SFA music theory students to present research at conferences

NACOGDOCHES, Texas – Three Stephen F. Austin State University graduate students enrolled in the online Readings in Music Theory class taught by Dr. Samantha Inman have been invited to make presentations on their research at prestigious conferences this spring.

Ashley Cox will present “The Role of Texture in A Cappella Worship Music” at a meeting of the Society for Christian Scholarship in Music March 7 through 9 at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois. Both Dylan Custer and McKenna Sheeley-Jennings made their presentations at the 30th Annual Symposium of Research in Music sponsored by the Graduate Theory and Musicology Associations Feb. 23 and 24 at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. Custer presented “Music in the Country Style: A Study of Schematic Forms and Elements of 3rd and 4th Generation Country Music,” and Sheeley-Jennings presented “The Strings Murmur Unbidden: Hindemith’s Sonata for Harp as an Instrumental Lied.”

“I am delighted that each of these students is presenting their work at a conference this term, which contributes to their professional development and reflects positively on SFA’s master’s program in music theory,” Inman said. “All three of these particular students have enrolled online, which further attests to the success of our distance learning programs.”

Inman’s course involves readings from a different subfield, covering main ideas in each area. Students complete a semester-long research project entailing a subfield and repertoire of their choice. The steps in the project include both a formal proposal aligning with the format and length required for most theory conferences as well as a final paper roughly the length of a typical conference paper.

Cox is originally from Dallas and resides in Lubbock where she runs a piano studio, teaches classes at her children’s homeschool co-op, and is active with a local youth community theatre. After graduation, she plans to continue teaching piano and hopes to begin teaching music theory. “The Role of Texture in A Cappella Worship Music” explores the adaptation of contemporary worship music for a cappella settings. The paper examines how arrangements use texture in the absence of instruments, employing techniques including call-and-response, imitation, and contrast between unison and harmony.

Custer was born and raised in Kilgore where he currently lives with his wife Nella and son James. He is in his fifth year as a band director at Henderson High School in Henderson. After graduation, he plans to continue teaching, either at a high school or at the collegiate level. According to Custer, theorists “look for similarities not only within works by a specific composer, but similarities that can describe and characterize entire genres and eras of music.” In “Music in the Country Style: A Study of Schematic Forms and Elements of 3rd and 4th Generation Country Music,” he concludes that when examining country music, “the foundational roots of rock, blues and jazz become apparent in the formal construction as well as the harmonic vocabulary and lyrical formulae.”

Sheeley-Jennings is a harp and speech arts teacher from Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. She is researching pedal harp idiomacy and its effects on chromaticism. She plans to earn a doctorate degree in theory. “The Strings Murmur Unbidden: Hindemith’s Sonata for Harp as an Instrumental Lied” explores “the many ways the text of the appendaged poem (L.H. Christopher Hölty’s “Lied”) maps onto the music in this movement,” she writes. “Drawing from Hindemith’s detailed and highly symbolic writing style for voice, the author applies narrative archetype, musical agency, topics, mimesis and drama to the analysis of the Lied Movement.”

For more information about studying music theory at SFA, contact the School of Music at (936) 468-4602.