Recent, Current, and Planned Courses

• Music 164-20, Contemporary Chamber Ensemble: New York System 

  Rhode Island (and Rhode Island College) now has a new music ensemble, New York
  System!  We'll be playing lots of music from the last 30 years or so, and we've just
  commissioned works from two young composers for the spring.
  
  
  

• Music 458, 20th-Century Theory
  
  This small seminar will introduce graduate students and advanced undergraduates to
  an array of analytical techniques applied to music of the last century.  This will include
  the study of various scales and modes, non-tertian harmonies, the basics of serial
  analysis, and detailed work with set theory. (fall 2007)
  
  

• Music 360, Seminar: Recent American Art Music

  For spring 2007 I  designed a new course for Rhode Island College, a seminar for
  advanced undergraduates.  We looked at lots of new American music, contextualized
  with forays into contemporary painting, theatre, architecture, film, avant-garde rock,
  and moments of recognition of recent art music by pop culture (think Philip Glass on
  South Park.)  We also put on a class concert, performing Earle Brown's December 1952
  and Terry Riley's In C (ancient works!) on April 25.  Syllabus available upon request.
  
  

• Music 93, Advanced Composition

  For both terms of academic year 2005-6 I taught an Advanced Composition seminar for
  undergraduates at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The fall term syllabus
  is here.
  
  

• Music 37, Theory III

  For fall 2005 I also taught the final course in the study of tonal harmony at UNC (covering
  advanced chromatic harmony). My syllabus is available here.
  
  

• Music 55, The Avant-garde Since 1945
  

  For spring 2006 at UNC my seminar for advanced undergraduates focused on avant-garde
  music of the past 60 years. An early draft of the syllabus.  (The class--along with some
  faculty ringers--performed a set of avant-garde masterworks in concert:  Cage's 4'33",
  Stockhausen's "Right Durations" (Aus den sieben Tagen), and Riley's In C. --3/25/06)
  
  

• Music 378, Musicalized Texts: Contrapuntal Techniques and Musical Forms in Prose and Poetry

  Many writers have attempted incorporating musical forms (such as sonata-allegro
  or fugue) into their novels, poems, or short stories. Many more have attempted to
  compose contrapuntal text. This is a graduate seminar to examine such intermedial
  works. (The syllabus for this proposed course is available upon request.)
  
  

• Music 999, Seminar in Composition: From Poem to Song

  Poetry is filled with musical elements. In this seminar for graduate composers we
  will dig into the musical elements inherent in various poems. We will then discuss
  ways of accentuating, subverting, and countering a poem's music in an original
  musical setting of the poem. Our primary text will be Robert Pinsky's The Sounds of
  Poetry. Composers will complete several short text-settings throughout the semester,
  culminating in writing a song cycle for voice and instrument(s). There will be a
  concert performance of these works, An Evening of New Song, during reading period.
  The syllabus is here.
  
  

• Music 248, Seminar in Schenkerian Analysis

  This is the first half of a proposed two-semester study of the techniques of
  Schenkerian analysis for graduate students. The tentative syllabus is available here.
  
  

In addition to teaching at RIC and at the University of North Carolina, I have also taught
composition and theory at the University of Pittsburgh, Princeton University, and at Ohio
State. Brief information about some of the courses I have led at these institutions is available
at the links below (along with a website detailing a couple of older proposed composition
courses).

• Pitt courses
  
  
• Princeton courses
  
  
• OSU courses
  
  
• older proposed courses