PUBLIC SCHOLARSHIP
“US music education has a history of anti-Blackness that is finally being confronted,” The Conversation, June 28, 2023.
“Erasing Colorasure in American Music Theory, and Confronting Demons from our Past.” RILM’s Bibliolore, March 25, 2021.
BOOKS
American Antiblackness, a co-edited volume, Philip Ewell and Joe Feagin, editors. Under contract at Routledge. (Projected 2025.)
The Engaged Musician: Theory and Analysis for the Twenty-First Century, a new undergraduate music theory textbook. Under contract at W. W. Norton Publishers. With coauthors Rosa Abrahams and Cora Palfy. (Projected 2025.)
On Music Theory, and Making Music More Welcoming for Everyone, University of Michigan Press, 2023.
Kaleidoscope of Cultures: A Celebration of Multicultural Research and Practice. Edited by Marvelene Moore and Philip Ewell. New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010.
BLOGS
Confronting Racism and Sexism in American Music Theory, April/May 2020 (Best to read in order):
- The Myth of Race and Gender Neutrality in Music Theory
- Race, Gender, and Their Intersection in Music Theory
- Music Theory’s Quantitative and Qualitative Whiteness
- Beethoven Was an Above Average Composer—Let’s Leave It at That
- New Music Theory
- Music Theory’s Future
Read Confronting Racism and Sexism in American Music Theory in Portuguese (Confrontando o Racismo e o Sexismo no campo da Teoria da Música Americano). Translated by Vincenzo Cambria, Pedro Fadel, Priscilla Hygino, Ferran Tamarit Rebollo, Daniel Stringini and Paulo Dantas.
IN PEER-REVIEWED JOURNALS
“Kompleks parametrov v muzyke Sofii Gubaidulinoi” (The parameter complex in the music of Sofia Gubaidulina) (in Russian). Nauchnyi Vestnik Moskovskoi Konservatorii Vol. 12, No. 4 (2021): 34–47.
“Music Theory’s White Racial Frame.” Music Theory Spectrum (2021): 1–6. (Note: this is a transcript of my Nov. 2019 SMT plenary talk—for a more complete version see “Music Theory and the White Racial Frame.”)
“Harmonic Functionalism in Russian Music Theory: A Primer.” Theoria 26/2020: 61–84.
“Reexamining the 1930 Conference on Boleslav Yavorsky’s Ladovy Rhythm and The Early Politics of Soviet Music Theory.” Art of Music: Theory and History 22/23 (2020): 214–233.
“Music Theory and the White Racial Frame.” Music Theory Online 26.2 (September 2020).
“Music Theory à la Leningrad: An Interview with Tatiana Bershadskaya” (in English). Sovremennye problemy muzikoznaniia (Contemporary problems of musicology) 4/2019: 121–164.
“On Rimsky-Korsakov’s False (Hexatonic) Progressions outside the Limits of a Tonality.” Music Theory Spectrum 42 (2020): 1–21.
“On the Russian Concept of Lad, 1830–1945.” Music Theory Online 25.4 (December 2019).
“Introduction to the Symposium on Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly.” Music Theory Online 25.1 (May 2019).
“Pochemu amerikantsy tak liubiat shchenkera (i Rimana eshe bol’shche)” (Why Americans so love Schenker [and Riemann even more]) (in Russian). Sovremennye problemy muzikoznaniia (Contemporary problems of musicology) 18/1 (2018): 2–32.
Review of Alexander Serov, and the Birth of the Russian Modern, by Paul Du Quenoy. Russian Review 76/2 (April 2017): 353–354.
“Amerikanskaia teoriia riadov v perspektive” (American set theory in perspective) (in Russian). Muzykal’naia Akademiia (Music academy) (2015, no. 1): 148–155.
“The Parameter Complex in the Music of Sofia Gubaidulina.” Music Theory Online 20.3 (September 2014).
