About the Position
Two 2-year postdoctoral positions are available at the Schulich School of Music of McGill University. The postdoctoral fellows (PDFs) will work within an international, interdisciplinary partnership directed by Prof. Stephen McAdams, and including McGill faculty members in composition (Denys Bouliane, Philippe Leroux), music theory (Robert Hasegawa, Nicole Biamonte), sound recording (Martha de Francisco), music technology (Philippe Depalle, Ichiro Fujinaga, Stephen McAdams), and conducting (Guillaume Bourgogne). The ACTOR Partnership proposes to bring the often-neglected topics of timbre and orchestration to the forefront of musical scholarship and practice through a collaboration including world-class artists, scholars, and scientists. This Partnership links major North American and European universities, conservatories, research centres, orchestras, and companies to develop a solid theoretical basis for orchestration practice and pedagogy, to stimulate the development of new creativity-enhancing digital tools for teaching and learning orchestration, and to apply tools of corpus analysis and machine learning to better understand orchestration practice in over four centuries of music.
There will be ample opportunity for collaboration with team members at McGill and with the other institutional partners. The PDF will be co-supervised by Robert Hasegawa, ACTOR Associate Director, and Stephen McAdams, ACTOR Director.
Job Description
The post-doctoral researchers will work primarily on either the Analysis Axis or the Output Innovation Axis. They will be involved in project coordination and research on orchestration in the fields of music theory, musicology, orchestration pedagogy, and compositional practice. They will participate in the development of methods for evaluating the impact of this research in those domains and will co-supervise graduate and undergraduate students.
Output Innovation Axis PDF
The ideal candidate will have a doctoral degree in music theory, musicology, or composition, with a strong background in orchestration and an interest in pedagogical innovation. A deep knowledge of common-practice and contemporary orchestral repertoire is a significant plus. Additional tasks include being co-chair of the ACTOR Training and Mentoring Committee, coordinating development of the Timbre and Orchestration Resource, co-organizing the hybrid (virtual/in-person) ACTOR Symposium semi-annually, contributing to the annual ACTOR Workshops, and communicating with specialist and general audiences (including dissemination through social media and blog posts). Ability to communicate fluently in French is an asset.
Analysis Axis PDF
The ideal candidate will have a doctoral degree in music theory, music psychology, or music-related computer science, with a strong background in orchestration and an interest in interdisciplinary innovation. A deep knowledge of common-practice and contemporary orchestral repertoire is a significant plus. Additional tasks include being a member of the ACTOR Executive Committee, sitting in the Knowledge and Mobilization Committee as the ACTOR Newsletter Editor (ex-officio), coordinating development of the Timbre and Orchestration Resource, co-organizing the hybrid (virtual/in-person) ACTOR Symposium semi-annually, contributing to the annual ACTOR Workshops, and communicating with specialist and general audiences (including dissemination through social media and blog posts). Ability to communicate fluently in French is an asset.
The partnership is organized into three primary research axes:
1) Analysis Axis – score, text, audio, perception and performance analysis of orchestration practice and interpretation
2) Tool Development Axis – development of computer-aided orchestration and orchestral simulation environments, an orchestration research database, and an online interactive orchestration resource
3) Output Innovation Axis – applying the analysis-based research and tools to innovation in orchestration pedagogy, music scholarship and composition.
The Schulich School of Music is an internationally recognized university-based music faculty with humanistic, scientific and engineering research, composition and music performance. It houses the multi-university Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology (CIRMMT). McGill University is a world-class institution in the culturally and scientifically vibrant city of Montreal.
Qualifications, Deadlines, and Application Procedure
Applicants must have received their doctorate (PhD, DMA, DMus) within 3 years of the starting date of the fellowship.
They should submit a cover letter, CV, and 3 representative papers (or 2 papers and a composition for the Output Innovation Axis PDF), and arrange for 3 letters of reference to be sent to actor-project.music@mcgill.ca. Applications will be reviewed as of April 15, 2022 until the position is filled. The ideal start date is August 1, 2022 to provide overlap with the incumbent PDFs, but September 1, 2022 is the latest start date.
The successful candidates will receive a stipend of CAD $46,360/year for two years (non-renewable) and may attend the Year 4 ACTOR Workshop in Calgary, Alberta 9-11 July 2022.
For further details on the ACTOR Partnership to decide if this PDF is a good fit for you, please contact Stephen McAdams (stephen.mcadams@mcgill.ca) and Robert Hasegawa (robert.hasegawa@mcgill.ca).
To download a copy of this application, click here.
Banner photo, and Schulich School of Music photos by Tam Lan Truong