Contemporary and future paths in Music Performance, Composition, and Analysis! This is what conference participants were discussing at the University of Waikato Conservatorium of Music. And it all took place November 19-20. The program was amazing! Michail Exarchos, the Deputy Programme Director for Commercial Music at the University of Westminster, presented a paper on composing the Blues for sample-based Hip-Hop, and Warren Drake, founding president of the NZMS, presented the findings of his research of Wagner criticism. I know that people think the older generation tends to be stuck in its ways, but visit the attendees' point of view of establishing education and collaboration through a core principle of connecting past with future. This is the very philosophy underpinning my own contribution to the conference: an analysis of the triadic post-tonality of a neoconservative, postmodern string quartet by friend and colleague Sky Macklay. Dr. Francis Yapp, Lecturer in Musical Culture at the University of Canterbury, advocated the use of digital humanities tools for "teaching the past into the future." Music producer and Lecturer in Sound Production at Melbourne Polytechnic Martin K. Koszolko spoke about music collaboration software in a session I chaired on "Composition and the Net." Other presenters in this session, including acoustic/electroacoustic composer, opera singer, film scorer, and multimedia installation artist Teresa Connors and editor of the journal Organised Sound Ian Whalley, spoke about audiovisual installations as ecological performativity and digital networks in electroacoustic music, respectively. As with any such conference, it all comes down to sharing without after looking intently within. In the face of this enduring consciousness-based intellectual tradition, it looks bad for those who do not wish to connect with the entire world as global citizens. Then again, transforming their hearts and minds might take a miracle. Will the human race ever be so fortunate?
Annual Meeting of the New Zealand Musicological Society (NZMS; 2016)
ZANE GILLESPIE
After six years as Minister of Music at Mount Pleasant United Methodist Church (UMC) in Holly Springs, MS, I was recently called to continue to work to address public engagement in music participation as Director of Music Ministries at First UMC in Water Valley, MS. I am a Composer, Theorist, and member of both The College Music Society as well as The Poe Studies Association (PSA). I am also an active pianist and vocalist, specializing primarily in church music. My paper entitled ““Mesmeric Revelation”: Art as Hypnosis” has been published by the international, peer-reviewed journal Humanities. In addition, another paper of mine entitled “A Model of Triadic Post-Tonality for a Neoconservative Postmodern String Quartet by Sky Macklay” has been submitted to the peer-reviewed Music Theory journal Perspectives of New Music. At the end of February 2015, I served as Chair for the session entitled “Aesthetics and Philosophy” at The Fourth International PSA Conference in New York City. On June 21, 2014, my Quartet for Alto Saxophone and Strings, a commission from concert saxophonist Walter Hoehn, was performed as part of Concert V of the Eighth Annual Belvedere Chamber Music Festival held at Grace-St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Memphis, TN. Characteristically neo-romantic (in the original sense of the word), my music earned me the Nancy Van de Vate Award for Composition three times from the University of Mississippi Department of Music. A native of Pontotoc, MS, I hold degrees from the University of Mississippi (BM; MM), and the University of Memphis (DMA) where I was the 2011 recipient of the Rudi E. Scheidt School of Music's Smit Composition Award. I live in Memphis, TN.