Music Theory Colloquium — Liverpool ⇄ Georgia

Autumn 2026To be confirmed

Schedule to be confirmed — talks are added as they're arranged. Watch the mailing list for calls for papers and reminders.

Spring 20266 talks

18 Mar

“Polystylism”

Richard Worth · Liverpool — 12:00 UGA
25 Mar

“Formal Bodies”

Ardi Echevarria · Durham — 12:00 UGA
15 Apr

“Intertextual Grafting in Elton John and Dua Lipa's ‘Cold Heart (Pnau Remix)’”

Dickie Lee · UGA — normal time
22 Apr

“Phrase Module Theory”

Walther Stuhlmacher · Amsterdam
29 Apr

“The Chord Pathfinder: An Update”

Ian Costabile, Jonathan Crossley, Jenn Kirby, Paul Turowski, Kenneth Smith & Richard Worth · Liverpool
6 May

“Intertextuality (Taylor's Version)”

Antoine Petit · Lyon

Autumn 20257 talks

8 Oct

“Transformational Theory and Rhythm Analysis of Flamenco Palos in Chano Domínguez's Solos”

Rosa García
22 Oct

Demonstrating the new Harmonic Drive Analyzer — chromatic-harmony.com/resources.html

Kenneth Smith · Liverpool
5 Nov

“Mapping Intertextuality with the Music of Ween”

Dickie Lee · UGA
12 Nov

“Formal Automata and Sonata Cyborgs”

Ardi Echevarria · Durham
19 Nov

“Parsimony and Intercardinality through the DFT”

Chris Williams
3 Dec

Star Wars / John Williams themed session

Frank Lehman
17 Dec

Holiday season party

Everyone analyses their favourite festive song and thereby ruins it for themselves and the rest of us.

Spring 20256 talks

5 Feb

“An Explicative Example of ‘Palestrinian Practice’ from the 1720s: Analysis, Partimento, or Something Else?”

Roberta Vidic · Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg
19 Feb

“Wrong Note Music”

Richard Worth · Liverpool
5 Mar

“Prolongation and Schema Theory: Towards a Unification through Hyper-graphs”

Douggie Ashby · Liverpool
19 Mar

“Force Image Schemata, Conceptual Metaphor, and Narrative in Rage Against the Machine's Self-Titled Debut Album (1992)”

Dickie Lee · UGA
2 Apr

“Mendelssohn's New Development Themes and their Reappearances”

Ardi Echevarria · Durham
23 Apr

“Analysing Interval Wedge Structures in the Late Works of Robert Simpson”

Matthew Holmes · RNCM

Autumn 20246 talks

9 Oct

Gilbert Simondon's transduction & individuation in musical form; Arthur Lourié's forms in the air

Kenneth Smith · Liverpool
23 Oct

“Image Schema Theory and Popular Music Analysis”

Dickie Lee · UGA
6 Nov

Appoggiaturas, tendencies and Schumann's prophetic bird

Mark Johnson · Manchester
20 Nov

A transformational approach to Tete Montoliu's solos

Rosa García · Complutense University of Madrid
4 Dec

Bruckner double bill

Florian Walch · Chicago, and Michael Spitzer · Liverpool
18 Dec

The Beatles' Major II Schema

Tom McConnell · Liverpool

Summer 20245 talks · 2 days

Tuesday 21 May

Wednesday 22 May

Spring 202312 talks

8 Feb

“Intertextual Rhetoric in Recent Popular Music”

Dickie Lee · UGA
15 Feb

“How I Taught Post-Tonal Theory (Almost) Without Using Music by White Men”

Adrian Childs · UGA
22 Feb

“Autopoiesis and Form”

Kenneth Smith · Liverpool
1 Mar

“Cells and Sounds”

Michael Spitzer · Liverpool
8 Mar

“Triads and Noise”

Mark Johnson · Manchester
15 Mar

“Music and the Golden Section: Evidence For and Against Perception”

Michelle Phillips · RNCM — 12pm US
22 Mar

“Harmonic Function in Prokofiev's Music”

Inessa Bazayev · Louisiana State University — 12pm US
29 Mar

“Positional Analysis/Positional Listening: Performers, Analysts, and Audience” — prep reading

John Covach · Rochester — 12pm US, 5pm UK
19 Apr

“Wagner's Formal Gift: Siegfried Idyll and the New Formenlehre”

Ardi Echevarria · Durham
17 May

“Alma Deutscher and the Politics of Beauty”

Richard Worth · Liverpool
24 May

“‘You Get Words[,] You Play the Blues’: Blues Analysis and Blues Poetics in the Work of Pianist Mercy Dee Walton”

Lawrence Davies · Liverpool — 5pm BST / 12pm EST
31 May

Karłowicz & Nietzsche's “Eternal Return”

Kenneth Smith · Liverpool

Autumn 20226 talks

19 Oct

“Positive Feedback as Formal Accelerator, or, the Romantic-Virtuosic Sentence in Liszt's B Minor Sonata”

Kenneth Smith · Liverpool
2 Nov

Open discussion — theory curriculum

3pm this week for UK
9 Nov

“Epigenetics of Music”

Mark Johnson · Manchester
16 Nov

“Something”

Richard Worth · Liverpool
30 Nov

“Piano Sonatas of Kapustin”

Dao Pham · Anglia Ruskin
14 Dec

Title to be confirmed

Dickie Lee · UGA

Spring 202212 talks

2 Feb

Transformation theory

Marta Riccardi · Liverpool
9 Feb

Comparative analysis

Richard Worth · Liverpool
16 Feb

“Gravitonicity”

James Shufflebotham · Keele
23 Feb

Beatles themed session

Stephen Valdez · UGA
2 Mar

Scriabin colours and harmonic strength

Kenneth Smith · Liverpool
9 Mar

Agency in Rent

Dickie Lee · UGA
16 Mar

“Tuplets for Toddlers”: music theory, collaboration and digital marketing

John Moore & Matthew Burke · Liverpool — 12 noon for Athens
23 Mar

“Chord Pathfinder”

Kenneth Smith & Richard Worth · Liverpool — 12 noon for Athens
30 Mar

“Four Short Poster Presentations on the Leitmotiv”

David Haas · UGA — 11:15 Athens / 16:15 UK
6 Apr

Title to be confirmed

Adrian Childs · UGA
11 May

“Gravitonicity: Functionality and Modularity”

James Shufflebotham
25 May

Settings of Housman's A Shropshire Lad

Alison Gilbert · UGA

Autumn 202110 talks

13 Oct

“Analyzing Play in Bit Brigade”

Dickie Lee · UGA
20 Oct

Akin Euba's Wakar Duru: Approaching Intercultural Music

Jenn LaRue · UGA
27 Oct

Thundercat, and parsimony in extended harmony

Richard Worth & Kenneth Smith · Liverpool
3 Nov

“Beyond the Clouds: On Some Affinities Between Some Ideas of Karl Popper and the Music of György Ligeti”

Federico Favalli · Liverpool
10 Nov

Theme: the music of Twin Peaks

Stephen Turner · UGA
17 Nov

Poetry and meaning in English art song — Vaughan Williams and Liza Lehmann

Alison Gilbert · UGA
24 Nov

“How Many Bars Was That?: Minimalistic Rhythms and Hypermetric Irregularity in Suicide's ‘Rocket USA’”

Joseph Coughlan-Allen · Liverpool
1 Dec

“The Ludwig Schema”

Dmitri Tymoczko · Princeton
8 Dec

“Improvising Energy”

Mark Johnson · Copenhagen
15 Dec

Theme: “Modelling Tonal Tension”

Marta Riccardi & Federico Favalli