Hasegawa, Robert
Bio:
Robert Hasegawa joined the Schulich School of Music in 2012, after several years on faculty at the Eastman School of Music. He completed his Ph.D. at Harvard University and his scholarly interests include the music of György Ligeti, French ‘spectralist’ composters Gérard Grisey and Tristan Murail, transformational theory, and the history of music theory. His doctoral dissertation ‘Just Intervals and Tone Representation in Contemporary Music,” explored how research on the psychology of aural perception can inform the analysis of music by composers ranging from Claude Debussy to La Monte Young. Other recent projects include a study of Hans Zender’s recent microtonal music (published in Perspectives of New Music), an article on atonal theory for the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, a chapter on extended just intonation for the volume Théories de la composition musicale au XXe siècle, and articles in the Oxford Handbook series on compositional constraints and the relationship between timbre and harmony in contemporary music. In addition to his theoretical work, Robert is an active composer with works performed by cellist Frances-Marie Uitti, Stephen Drury and the Callithumpian Consort, and the Arête Duo (Doug O'Connor, saxophone and Jake Harpster, percussion).
Publications and Research
“Creating with Constraints.”
Forthcoming (2018) in The Oxford Handbook of the Creative Process in Music, ed. Nicolas Donin (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press).
“Open form and performance networks in Luciano Berio’s Laborintus II.”
Pre-concert lecture for McGill Contemporary Music Ensemble (7 April 2016) and presentation at the 20th Congress of the International Musicological Society (Tokyo, 19-23 March 2017).
Recipient of a Paper Presentation Grant from McGill’s Office of the Vice-Principal (Research and International Relations).
“Echo and Transformation in New Music.”
Presentation on George Benjamin’s Shadowlines with live performers (Zhenni Lee and Christopher Goddard) for the Schulich School of Music’s Research Alive! series (1 February 2017).
“Intersections between harmony and timbre in contemporary music.”
Presentation at Interdisciplinary Workshop on Timbre (Berlin, 12-13 January 2017).
review: James Tenney, From Scratch: Writings in Music Theory, ed. Larry Polansky, Lauren Pratt, Robert Wannamaker, and Michael Winter.
Computer Music Journal 40/3 (Fall 2016), 83-86.
“Hybridizing musical genres and practices.”
Roundtable chair, CIRMMT workshop “John Zorn: At the Crossroads of Musical Genres” (McGill University, 22 January 2016).
funded research: “Analyzing twenty-first century musique mixte.”
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), Insight Development Grant, August 2015-July 2017. Principal investigator, with co-applicants Philippe Leroux and Jacqueline Leclair.
“Timbre as Harmony—Harmony as Timbre.”
Keynote address, Fostering New Music and Its Audiences: The Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition 30th Anniversary Conference, March 6, 2015, (University of Louisville).
Presentation at the Radcliffe Institute exploratory workshop, “Making Sense of Timbre,” May 14-15, 2015 (Harvard University).
Forthcoming (2018) in The Oxford Handbook of Timbre, ed. Emily Dolan and Alexander Rehding (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press).
“Temperament in Contemporary Microtonal Music.”
Beyond: Microtonal Music Festival, February 27, 2015 (University of Pittsburgh).
“Temperament and the corps sonore: Rameau’s theories and recent compositional practice.”
Le Savant et le praticien: Théoriser la composition de Rameau à nos jours, conference organized by IRCAM
and the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles, November 14, 2014 (IRCAM, Paris).
“‘Production of Presence’ in Liza Lim’s Invisibility.”
Annual meeting of the American Musicological Society, November 9, 2014 (Milwaukee, WI).
conference organizer: Gérard Grisey, the Spectral Moment, and Its Legacy
October 21, 2014 (McGill University and Université de Montréal). Funded by a SSHRC Connection Grant (principal investigator, with co-applicants Jonathan Goldman and Fabrice Marandola).
“Rhythm and Repetition in Grisey’s Vortex Temporum.”
Presentation at Gérard Grisey, the Spectral Moment, and Its Legacy, October 21, 2014 (McGill University and Université de Montréal)
and the annual meeting of the Society for Music Theory, October 30, 2015 (St. Louis).
“Register, Root, and Voicing in Post-Tonal Harmony.”
Invited lecture at the University of Chicago (November 22, 2013) and the Eastman School of Music (December 6, 2013).
Presentation at the annual meeting of the Music Theory Society of New York State April 6, 2014 (New York University).
“Georg Friedrich Haas” and “Harry Partch”
Subject entries in BRAHMS: Base de documentation sur la musique contemporaine,
Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique (IRCAM), 2014-15.
“Atonality, 4: Theoretical issues.”
Co-authored with Dave Headlam. Grove Music Online, 2013.
“Constraint Systems in Brian Ferneyhough’s Third String Quartet.”
Tracking the Creative Process in Music, October 10, 2013 (Université de Montréal).
In Text and Beyond: The Process of Music Composition from the 19th to the 20th Century, ed. Jonathan Goldman, 271-88.
Bologna: Ad Parnassum Studies (series editor Luca Lévi Sala), 2016.
review: György Ligeti: Of foreign lands and strange sounds, ed. Louise Duchesneau and Wolfgang Marx.
Circuit: Musique Contemporaines 23/2 (2013), 79-83.
“Clashing Harmonic Systems in Haas’s Blumenstück and in vain.”
Music Theory Society of New York State Annual Meeting, April 6-7, 2013 (Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY).
