RESEARCH
My primary research interest lies in French compositions of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. I specifically focus on the harmonic language of Gabriel Fauré and Claude Debussy, both of whom challenged the confines of the tonal framework while remaining within it. I examine their harmonic languages mainly in two ways: 1) through voice-leading analysis and 2) from the perspective of the history of theory.
A comparative study of harmony treatises from nineteenth-century France allows insight into how the education of composers such as Fauré and Debussy may be reflected in their music. For example, the language of plainchant modality has provided both nineteenth-century French composers with a refreshing source of harmonic ideas to develop a language alternative to both eighteenth-century tonality and Wagnerian chromaticism. My research on nineteenth-century writings regarding plainchant tonality as well as treatises on plainchant accompaniment reveals the way these composers developed a new type of harmonic language by incorporating modality.
The basis of my research on modal harmony and plainchant is presented in my dissertation, "Plainchant Accompaniment and Modal Harmony" (2021). https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/4307/.
A comparative study of harmony treatises from nineteenth-century France allows insight into how the education of composers such as Fauré and Debussy may be reflected in their music. For example, the language of plainchant modality has provided both nineteenth-century French composers with a refreshing source of harmonic ideas to develop a language alternative to both eighteenth-century tonality and Wagnerian chromaticism. My research on nineteenth-century writings regarding plainchant tonality as well as treatises on plainchant accompaniment reveals the way these composers developed a new type of harmonic language by incorporating modality.
The basis of my research on modal harmony and plainchant is presented in my dissertation, "Plainchant Accompaniment and Modal Harmony" (2021). https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/4307/.
Conference Presentations
2024 "Gabriel Fauré and Modal Harmony." La modalité dans la musique française à L’orée du XXe siècle : héritage et évolutions, Université de Montréal.
2024 “The Gregorian Sanctus of the Requiem Mass and Fauré’s Major-Mediant Cadence.” University of Colorado-Boulder.
2023 "Modal Cadences in the Tonality of Plainchant." MTSNYS, New York University.
2022 “Cadence fauréenne and Plainchant Harmonization.” Society for Music Theory Annual Meeting, New Orleans, Louisiana.
2021 “Harmonizing Modal Melodies: The Studies of Plainchant Accompaniment from the Nineteenth Century." Congrès doctoral international de musique et musicologie. Paris, France.
2014 “Network of Scales and Voice Leading in Debussy’s “L’ombre des arbres.” Mannes Graduate Student Conference Annual Meeting. New York, NY.
2013 "Modernism in Debussy’s Pélleas et Mélisande.” Musicological Society of Japan Annual Meeting. Tokyo, Japan.
2012 “Consonance, Dissonance, and Prolongation in Debussy’s Il pleure dans mon cœur.” Mannes Graduate Student Conference Annual Meeting. New York, NY.
2011 “Consonance, Dissonance, and Prolongation in Debussy’s Il pleure dans mon cœur.” Musicological Society of Japan Annual Meeting. Tokyo, Japan.
Mannes College Faculty Presentations (at the New School University)
2022 “Cadence fauréenne and Plainchant Harmonization.”
2020 “The Problem of Plainchant Harmonization in Nineteenth-Century France.”
2016 “Gustave Lefèvre and the Theoretical Teachings in Nineteenth-Century France”