“Absolute indifference is not human.” – Sergiu Celibidache
I am interested in structure, order, and logic in music. My journey into the rabbit hole of music theory/analysis was born out of a simple emotional response to music: I liked it and desired to understand why. Check out (in rough descending order of accessibility/quality):
- My primer on music and musical perception, followed by a sequel on music theory/analysis
- My undergraduate thesis, “Latent Possibilities of the Tonal System: Grammar and Historical Usage”
- My presentation (slideshow and handout) of a fragment of my undergraduate thesis at the 2018 Undergraduate Research Conference at New York University’s College of Arts and Science
- My presentation (slideshow) on Radiohead and Massive Attack at the 2019 Theory and Analysis Graduate Students conference of the Society for Music Analysis
- My lecture (slideshow) on Bruckner’s codas at the 2017 annual meeting of the Bruckner Society of America
- My paper “Escaping Phenomenology: Towards a Martian-Friendly Music,” which half-jokingly attempts to suggest a method for composing music that would be comprehensible to a Martian (audio supplement)
- My analytical paper on the fourth movement of Bartók’s Fourth String Quartet
- My analytical paper on the first movement of Bartók’s Second Violin Concerto
- My analytical paper on Wagner’s Album-Sonate
- My mathemusical paper on the coda of Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony (caution for the mathematically inclined: this paper is very handwavy)
- My review of the Bruckner Symphony cycle at Carnegie Hall in January 2017, published in the July 2017 issue (Vol. 21/2) of The Bruckner Journal
And some pastiche compositions:
- My Renaissance bicinium (MIDI realization), set to a poem from the Canticles
- My Renaissance motet (MIDI realization), set to Catullus 85
- My Baroque gigue (MIDI realization)
- My Baroque invention (MIDI realization)
I love sharing my interest in music: I write regularly on it on the question-and-answer platform Quora and I review concerts for New York Classical Review, Bachtrack, and Where Cherries Ripen. Additionally, I gave mathemusical talks at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences’ annual event for high schoolers, cSplash. Check out:
- My 2016 lecture on the relationship between mathematics and music (abstract)
- My 2017 lecture on mathematical music theory (abstract)
- My 2018 lecture on mathematics and art (only abstract available)
Performance-wise, I play(ed) trombone, piano, clarinet, and tabla, and I marched drum corps on euphonium.