Annual meeting report
Chris Segall
Dear Members,
As Chair of the Russian Music Theory Interest Group, I am pleased to report on our recent annual meeting at the SMT conference in San Antonio. The session featured paper presentations and a business meeting. In total, we had 27 attendees (15 male, 12 female).
The session began with three informal paper presentations on the history and development of harmonic theory in Russian texts. Philip Ewell (Hunter College and CUNY Graduate Center) discussed writings from the 1880s to the 1930s, focusing on Rimsky-Korsakov, Ippolitov-Ivanov, Catoire, and Tiulin. Ellen Bakulina (University of North Texas) spoke on Leo Mazel and the Brigade Textbook. Christopher Segall (University of Cincinnati) presented on Yuri Kholopov’s harmonic functions.
During the business meeting, we discussed chair term lengths, ideas for future annual meetings, and online resources. We decided that the chair should be elected to a three-year position. My term began in 2016, so in early 2019 we will solicit nominations for a new chair.
Members brainstormed possible ideas for future annual meetings. The consensus was that we should vary the activities from year to year. The following list can serve as a starting point for our planning each year.
· Formal and informal presentations
· Notable anniversaries (e.g., 2019: Ustvolskaya and Weinberg centenaries, Rimsky-Korsakov 175th birthday)
· Focus on Russian theory (as opposed to Russian music)
· Topics other than harmony (e.g., form)
· Work in progress
· Russian popular music
· Invite a Russian theorist (we can apply for an SMT international travel grant)
· Roundtable discussion
· Workshop
· Group analysis using Russian theory
In the next few weeks, we can begin planning our 2019 meeting. We can discuss options through our online discussion forum (currently our Google Group). I will initiate the discussion with a message.
Concerning online resources, Blake Ritchie (Rutgers University) and Tyler Secor (University of Cincinnati) assumed the responsibility of co-webmasters. They are investigating options for an interest group website. As mentioned at our business meeting, the SMT Networking Committee is encouraging interest groups to use Humanities Commons, so we may end up migrating from Google Groups.
Amy Hatch (University of North Texas) created and will moderate our new Facebook page. Please visit and join the group here:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/SMTRussianMusicTheory/
As a reminder, our Google Group, which for now remains active, can be accessed at the following link. Announcements posted to the group will be distributed via email to members. Anyone who belongs to the Google Group or attends our annual meeting may consider themselves a member of the interest group.
I look forward to our productive discussions ahead. In the meantime, please contact me with any inquiries at sega...@ucmail.uc.edu.
Sincerely,
Chris Segall