Composition in the Twenty-First Century, March 6, 2014 (Trinity College, Dublin). Recipient of a Paper Presentation Grant from McGill’s Office of the Vice-Principal (Research and International Relations).
Published in Music Theory Spectrum 37/2 (Fall 2015), 204-223. Received the Society for Music Theory’s Emerging Scholar Award, 2016.
funded research: “La musique spectrale en France et au Canada.”
Fonds de recherche du Québec—Société et culture (FRQSC), Établissement de nouveaux professeurs-chercheurs, April 2013-March 2016. Principal investigator.
“James Tenney” and “Just Intonation”
Subject entries in the Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism, 2016.
“Strange Attractors: Chaotic Form in Tristan Murail’s Attracteurs étranges.”
Music Theory Society of New York State Annual Meeting, March 31, 2012 (Hunter College, New York, NY).
“‘Le vertige de la durée pure’: Time and Harmony in Gérard Grisey’s Vortex Temporum.”
Inharmonic/(X)enharmonic: A Conference and Concert Celebrating Microtonal Music, December 17, 2011 (Columbia University, New York, NY).
New England Conference of Music Theorists Annual Meeting, April 20, 2012 (Connecticut College, New London, CT).
“New Approaches to Tonal Theory.”Review-article on Steven Rings, Tonality and Transformation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011) and Dmitri
Tymoczko, A Geometry of Music (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011). Music & Letters 93/4 (2013), 574-93
“An Acoustic Model for Chord Voicings in Post-Tonal Music.”
Society for Music Perception and Cognition Biennial Meeting, August 2011 (Eastman School of Music, Rochester, NY).
“Gegenstrebige Harmonik in the Music of Hans Zender.”
New England Conference of Music Theorists Annual Meeting, April 15, 2011 (Brandeis University, Waltham, MA).
Music Theory Society of New York State Annual Meeting, April 9, 2011 (University at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY).
Published in Perspectives of New Music 49/1 (2011), 207-34.
“L'intonation juste, un renouveau esthétique et théorique.”Chapter in Théories de la composition musicale au XXe siècle,
ed. Nicolas Donin and Laurent Feneyrou (Lyon: Symetrie, 2013), 1499-1531. Translated by Gilles Rico.
“Coherence and Incoherence in Xenakis’s Embellie.”
Xenakis: Arts/Sciences conference, October 10, 2010 (McGill University, Montreal, QC).
Published in Xenakis Matters, ed. Sharon Kanach (Hillsdale, NY: Pendragon Press, 2012), 231-43.
“Combination-Tone Harmony.”
Society for Music Theory Annual Meeting, November 2010 (Indianapolis, IN).
“Math and Music Theory.”
Rochester Institute of Technology, Summer Mathematics Institute, July 2010 (Rochester, NY).
The Music of James Tenney.Issue editor, special issue of Contemporary Music Review, 27/1 (February 2008).
“Introduction: ‘Sound for the Sake of Perceptual Insight’.”Contemporary Music Review 27/1 (February 2008), 1-5.
“Just Intervals and Tone Representation in Contemporary Music.”Ph. D. dissertation, Harvard University, 2008.
liner notes: Joshua Fineberg, Imprints, Shards, Veils.
Mode Records, MO 208, 2007.
“Gérard Grisey and the ‘Nature’ of Harmony.”Society for Music Theory Annual Meeting, November 2007 (Baltimore, MD).
Published in Music Analysis 28/2-3 (2009), 349-71.
“Interval as Ratio in Contemporary Music: James Tenney’s ‘Harmonic Space’.”New England Conference of Music Theorists Annual Meeting, March 2007 (Tufts University, Medford, MA).
“Aux états-Unis, des Voies Parallèles au Spectralisme.”L'Etincelle: Le Journal de la création à l'IRCAM 1/1 (November 2006), 4-7. Translated by Jean-François Cornu.
“Tone Representation and Just Intervals in Contemporary Music.”Contemporary Music Review 25/3 (June 2006), 263-81.
translation: “Scelsi, de-composer.”Contemporary Music Review 24/2-3 (April/June 2005), 173-80. Translation of an essay by Tristan Murail.
translation: “Scelsi and L'Itinéraire: The Exploration of Sound.”Contemporary Music Review 24/2-3 (April/June 2005), 181-85. Translation of an essay by Tristan Murail.
compositions
Spiral (2008) for solo violin and ensemble (score)performed by Gabriela Diaz and White Rabbit, cond. Eric Hewitt
Chaconne for James Tenney (2007) for octet (score)performed by White Rabbit, cond. Eric Hewitt
Ajax is all about attack (2003) for soprano saxophone and percussion (score)performed by the Yesaroun' Duo (live recording)
new Yesaroun' studio recording just released on their two-disc set Heavy Up/Heavy Down
it is our tribe's custom to beguile (2003) for flute, bass clarinet, violin, and cello (score)performed by Susan Gall, William Kirkley, Ben Schwartz, and Sue-Ying Koang, cond. Stephen Drury
Due Corde (2002) for two retuned pianos in 19-tone equal temperament (score)performed by Stephen Drury and Yukiko Takagi
the clear architecture of the nerves (2000) for horn with piano resonator (score)performed by Jill Jaques
Prelude and Fantasy (2000) for string quartet (score)performed by Ben Russell, Adda Kridler, Wendy Richman, and Ben Schwartz
Contact and Website
robert.hasegawa[at]mcgill.ca
http://www.roberthasegawa.com/
McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada
