No other candidates having come forward, I am pleased to announce that Michael Spitzer has been re-elected President, and Shay Loya has been elected Information Officer. Congratulations to Michael and Shay!
Their respective statements of candidature follow.
Michael Spitzer (President)
Nominated by William Drabkin and Kenneth Smith.
Statement of Candidature:
I would like to stand for a third 2-year term as SMA President. My time at the helm has seen the Society through quite a busy period of events: Music Analysis Roadshows; Summer Schools; a big conference on Music & Emotion; an expanded TAGS; and both CardiffMAC & LancMAC. There has been a re-boot of the SMA website; partnership with the IMR; and sponsorship of several external events, such as the King’s Tonality symposium, and next year’s Oxford improvisation conference, as well as a conference on contemporary British music at Canterbury. Plans are now in place for next September’s SMA/Music Analysis Anniversary Symposium at the IMR, with a stellar cast of speakers lined up. And, with the VP also at Liverpool, we are planning to hold the next MAC here, as well as a Summer School. None of this would have been possible without the support of the Executive Committee, and I have been extraordinarily lucky in having a succession of energetic and inspirational colleagues.
My term of service with the SMA has perhaps been unusual, since I have been simultaneously involved with the journal, both as Associate Editor and Guest Editor of the Special Issue on Music & Emotion (just out), based on selected proceedings from the conference. The mutual benefit of this association – a journal supporting a conference whose proceedings in turn support the journal – represents a healthy direction for the SMA, and one which I will continue to steer in the future.
Shay Loya (Information Officer)
Nominated by Shay Loya and Michael Spitzer.
Statement of Candidature:
I received my PhD at King’s College London in 2006. In 2007-8 I was a CETL Teaching Fellow at Durham University, and am currently dividing my time between teaching there and working as a freelance teacher and independent scholar. My research interests include Liszt, Hungarian-Gypsy music, transculturation and its application to music analysis, and other critical and aesthetic issues in music of the long nineteenth century. I have presented several papers in international conferences and my main publications include a recent book – Liszt’s Transcultural Modernism and the Hungarian-Gypsy Tradition (Rochester: Rochester University Press, 2011) – and the article (2008) ‘Beyond the Stereotype: Harmonic and Structural Aspects of the Verbunkos Idiom’, Journal of Musicological Research, 27/ii, pp. 254-80. I have also been involved in music education since the late 1990s and in 2006-9 I directed the Kodály-based ‘Colourstrings Music School’ in Roehampton, London.
As stated in the recent SMA Newsletter editorial, I took on this role for two main purposes: “First, the SMA does a very good job at promoting what has effectively become an endangered discipline in the UK, and managing that without retreating into any kind of intellectual insularity or parochial self-regard. Secondly, this is probably one of the most student-friendly of musicological societies, investing much time and also money in nurturing future and emerging scholars.” These are the values I would like to continue to promote as part of the Executive Committee, and more specifically, in my editorship of the newsletter and website, as well as ongoing contact with the SMA’s members and associates.