In this book, Palfy contends that music has the potential to engage us in social processes and that those processes can be experienced as social interaction with a musical agent or persona. She explores the overlap between those psychological processes that allow us understand and engage with people, and those that we engage in when we listen to music. Thinking of musical agency and narrative as a form of social process is quite different from existing theoretical frameworks of agency. It implies that we come to musical analysis by way of intuition鈥攖hat our ideas are already partially formed based on our experience of the piece (and what it makes us feel or how it makes us sense it as a person) when we choose to analyze and interpret it. Palfy’s focus on social processes is an effective way to pinpoint when and why it is that our attention is captured and engaged by musical agents.

To be held July 29 through Aug. 1 in Grant Park, features eight stages and more than 170 bands from around the world. Headlining the music festival this year are Foo Fighters, Post Malone, Tyler, The Creator and Miley Cyrus.

Greenberg graduated with a degree in music production and recording arts. She lives and works in Nashville, Tennessee, where she performs regularly under the artist name Brooke Alexx. She has also been selected聽by the American Society of Composers, Authors & Publishers for its 2021 Guidance from Publishers for Songwriters (GPS) Project. During the project, the dozen participants are paired with publishers who listen to and critique their songs and host virtual follow-up meetings to help develop their craft. By the end of the program, each participant will have met with representatives from at least five music publishers.

Find more information about Brooke Alexx’s music at .

Taylor’s presentation, titled, “鈥淲hat鈥檚 New Copycat?鈥�: Examining Originality in Pop Music ‘Sister Hits’ Through Formal Schemata and Pop Production Techniques” explores the interaction of recording and production techniques on originality and copyright. Her work was well-received at the conference, and she plans to finish her Fellows thesis in the coming month.

Upon graduating this spring, Taylor聽will be working at the audit, tax, and advisory consulting firm, Grant Thornton. She will be serving as a Public Sector Advisory Associate in their Metro DC office, and will also be assisting them with their audio needs.

The article highlights Palfy’s research and work on dealing with mixed-skill classrooms in the liberal arts classroom. This work features examples drawn from her methods in use with students in the aural skills classroom, and shows how Palfy’s methods encourage students to think critically about their own progress, abilities, and strengths when practicing and performing music.

Palfy began the research in summer 2017 in collaboration with Eric Gilson, an economist and statistician. The research showed that emphasis on the Western Art Music canon, which is comprised of mainly white men, gave students the impression that those composers who belonged to the canon were more important.

This result bore out despite students' reports that diverse canons spanning many different genres and incorporating composers with diverse backgrounds (international, women, people of color, etc.) were used regularly in their classrooms. This research underscores the importance of considering how we teach and what resources we provide our students, as ignoring the subtle messages that elements, such as repertoire, sends, can have profound effects on students' understanding of who can participate, who has a right to speak, and who can intellectually engage with or create music.

Palfy's research is published in The Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy, a national journal for the field of music theory. The article can be found here: .

On both days, there will be a short lecture given by a music faculty member: 

• Cora S. Palfy will be discussing the biography of George Gershwin, the conception of the opera and musical features on Jan. 10. 
• Fred Johnson will be discussing recording techniques for live stage performance on Jan. 17. 

We welcome any students, faculty, or community members who would like to attend, and look forward to seeing you there!