Catherine Nolan

BMus (Honours Music Theory and Composition), McGill University, 1978
MA (Music Theory), McGill University, 1983
MPhil (Music Theory), Yale University, 1986
PhD (Music Theory), Yale University, 1989

Catherine (Cathy) Nolan studied piano, composition, and music theory in Montreal before embarking on doctoral studies in theory at Yale University. Dr. Nolan taught at the University of Alberta before joining the Faculty of Music in 1990. Her teaching interests include undergraduate courses in core theory and analysis, analysis of 20th-century music, formal and harmonic design in tonal music of the 18th and 19th centuries, counterpoint, and Schenkerian theory and analysis. Her graduate teaching interests focus on analytical methodology and research in music theory and the study of connections between music theory and other areas of humanistic and artistic endeavour. Dr. Nolan is actively involved in graduate advising of master's and PhD students.

Research Interests
Music theory, theories of pitch and pitch-class structure, Schenkerian theory and analysis, mathematical models in music theory, analysis of tonal and post-tonal music, music of the twentieth century, music of Anton Webern, history of music theory, interrelationships of music theory and music analysis, music analysis and performance.

Representative Publications

  • "Mathematics and Music." In the Princeton Companion to Mathematics, forthcoming.
  • Combinatorial Space in Nineteenth - and Early Twentieth-Century Music Theory. Music Theory Spectrum, 25.2 (2003): 205-41.
  • "Music Theory and Mathematics." In The Cambridge History of Western Music Theory. Thomas Christensen, ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 272-304.
  • "On Musical Space and Combinatorics: Historical and Conceptual Perspectives in Music Theory." In Bridges: Mathematical Connections in Art, Music, and Science: Conference Proceedings 1999, Reza Sarhangi, ed., 201-08.
  • "Theory and Theorists: The 20th Century." In Reader's Guide to Music: History, Theory, and Criticism (Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1999), 738-41.
  • "Webern's Postmortem Career: Analytical Agendas and Polemics." Austria 996- 1996: Music in a Changing Society, Conference Proceedings, Walter Kurt Kreyszig, ed., forthcoming.
  • "Structural Levels and Twelve-Tone Music: A Revisionist Analysis of the Second Movement of Webern's Piano Variations Op.27." Journal of Music Theory 39.1 (1995): 47-76.
  • "Reflections on the Relationship of Analysis and Performance." College Music Symposium 33 (1994): 114-41.
  • "New Issues in the Analysis of Webern's Twelve-Tone Music." Canadian University Music Review 9 (1988): 83-104.
  • Review of Catherine Dale, Tonality and Structure in Schoenberg's Second String Quartet, Op.10 (New York & London: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1993). Music Theory Spectrum 16.2 (1994): 250-60.
  • Review of Joseph N. Straus, Introduction to Post-Tonal Theory (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1990). Journal of Music Theory 35 (1991): 290-98.

E-mail: cnolan@uwo.ca

 

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