Musicological research in the Department of Music covers an increasingly diverse range of topics and recent articles by graduate student Woodrow Steinken and alumnus Juan Fernando Velasquez Ospina (PhD 2018) exemplify this trend. 

Steinken’s paper “Norwegian Black Metal, Transgression and Sonic Abjection” was published in Metal Studies, Vol. 5, No. 1. In his paper he explores how the practices of facial masking (through corpsepaint) and vocal masking (through screaming) in 1990s era Norwegian black metal become, “a theoretical means for living two lives: one as private citizens and the other as black metal musicians who transgress criminal and musical limits.”

Velasquez’s recent paper “Edición de partituras y práctica musical en Colombia, 1848-1930” received an honorable mention in this year’s Otto Mayer-Serr competition. The competition is sponsored by The University of California, Riverside, and the Center for Iberian and Latin American Music (CILAM). In this article Velasquez studies music printing and publishing in Colombia during a period of intense urbanization and modernization; a time which coincided with the founding of the first institutions of musical education based on the model of European conservatories.

Congratulations to Woody and Juan on their successes, and for demonstrating so ably the breadth of scholarship that our students and alumni are pursuing!