Jonathan Dunsby, professor and chair of the Department of Theory at the Eastman School of Music, has been elected president of the Music Theory Society of New York State. He will serve as president from 2009 to 2011.
The Music Theory Society of New York State (MTSNYS) was established in 1971 to provide a forum for the exchange of information and ideas pertaining to teaching music theory, and to promote music theory as both a scholarly and a pedagogical discipline. The 150-member society holds an annual forum that includes the presentation of research and panel discussions. The MTSNYS also publishes an annual journal, Theory and Practice, to which about 50 institutions subscribe.
As president of the Music Theory Society of New York State, Dunsby supervises the publications of the society and prepares its reports, oversees the affairs of the society and its interests, and executes its decisions. He will also preside at meetings of the society and the board of directors, appoint all committees with the agreement of the board of directors, and be an ex officio member of all standing committees.
Dunsby received a Bachelor of Arts degree in music from Oxford University and went on to receive his Ph.D. in music theory from Leeds University. As a piano student, he won prizes in Geneva, Leeds, and Munich competitions and he is a winner of the Commonwealth Competition. He has published articles and reviews in many journals, including Circuit, Journal of Music Theory, Music Analysis, The New Grove and The Musical Quarterly. He was the founding editor of Music Analysis and served as editor from 1982 to 1986. He is the co-author of Music Analysis in Theory and Practice with Arnold Whittall, author of Performing Music: Shared Concerns, Making Words Sing: Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Song, and translator, from French, of Nattiez’s Studies in Applied Musical Semiology. He serves as the Life President of the United Kingdom Society for Music Analysis.
Dunsby previously taught at King’s College London, the University of Southern California, the University of Reading, and SUNY University at Buffalo before coming to Eastman School of Music in 2007.
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