The University of Arizona Fred Fox School of Music presents:
Twenty-Sixth CMT Colloquium
Preview of Papers to be Presented at the Rocky Mountain Scholars Conference
Kathy Acosta-Zavala: “Shaping the Modern American Guitar Landscape: Vahdah Olcott-Bickford and the American Guitar Society”
Jakub Rojek: “Contemporary Atonal Improvisation: Limitlessness of the Intervallic Approach, Limitations and Dangers of Vernacular Improvisation and an Ultimate Approach of Fully Embracing an Atonal Grid”
Each year the regional chapters of the American Musicological Society (AMS), the Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM), and the Society for Music Theory (SMT) gather to present papers representing the latest research in their respective areas. This year the conference will take place at the University of Texas at El Paso at the beginning of March. This colloquium allows two of our students to preview their papers in advance of the meeting.
This colloquium is the twenty-sixth in a continuing series of lectures, to take place on the last Friday of the month. Each features a presentation by a faculty member, student, or guest in the areas of Composition, Musicology, or Music Theory (CMT), followed by a time for questions, comments, and general discussion. It is hoped that these monthly sessions will be an opportunity to communicate current ideas and research in these areas within the Fred Fox School of Music.
Kathy Acosta-Zavala: “Shaping the Modern American Guitar Landscape: Vahdah Olcott-Bickford and the American Guitar Society”
In the past three decades, scholars such as Cyrilla Barr and Ralph P. Locke have analyzed the depth of women’s contributions to the development of the American musical institutional landscape. Following this musicological framework of patronage, the aim of this research is to unveil the construction of the modern American guitar landscape and the role that Vahdah Olcott-Bickford played in the establishment of the institutional umbrella that has successfully championed the classical guitar during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
Olcott-Bickford was an established guitar virtuoso and a prominent writer and contributor to plucked-stringed journals, such as Cadenza and Crescendo. During the Interwar period, in 1923, the American Guitar Society was established as the first Guitar Society in the nation, and Olcott-Bickford became one of its founding members and its Musical Director (a position she held until her death).
This paper proposes that Vahdah Olcott-Bickford (1885–1980), known popularly as the “Grand Lady of the Guitar,” defined the landscape of guitar musical culture in the United States between 1910 and 1980 through her published writings, lectures, concert hosting, concert organization, social network, and activities as the founding member of the American Guitar Society (AGS) and the Guitar Foundation of America (GFA). Her vision to champion the classical guitar resonated throughout the country, and local Guitar Societies were established in many cities after 1923. Her correspondence shows how she became a sought-after source for guidance about establishing Guitar Societies.
Jakub Rojek: “Contemporary Atonal Improvisation: Limitlessness of the Intervallic Approach, Limitations and Dangers of Vernacular Improvisation and an Ultimate Approach of Fully Embracing an Atonal Grid”
The paper will discuss improvisation as an esoteric and foreign art form and its place in academia. Moreover, it will attempt to explain what has been missing from the improvisational approach over the years and how vernacular improvisation dominated the improvised music scene up until now. It will also demonstrate a non-idiomatic approach to improvisation and its advantages to other forms of improvised music. In the process, the paper will also discuss definitions of vernacular, and “vernaculars,” e.g., classical language, define improvisation as an artistic and creative process, its purpose, development, applications, as well as discuss a blank slate approach, improvisational and transient harmonies, and define an imperfection as an intrinsic element of improvisational process. Finally, the paper will address an extinction of improvisation from classical curriculum of music conservatories in the United States and stylistic and aesthetical dichotomy resulting from it.
About the presenters:
Kathy Acosta-Zavala is a Ph.D. student in Historical Musicology at the University of Arizona.
Jakub Rojek is a DMA student in Composition at the University of Arizona.