Celebrating 60 Years of Excellence in Musicology at the University of Illinois

Instruction in the history and social contexts of music has long been an important part of teaching in the School of Music at the University of Illinois, making it hard to pinpoint a moment of foundation for the Musicology Division. However, the years 1953-54 represent a critical moment in that process, since this was when three eminent scholars, John M. Ward, Claude Palisca, and Dragan Plamenac, joined the faculty and sowed the seeds for what has become one of the USA’s leading musicology programs, with strengths and resources in many areas, including ethnomusicology.

During the last sixty years, many internationally-known musicologists have taught at the University of Illinois, both as faculty and visitors. Many graduate students have taken degrees here (the first PhD in 1957) and have gone on to illustrious careers and faculty positions in significant colleges and universities.

In 2011 the Graduate College of the University of Illinois acknowledged the quality of the Musicology PhD program with a “Sustaining Excellence in Doctoral Programs Award.” This recognition helped shape the fall symposium, “Sixty Years of Excellence in Musicology at Illinois” (25 October 2013), which was timed to coincide with the 2013 Bruno and Wanda Nettl Distinguished Lecture in Ethnomusicology.

Featured Faculty Items

• Claude Palisca – Humanism in Italian Renaissance Musical Thought
• Dragan Plamenac (Editor) – Johannes Ockeghem Collected Works
• Scott Goldthwaite – Ornamentation in Music for the Keyboard
• John M. Ward (Introduction) – The Königsberg Manuscript
• First PhD Dissertation in Musicology at Illinois
  Emil Gustave Ahnell – The Concept of Tonality in the Operas of Jean-Philippe Rameau (August 6, 1957)
• Photograph – Dragan Plamenac with alumnus Bartlett Butler
  at Plamenac’s honorary degree party, 1977

Featured Faculty Items

• Photograph – Musicology Faculty behind Hill Annex, 1966/1967
  Pictured: Gerard Behague, Charles Hamm, Herbert Kellman, Bruno Nettl
• Nicholas Temperley (Editor) – The London Pianoforte School 1766-1860
• Bruno Nettl – The Study of Ethnomusicology: Thirty-one Issues and Concepts
• Herbert Kellman (Editor) – The Treasury of Petrus Alamire
• Photograph – Seminar on Indian music given by visiting professor S. Ramanathan, 1966
• Photograph – Charles Hamm and graduate student (from Ghana) William Amoaku, 1969
• Charles Hamm – Yesterday’s Popular Song in America
• Visiting Faculty George Hunter (Editor) – William Byrd: Five Part Consorts (sheet music)
• Visiting Faculty Otto Kinkeldey – “Changing Relations within the Field of Musicology”

Featured Faculty Items

• Photograph – New Golden Rule Orchestra (organized by Lawrence Gushee) playing at a conference on the history of Ethnomusicology, 1988. Pictured: Lawrence Gushee (clarinet), Chris Waterman (bass), Tom Birkner (trumpet), Morgan Powell (trombone)
• Gerard Béhague – Music in Latin America: An Introduction
• Visiting Faculty Peter Crossley-Holland – Tibetan Ritual Music
• Lawrence Gushee – Pioneers of Jazz: The Story of the Creole Band
• Photograph – Seminar on Burgundian – Hapsburg Manuscripts, Belgium, 1999 Pictured: Herbert Kellman, Jesse Krusemark, Sarah Long, Jill McAllister, Eric Tenger, Trudie Ramson, Stacey Jocoy
• Visiting Faculty Carl Dahlhaus – Foundation of Music History
• Alexander L. Ringer – Arnold Schoenberg: The Composer as Jew
• Anne Bagnall Yardley – Performing Piety: Musical Culture in Medieval English Nunneries

Featured Faculty Items

• Photograph – Illinois group at a Society for Ethnomusicology meeting, 1983
  Pictured: Doris Dyen, Martha Davis, Charles Capwell, Sally Critchlow, Jordan Ellison, Isabel Wong, Marcello Sorce Keller, Carol Babiracki, Stephen Wild, Chris Waterman, Steven Whiting, Anthony Rauche, Victoria Levine, Robert Witmer, Gerard Behague, Daniel Neuman, Robert Ollikkala
• Tom R. Ward – The Polyphonic Office Hymn, 1400-1520: A Descriptive Catalogue
• Charles Capwell – The Music of the Bauls of Bengal
• John Walter Hill – Roman Monody,Cantata, and Opera from the Circles Around Cardinal Montalto
• Thomas Turino – Music as Social Life: The Politics of Participation
• Isabel Wong – “The Music of China” in Excursions in World Music
• Pamela Potter – Most German of the Arts
• Stephen Blum (Editor) – Ethnomusicology and Modern Music History
• David Stigberg – Urban Musical Culture in Mexico: Professional Musicianship and Media in the Musical Life of Contemporary Veracruz

Featured Faculty Items

• Gabriel Solis – Musical Improvisation: Art, Education, and Society
• Donna Buchanan – Performing Democracy: Bulgarian Music and Musicians in Transition and Balkanalia CD
• Photograph – Balkanalia performing at the reception for Croat Representative to the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Žejlko Komšic, on October 1, 2013.
• Michael Silvers -“Bandas Cabaçais”
• Jeffrey Magee – Irving Berlin’s American Musical Theatre
• Christina Bashford – The Pursuit of High Culture: John Ella and Chamber Music in Victorian London
• Christopher Macklin – “Plague, Performance and the Elusive History of the Stella Celi Extirpavit“
  
• Gayle Sherwood Magee – Charles Ives Reconsidered
• William Kinderman and Katherine R. Syer – A Companion to Wagner’s Parsifal
  
• Susan Parisi – The Music Library of a Noble Florentine Family
• Charlotte Mattax Moersch – CD “Nouvelles Suites de Pièces de Clavecin” by Charles Noblet
  
• Lilli Gordon – Poster “In The Past The Was Tarab, Today There Is Technique”
• David Patterson – John Cage: Music, Philosophy, and Intention 1933-1950
• Photograph – Musicology Faculty, 2001
  Pictured: Tom Turino, Donna Buchanan, John Hill, Herbert Kellman, Nicholas Temperley, Charles Capwell, Bruno Nettl, David Patterson, Stephen Zank, Isabel Wong
• Poster – Musicology at Illinois Faculty
• Poster – 60 Years of Excellence in Musicology at Illinois Celebratory Symposium
• Philip Yampolsky – Lokanata: A Discography of the National Recording Company of Indonesia 1957-1985
• Photograph – Balkanalia performing at the reception for Croat Representative to the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Žejlko Komšic, on October 1, 2013.