2025 Conference Program

For a downloadable PDF of this program, click/tap HERE.

For the abstracts to the conference presentations, click/tap HERE.

For Local Arrangements information, click/tap HERE.

To register for the conference, click/tap HERE.

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Music Theory Southeast
2025 Annual Meeting

Furman University Department of Music
Greenville, South Carolina
March 7–8, 2025

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(All events in Daniel Recital Hall unless otherwise noted.)

Friday, March 7

8:00 AM–8:45 AM Registration and Coffee (Atrium)

8:45 AM–9:00 AM Introduction and Welcome

Session 1: Harmony, Function, and Form

9:00 AM–10:30 AM
Chair: Emily Gertsch (University of Georgia)

  • Collection–Chord Interactions in Rimsky-Korsakov’s Kashchey the Immortal
    Jeff Yunek (Kennesaw State University)
  • Adventures in Functional Space: An Expanded Map of Harmonic Function
    John Bayne (Washington University in St. Louis)
  • The Transition that Grows: Expanding Romantic Frameworks with the Anticipatory Transition
    Luis Matos-Tovar (Florida State University)

10:30 AM–10:45 AM Break

Session 2: Pedagogical Studies

10:45 AM–11:45 AM
Chair: Shannon Groskreutz (Stetson University)

  • Pattern Recognition and Music Theory Ability
    Nancy Rogers (Florida State University)
  • Criterion-Referenced Grading vs. Flipped-Classroom Format vs. Visual Voice-Leading Cues: Which Undergraduate Music Theory Teaching Technique Actually Worked?
    Robert T. Kelley (Lander University)

11:45 AM–1:15 PM Lunch

Session 3: Approaches to Video Game Music

1:15 PM–2:45 PM
Chair: William R. Ayers (University of Central Florida)

  • Destined Music: Soundtrack as Story in Black Myth: Wukong
    Ruixue Hu (Eastman School of Music)
  • Music’s Role in Signifying the Progression of Difficulty in Survival Roguelike and Sandbox Adventure Games
    Brian Junttila (Florida State University)
  • Battle Against a Machine: A Computer-Aided Analysis of Motif and Meter in EarthBound
    Drake Eshleman (Indiana University)

2:45 PM–3:00 PM Break

Session 4: Metric and Hypermetric Perception

3:00 PM–4:00 PM
Chair: Gerry Lopez (University of North Carolina at Greensboro)

  • Hypermetric Ambiguity: Between Scores and Recordings
    Armin Akhavian (Florida State University)
  • Of Stream Merging and Gap Filling: A Theory of Metric Perception in Arvo Pärt
    Laura Casti (Northwestern University)

4:00 PM–4:15 PM Break

Session 5: Topics and Signifiers

4:15 PM–5:15 PM
Chair: Megan Lyons (Furman University)

  • The “Academic Fanfare”: Topics and Tropes Within Campus Comedies
    Albert Wheeler (Florida State University)
  • Race, Bias, and Musical Identity in Burleigh’s “Ethiopia Saluting the Colors”
    Jess Forgione (Michigan State University)

5:15 PM–5:30 PM Break

5:30 PM–6:30 PM MTSE Concert

Concert program available HERE.

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Saturday, March 8

8:00 AM–9:00 AM Registration and Coffee (Atrium)

8:00 AM–10:00 AM Graduate Student Workshop (Room 104)

  • Opening Music Theory to World and Traditional Musics
    Jane Piper Clendinning (Florida State University)

Session 6: Attending to Voices

9:00 AM–10:00 AM
Chair: J. Daniel Jenkins (University of South Carolina)

  • Listening To See: Voice and Agency in Jeremy Dutcher’s “Sakomawit”
    Judith Ofcarcik (James Madison University)
  • L’étrangeté du son: Deconstructed Voices in Gérard Grisey’s Student Works
    Nathan Cobb (Shenandoah University)

10:00 AM–10:15 AM Break

Session 7: Maths, Spaces, and Transformations

10:15 AM–11:45 AM
Chair: Clifton Callender (Florida State University)

  • Voice-Leading and Lane-Splitting: Microtonal Pantriadicism in Transformational Space
    Cameron Gwynn (Florida State University)
  • Families of Set Classes Arising from a Cellular Automaton in Mod-12 and Other Modular Spaces
    Evan Jones (Florida State University)
  • Navigating Boundaries Between Music and Mathematics in David Lewin’s GMIT
    Robert L. Wells (University of Mary Washington)

11:45 AM–1:15 PM Lunch

Session 8: Metal Methods

1:15 PM–2:15 PM
Chair: David Geary (Wake Forest University)

  • Spiritual Transformations in Two Songs by Sunn O)))
    Guy Capuzzo (University of North Carolina at Greensboro)
  • Force Image Schemata, Conceptual Metaphors, and Narrative in Rage Against the Machine’s Self-Titled Debut Album
    Dickie Lee (University of Georgia)

2:15 PM–2:30 PM Break

2:30 PM–3:30 PM Business Meeting

3:30 PM–4:30 PM Keynote Address

  • (Non) Semper Idem: Some Challenges to “All er Nuthin’” Approaches to Methodology, Hierarchy, Register, and Cadence
    Michael Buchler (Florida State University)