polskość.”

Helmcke is a Ph.D. student in music theory at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He holds degrees from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the University of Minnesota.  He has presented papers at meetings of the Société Française d’Analyse Musicale (The French Society for Musical Analysis) in Strasbourg, France; the International Congress on Musical Signification in Kraków, Poland; the American Comparative Literature Association in Cambridge, Massachusetts; GAMMA-UT in Austin, Texas; and the AP Annual Conference in Seattle, Washington.  He has forthcoming articles in the United States in the Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy and Music Educators Journal; in France in Analyse Musicale and Actes Colloque Strasbourg; and in Poland in Semiotyka muzyki dziś. Teorie – strategie – aplikacje (Music Semiotics Today. Theories, Strategies and Applications). His research interests include Schenkerian analysis, music theory pedagogy, and Polish music.

Jeffrey S. Sposato will present “A Christian Mendelssohn Cannot Be: Jewish and Protestant Influences on Mendelssohn’s Sacred Music.”

Sposato is associate professor of musicology at the Moores School of Music at the University of Houston. He received a Ph.D. in musicology from Brandeis University, an M.M. and B.M. in vocal performance from New England Conservatory, and a B.A. in German studies from Tufts University. His teaching and research interests include music of the classical and romantic periods, sacred music, choral music, and opera. His most recent book, The Price of Assimilation: Felix Mendelssohn and the Nineteenth-Century Anti-Semitic Tradition (Oxford University Press, 2006), was named a Choicemagazine Outstanding Academic Title for 2006 and a Royal Philharmonic Society Music Award finalist. His other publications include William Thomas McKinley: A Bio-Bibliography (Greenwood, 1995), as well as several articles on Mendelssohn and his times. He is currently working on a new book entitled Leipzig After Bach: Musical Life in a German City, 1750–1850.

Pete Smucker is a fourth-year graduate student at the University of Chicago pursuing a Ph.D. in music theory and history. He holds a master’s degree in music theory from the University of Minnesota and a Bachelor of Music Education degree from Valparaiso University. He served as Collegiate Representative on the Board of Directors for the Indiana Music Educators Association, taught middle school and high school band, and served as the President of the Graduate Music Society at the University of Chicago.  Smucker’s research interests focus on music of the 20th and 21st centuries, post-tonal music in the United States, works by American composer Elliott Carter, transformational theory, expressive timing, narrative theory, music and multimedia, and music theory pedagogy. He has recently given papers at the Midwest Chapter for the Society of Ethnomusicology, and at the Colloquium on the Music of Elliott Carter in Celebration of Elliott Carter’s 100th Birthday.

Chris Brody attended the University of Minnesota and received a master’s degree in piano performance and a master’s degree in music theory. He is now a Ph.D. candidate at Yale University in music theory.