Mariana Da Silva Gabriel awarded the NorCal Prize for best graduate student
MESSAGE FROM THE PRIZE COMMITTEE:
Dear Norcal AMS chapter members,
We would like to thank all the participants of our chapter meeting two weekends ago in Reno! It was a gratifying and rewarding study day.
All the graduate student papers presented were original and rich, reflecting years of devoted study on the part of all participants. We on the prize committee had a very difficult time choosing a recipient of the Norcal AMS Prize for a graduate student paper. We spent about an hour conversing because each and every paper contained so much great content.
It is our delight to announce Mariana Da Silva Gabriel of UC Davis as the winner of the Northern California Prize in Musicology for her paper, “More Than Words: A Study of Chico Buarque and Gilberto Gil’s ‘Cálice’ and ‘Covert’ Musical Protest.” Mariana’s paper examined the imbrication of religious resonance and potent play with linguistic homophony and non-lexical singing in the protest music of Gilberto in the context of military dictatorship in 1970s Brazil. She brought in original archival sources from the Divisão de Censura e Diversões Públicas to interrogate the effects of institutional censorship on live protest performance. We appreciated how Mariana brought the listener into the song she described, “Cálice,” highlighting clearly salient features of the music and bringing her argument to life.
We are also happy to announce an honorable mention: Saagar Asnani’s paper, “The Curious Case of mi doint: Tracing Transmission Through Textual Variants of an Occitan-French Hybrid Motet,” presented an original comparative analysis of several medieval manuscripts around the themes of oral transmission vs. transcription and the reductive effects of the standardization of language across time. Saagar’s project is as original as it is virtuosic.
Thanks again to all the participants, and best wishes with your studies and work!
Sincerely,
Edmund Mendelssohn, chair
Ruthie Meadows
Paul Johnson
(Prize committee members)
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Agenda for the Business Meeting of the NorCal chapter, April 20, 2024, in Reno
Agenda for the business meeting of the NorCal Chapter in Reno, April 20, 2024
- Ratification of the the Bylaws.
The Bylaws were last ratified on February 6, 2010, and are in need of further ratifications.
As current President, I propose the following changes to the Bylaws:
- Officers and Terms of Office
I.2: Eliminate the confusing language about the vice president. There are only two non-student officers: the President and the Treasurer. I propose to replace “Vice-President” with “Treasurer and Secretary.”
I.3: eliminate language about “Secretary”: this is the Treasurer. I propose to call the Treasure “Treasurer Secretary.”
Also, modify the paragraph, “The Treasurer serves a two-year term which overlaps that of the President.” The two terms should be staggered in order to ease the new officer in by ensuring that one of the two officers has the institutional memory and the information to operate the website, the funds, the e-mail list, and communicate about what unfinished business remains to be completed.
- Elections
II.2: eliminate language about physical mail, considering that now all members have e-mail access (“The call, ballots, and results of the election shall be sent to all Chapter members via e-mail, with U.S. mail copies to those with no e-mail address“). Similarly, in II.3: eliminate language about physical mail communications.
III Meetings
Replace “The Chapter normally holds two meetings per calendar year, at times and places determined by the President” with “The Chapter normally holds at least one meeting per calendar year, at times and places determined by the President.”
- Call for nominations and self-nominations to the office of President: please communicate nominations in person at the Chapter meeting or via email to ppolzonetti@ucdavis.edu
III. Invitation to graduate students and their representatives to design remote or in-person initiatives geared toward graduate student participation, exchange of ideas, and professional development.
Pierpaolo Polzonetti, President of the AMS Chapter
PROGRAM Spring 2024
Spring Meeting of the NorCal Chapter of the American Musicological Society Reno, April 20, with additional recreational events on April 21
Location:
The University of Nevada, Reno, Rooms 152-153, Church Fine Arts Building, 1664 Virginia St., Reno, NV 89557
(On the east side of Virginia St, across the street from College Dr)
Free parking all day in Brian Whalen Parking Garage (the building right after Church Fine Arts on Virginia St.)
9:30 AM – 10:30 AM Registration and Light Breakfast (Coffee/Tea and Bagels/Donuts)
[program subject to minor adjustments and changes]
10:30 – 12:00pm Session I – Politics and Identity in Popular Culture
Session chair: Louis Niebur (University of Nevada, Reno)
- Mariana Da Silva Gabriel (University of California, Davis) “More Than Words: A Study of Chico Buarque & Gil Gilberto’s “Cálice” and ‘Covert’ Musical Protest
- Joshua Strickland (University of Nevada, Reno), “It’s My Life”: Music, Baseball, and Identity”
- Ryan Nason (University of California, Davis), “Imperialist Nostalgia in Disneyland’s Indiana Jones Adventure”
12:00 – 1:00pm Lunch Break
1:00 – 1:10pm Business Meeting: ratification of the Bylaws, call for election of the new NorCal President.
1:10-2:00
Bridging the Gap between Musicologies:
Presentation of new books and Q&A with the authors:
Edmund Mendelsohn, White Musical Mythologies: Sonic Presence in Modernism (Stanford University Press, 2023)
Ruthie Meadows, Efficacy of Sound: Power, Potency, and Promise in the Translocal Ritual Music of Cuban Ifá-Òrìsà (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2023)
2:00 – 3:30pm Session II – Transmission and Context in Motet and Opera
Session chair: Julianne Lindberg (University of Nevada, Reno)
- Saagar Asnani (University of California, Berkeley), “The Curious Case of “mi doint”: Tracing Transmission Through Textual Variants of an Occitan-French Hybrid Motet”
- Anushka Kulkarni (University of California, Davis), “Histories of Empire, Imaginings of India, and Mythologies of Alexander in Handel Opera Seria”
- Ali Nia Moghaddam(University of California, Davis),, “Albert Lortzing’s Regina: Factory Workers On The Opera Stage”
3:30 – 3:45pm Coffee Break
3:45 – 5:15pm Session III – American Keyboard Stories
Session chair: Ruthie Meadows (University of Nevada, Reno)
- Monica Francesca Ambalal (University of California, Santa Cruz), “The Advancement and Sustainability of the Piano Accordion in Northern California and the West Coast”
- Paul Johnson (Independent scholar), “”Piano rolls: Unveiling the missing history of ragtime, blues and jazz piano performance”