“‘Sing Vasya Sing!’: Vasya Oblomov’s Rap Trios as Political Satire in Putin’s Russia.” Music and Politics VII/2 (Summer 2013).
Review-article on Analyzing Atonal Music, by Michiel Schuijer. Theory & Practice 37/38 (2012–13): 275–288.
“Conference Report: Inaugural Meeting of the Russian Society for Music Theory.” Music Theory Online 19.4 (December 2013).
“Russian Pitch-Class Set Analysis and the Music of Webern.” Gamut: Online Journal of the Music Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic 6/1 (2013).
“‘I Can’t Be Quiet’: An Interview with Vasya Oblomov.” Echo: A Music-Centered Journal 11.1 (Spring 2013).
“‘On the System of Stravinsky’s Harmony,’ by Yuri Kholopov: Translation and Commentary.” Music Theory Online 19.2 (June 2013).
“Rethinking Octatonicism: Views from Stravinsky’s Homeland.” Music Theory Online 18.4 (December 2012).
“Anton Rubinstein, Alexander Serov, and Vladimir Stasov: The Struggle for a National Musical Identity in Nineteenth-Century Russia.” Germano-Slavica XVI (2007): 41-55.
“Scriabin and the Harmony of the 20th Century.” Annotated translation of article by Yuri Kholopov. Journal of the Scriabin Society of America 11/1 (Winter 2006-2007): 12-27.
Review of Making Beats: The Art of Sample-Based Hip-Hop, by Joseph Schloss. Popular Music 25/1 (2006): 138-40.
“Scriabin’s Dominant: The Evolution of a Harmonic Style.” The Journal of Schenkerian Studies 1 (2006): 118-48.
“Scriabin’s Seventh Piano Sonata: Three Analytical Approaches.” Indiana Theory Review 23 (Spring/fall 2002): 23-67.
IN EDITED VOLUMES
Expanding the Canon: Black Composers in the Music Theory Classroom, invited Foreword author, edited by Melissa Hoag. Taylor & Francis, 2023.
Queer Ear: Remaking Music Theory, invited Foreword coauthor, edited by Gavin Lee. Oxford University Press, 2023.
“Don’t You Cry for Me: A Critical-Race Analysis of Undergraduate Music Theory Instruction,” with coauthor Megan Lyons. Teaching and Learning Difficult Topics in the Music Classroom, edited by Olivia Lucas and Laura Moore Pruett. University of Michigan Press (in press).
“Stravinsky and the Soviet Union.” In Stravinsky in Context, edited by Graham Griffiths, 270–278. Cambridge University Press, 2021.
“Russian Rap in the Era of Vladimir Putin.” In Hip-hop at Europe’s Edge, edited by Milosz Miszczynski and Adriana Helbig, 45–62. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2017.
IN CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS
“Octatonic or Diminished?: Russian Modal Interpretations of Stravinsky from an American Perspective.” In Igor Stravinsky: Sounds and Gestures of Modernism, edited by Massimiliano Locanto, 137–156. Brepols Publishers, 2014.
“Russia’s New Grove: Priceless Resource or Propagandistic Rubbish?” In Music’s Intellectual History, the inaugural volume of the RILM Perspectives Series (2008): 659–670.
“Stravinsky’s Harmony, in Context.” In Musiktheorie im Kontext, edited by Jan Philipp Sprick, Reinhard Bahr, and Michael von Troschke, 215-26. Berlin: Weidler Buchverlag, 2008.
IN ENCYCLOPEDIAS
“Rap and Rappers.” In Music in American Life: An Encyclopedia of the Songs, Styles, Stars, and Stories That Shaped Our Culture, edited by Jacqueline Edmondson. Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood, 2013. (Invited author.)
DISSERTATION
“Analytical Approaches to Large-Scale Structure in the Music of Alexander Scriabin.” PhD dissertation, Yale University, 2001. Adviser: Allen Forte.