Composition

Bio: Jesse Maker is a composer and educator located in Arlington, Texas. Madly in love with linguistics, he often works in the space between lyrics and poetry, music and words, meaningfulness and meaninglessness. His music is characterized by its breathless intensity. Dr. Maker’s research focuses on practical composition pedagogy and the mechanisms of meaning in music. He holds degrees from Oberlin College and Conservatory of Music, Bowling Green State University, and McGill University. Dr. Maker teaches music theory at the University of Texas at Arlington and composition to students in his private studio.

Bio: Graham Hunt is Professor of Musicology and Music Theory at the University of Texas at Arlington. He received his Ph.D. in Musicology from Duke University. He has published numerous peer-reviewed articles in music theory journals, including 2 articles in the most pre-eminent journal in the field of Music Theory, Music Theory Spectrum. He has also presented 5 times at the national meeting of the Society of Music Theory. He served as President of the Texas Society Music Theory from 2011-2014. He has given the keynote speech for the Oklahoma City University Theory Conference and has been a guest speaker at the Music Theory Lecture Series at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and the University of Texas at Austin. He has published on subjects such as Wagner, Neo-Riemannian analysis, the Three-Key Exposition in Sonata forms, and, most recently, problematic rondo forms in Classical and 19th-Century finales, in journals such as Journal for Schenkerian Studies, Integral, Theory and Practice, 19th-Century Music Review, and Music Theory Spectrum. He was also selected to be the Grace and Joseph Valentine Visiting Professor at Amherst College (Massachusetts) in 2009. His latest research applies the groundbreaking theories of William Caplin, "Formal-Function Analysis," which was derived from the theories of Arnold Schoenberg to examine formal ambiguities that have previous defied traditional analytical interpretations, such as three-key expositions, truncated rondo forms, and opera arias, duets, and ensembles. Most recently, he was been invited to contribute a chapter to "Mozart Operas", a volume published by Leuven press, on Sonata forms in Mozart's operas, published an article in Music Analysis (published in the UK) on "Diverging Subordinate Themes" in sonata forms ranging from Scarlatti to Bruckner, and contributed a chapter to “Wagner studies” on formal functions of leitmotivs in Wagner’s opera Lohengrin. This November, he will present a paper on “Lesser, Redundant and Inconvenient Rondo Forms” at the national Society for Music Theory, which will be held virtually.