University of Washington Music History Department

05/12/2026

This week in our Friday colloquium series, UW School of Law Professor and Adjunct Professor in Music History Peter Nicolas will be giving a talk on "Harmony as Property."

As always, our colloquium will take place at 1:30pm in room 219. We look forward to seeing you there.

05/01/2026

Please join us as we welcome Hannah Lewis next Friday!

We are pleased to welcome Professor Hannah Lewis from the University of Texas, Austin, to the School of Music on Friday, May 8 for her talk, "Nostalgia in the 21st Century Film Musical," in this installment of the THEME Lecture series. Talk gets under way at 4 pm in the School of Music Fishbowl, and admission is free! Join us!

"https://music.washington.edu/events/2026-05-08/theme-lecture-series-hannah-lewis-university-texas-austin

04/22/2026

This Friday at 1:30pm in MUS 219, UW Associate Professor of Music History Anne Searcy will be giving a talk titled "Choreographing Minimalism after the Dance Boom."

This is a preview of a keynote talk Prof. Searcy will be giving soon at the Music and Minimalism conference.

We hope to see you there!

04/14/2026

This Friday (Apr. 17), in our regular 1:30pm music history colloquium spot (room 219), UW Associate Professor of Ethnomusicology John-Carlos Perea will be giving a talk titled “Improvising Home: Sonification, Improvisation, and Performance.” We look forward to seeing you there!

02/24/2026

We have a guest speaker in music history colloquium this Friday, at 1:30pm in Rm. 219.

Sumanth Gopinath, Associate Professor of Music Theory at the University of Minnesota will be giving a talk titled “This Four-Letter Word Stops Fascists: Music for, With, and From the Minneapolis Resistance.”

Please join us!

02/20/2026

Today we will have two presenters from the UW ethnomusicology program: Shahin Shahbazi and Rayne Mescallado. As always, the talks will take place at 1:30pm in rm. 219.

First, Shahin Shahbazi will present a talk titled "The Historical Trajectory of Radif and Dastgah In Iranian Classical Music."

Then Rayne Mescallado will present "Localizing Western Influences in the Development of a Nationalistic Filipino Music."

Please join us!

02/09/2026

This Friday, Gwynne Brown, Distinguished Professor of Music at the University of Puget Sound, will be giving a talk titled "William L. Dawson's Negro Folk Symphony: Complicating the Narrative of Rediscovery."

As always, the talk will take place in music building rm. 219 at 1:30pm. We look forward to seeing you there.

02/03/2026

Healing Heart Project at UW: The UW Symphony and soloist Adia tsi sʔuyuʔaɫ Bowen perform Bruce Ruddell's "The Healing Heart of the First People of this Land" this Friday, February 6 at Meany Hall in a special collaboration by UW Ethnomusicology, American Indian Studies, and Lushootseed Research Foundation's Healing Heart Project. Originally commissioned by upper Skagit elder Vi taqʷšəblu Hilbert in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks to "bring healing to a sick world," the symphony is preceded by a screening of the documentary film, "The Healing Heart of Lushootseed." Admission is FREE to this special community event, and it all gets under way at 7:30 pm. More details at the link. All are welcome! University of Washington Symphony Orchestra

https://music.washington.edu/events/2026-02-06/film-screening-performance-healing-heart-lushootseed-uw-symphony-adia-s-bowen

01/27/2026

This Friday, January 30, Sonnet Retman will present a chapter, "Willis James and the Labor of Song Collecting," from her forthcoming book Recording Imaginaries: The Art of Black Sound in the Phonograph Era. The talk will start at 1:30pm in our new room, 219. We hope to see you there!

01/15/2026

Please join us for the Cascade Song Festival at UW this weekend! Full program available at https://cascadesongfestival.org/

Coming up Jan. 15-18 at the School of Music: Cascade Songfest, a weekend devoted to the study and performance of song.

Organized by faculty from the UW and University of Oregon, the conference includes a recital and master class by the internationally acclaimed soprano Louise Toppin and a keynote presentation by music theorist Matt BaileyShea. Festival opens on Thursday, Jan. 15, 4:45 pm at the UW Intellectual House with a Live Music Jukebox, and continues throughout the weekend with paper presentations, sessions, and performances.

It's all FREE and open to the public. View a full schedule of events at cascade songfestival.org. Join us!