UVA at American Musicological Society 2016

Written by Michael Puri

Past and present members of our Critical and Comparative Studies PhD program converged in early November 2016 upon Vancouver, British Columbia, in order to attend the annual meeting of the American Musicological Society. Two current PhD students presented papers. Sixth-year Amy Coddington showed how commodified musical artifacts like “Multiplication Rap” contributed to and challenged hip hop’s growing investment in authenticity, while fifth-year Jarek Ervin demonstrated how certain aspects of the reception of Marxism in cultural studies could be fruitful for rethinking the history of punk rock.

Jarek Ervin at AMS 2016Amy Coddington at AMS 2016Many CCS alumni also took part in the four-day affair. Vilde Aaslid (University of Rhode Island) shared her innovative approaches to teaching music history, while Emily Gale (University of California, Merced) discussed how her efforts to collect musical ephemera on eBay have shaped her research into sentimental song in the US. Elizabeth Lindau (California State University, Long Beach) recounted the recent revival of the 78, while Loren Ludwig delved into experimental practices in compositional theory and practice from sixteenth-century England. Mary Simonson (Colgate) rounded out the alumni presence by moderating a panel on the varied use of classical music in film.

CCS faculty kept busy, as well. Bonnie Gordon delivered a paper in a session on race and ethnicity in our profession, and both she and Richard Will gave presentations in a panel that examined sexual violence in opera. Michael Puri, along with third-year editorial assistant Justin Mueller, reported on the work they have done over the past year in generating book reviews for the Journal of the AMS.

Address

UVA Department of Music
112 Old Cabell Hall
P.O. Box 400176 Charlottesville, VA 22904-4176

Email: music@virginia.edu