Dr Nicholas McKay is one of the keynote speakers at the conference this year. Dr McKay’s work in the field of music analysis reveals aspects of process in unexpected places.
Dr McKay’s talk is entitled:
“Introversive and Extroversive processes: rethinking Stravinsky’s music as dialogue between formalist and expressive paradigms”
Nicholas McKay completed his PhD on the semiotics of musical meaning in Igor Stravinsky’s music at Durham University in 1998. He was awarded a one-year Leverhulme Research Fellowship (2005-06) to work on the semiotics of quotation, allusion and topical reference in Stravinsky’s music and regularly presents papers at international music and semiotics conferences around the world. He writes primarily on music semiotics, Stravinsky, analysis, opera and music theatre. His work explores the dialogical interface between introversive and extroversive semiotic processes in musical discourse. He is Assistant Editor of the Journal of Music and Meaning and serves as an elected member of council of the Royal Musical Association.
In September 2013, Nicholas took up the role of Head of Music and Performing Arts at Canterbury Christ Church University. Previously, he was a Senior Lecturer at the University of Sussex (1998-2013), where he worked as Head of Music (2000-2006 & 2010-2013) and Director [Sub-Dean] in the School of Humanities and University Champion for Creative Arts (2006-2010). Nicholas directed the annual Opera at Glyndebourne Summer School (2009-2013) and has been a regular pre-performance speaker on countless operas at Glyndebourne since 2000. He has supervised numerous PhD students on topics including Stravinsky, Scriabin, analysis, musical gesture and conducting.
Recent Publications Include:
- McKay, N, ‘Stravinsky’s Sideward Glance: Neoclassicism, Dialogised Structures and the Reflected Discourse of Bach’, The Journal of Music and Meaning, (2013)
- —, ‘Dysphoric States: Stravinsky’s Topics – Huntsmen, Soldiers and Shepherds’ in Music Semiotics: a Network of Significations – in Honour of Raymond Monelle, ed. Esti Sheinberg (Farnham, Ashgate, 2012), 249-261
- —, ‘Ethnic Cleansing, Anxious Influence and Secret Codes: a Semiotician’s Guide to Stravinsky’s Musicological Afterlife and its Archaeological Contra-Factum,’ in Before and After Music, Acta Semiotica Fennica XXXVII, ed. Lina Navickaite-Martinelli (Umweb Publications: Helsinki, 2010), 565-574
- —‘On Topics Today’ Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft für Musiktheorie 4, 1 (2007), 159-183
- —‘One for All and All for One’: Voicing in Stravinsky’s Music Theatre. The Journal of Music and Meaning 5 (2007)
Music and/as Process 