Conference Program

Music and Nature: Between Scientific Reason and Divine Power

Stony Brook University, February 14-15, 2014

the schedule reflects changes caused by inclement weather as of  9 am Feb 14

Friday, February 14 (1006 Humanities Building)

9:30 Coffee and Registration

11:15 Opening Remarks

Oksana Nesterenko, Symposium Chair

11:20-12:20 Birds

Hayley Roud and Barkley Heuser, chairs

Zachary Ebin (York University, Toronto)

“Suzuki and Bird Song: Assessing Suzuki’s Claim that Talent is not Inborn”

Ryan Taussig (University of Tennessee)

“Divine Creation, Human Music: The Spiritual and the Natural in Olivier Messiaen’s Des canyons aux étoiles”

12:35-1:35 Engaging Senses

Benjamin Downs, chair

Anna Reguero (Stony Brook University)

“Dancing Structure: Modern Dance Choreography, Musical Analysis, and Phenomenology”

Rogan Bogaert (University of Western Ontario)

“Two Senses of ‘Body’ in Janet Cardiff’s Forty-Part Motet” (skype session)

Suzanne Thorpe (UCSD, Integrative Studies Program) and Paul Geluso (NYU)

“Phloq: A Collaboration of Composition and Technology to Evoke Corporeal Engagement with Environmental Sound” - rescheduled to Saturday, February 15, 4pm

Composer presentation

Visit to the installation of Phloq, a multichannel work evoking the sensorial experience of a flock of birds taking flight (Wang Center, Gallery 4, alcove L ) 
 rescheduled to Saturday, February 15, 4: 30 pm. the installation will be running all day on Saturday

1:35-2:20 Lunch break

2:20 – 3:20 Soundscapes and Places

David Blake, chair

Garrett L. Johnson (Arizona State University)

“Deserts, Insects and Oscillators: David Dunn’s Bioregional Music”

Jason Kirby (University of Virginia, Critical and Comparative Studies in Music)

“"Country Pie": Bob Dylan's Genre Experiments in a "Back-to-the-Land" Moment” (skype session)

3:35-4:45 Cycles and Tonality: Human and Nature

Michael Boerner, chair

Katherine Betteridge  (Bangor University, North Wales, UK)

“Earth, Spirit and Shamanic Ritual: a Musical Journey to Mongolia”

Composer presentation

Ryan Rowen (UCLA)

“A Reminiscence of Nature's Forgotten Melodies: Reactionary Tonality in Nikolai Medtner’s Sonata-Reminiscenza”

5:00-6:00 Keynote Address

Professor Stephen Decatur Smith, chair

Professor Holly Watkins (Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester)

“Toward a Posthumanist Organicism”

Reception to follow

Staller Center, Music Wing

Saturday, February 15 (Recital Hall, Staller Center for the Arts)

9:30-10:00 Coffee

10:00 – 11:00 Evolution and Natural Science

Michael Richardson, chair

Felipe Ledesma-Núñez (Stony Brook University)

“Luis Humberto Salgado: Nationalism, Music Evolution, and Mestizaje”

Yu Jueng Dahn (University of Cincinnati)

“Natural Science and Bostonian Musical Scene: Reception of Robert Franz’s J.S. Bach Arrangements”

11.15 - 1:00 Spirituality and the Supernatural

Oksana Nesterenko, chair

Tysen Dauer (University of Nebraska – Lincoln)

“The Zazen Pianist: Meditation, Oneness, and the Nature of Sound in Hans Otte’s Book of Sounds”

Lecture recital

Valerie Rogotzke (Yale University)

“Exercising the Spiritual Senses: Musical and Liturgical Practices at Helfta”

Joe Cantrell (University of California San Diego)

“The disembodied digital voice: Sound recording as means of accessing the supernatural”

1.00-2:30 Lunch break

2:30- 4:00 Sounds of Nature

Anna Parkitna, chair  

Mary Hubbell and Alice Jones (The Graduate Center at the City University of New York)

"Images of Nature in 20th-century Works for Voice and Flute"

Lecture recital

Katherine Pukinskis (University of Chicago)

"March Snow, Marta Sniegs: writing the beautiful into new concert music"

Composer presentation

 Suzanne Thorpe (UCSD, Integrative Studies Program) and Paul Geluso (NYU)
“Phloq: A Collaboration of Composition and Technology to Evoke Corporeal Engagement with Environmental Sound” - followed by a visit to the installation of  Phloq

 Dinner break

8:00 Stony Brook Symphony Orchestra Concert

The event is funded by Stony Brook University  Graduate Student Organization and supported by Stony Brook University Music Department.