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School of Music, College of Arts & Sciences



Welcome » Faculty & Staff » Music Theory & Composition


Music Theory & Composition Faculty


Kenneth Jacobs
 

Kenneth Jacobs is Professor of Music Composition. A native of Indiana, he was awarded the Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Texas at Austin.

  E-Mail   Phone Office
  kjacobs@utk.edu   865-946-3076 232
 
 

His music has been played across North and South America and Europe, and he has received an International New Music Composers Award, Bergen Festival Award, City College of New York Electro-Acoustic Prize, the Brown University Choral Prize, Tennessee Orchestral Prize, prizes from the Texas and Tennessee Music Educators Associations, and a Phi Kappa Phi Outstanding Artist Award.  Composer of music for solo, chamber, orchestral, vocal, choral, and electronic media, he has toured extensively with a dozen multimedia works featuring his artwork and photography coupled with synthesized music, and these works soon will be available on DVD.  Currently, fifteen solo compact discs of his music have been released on the Zyode, Impact, and Opus One labels.  American Record Guide has described his music as “a deceptive kind—seemingly simple and accessible, but created with consummate skill.”  He directs the composition program at the University of Tennessee and is published by Boosey and Hawkes, Seesaw Music, and North / South Editions.

WEB: www.kennethajacobs.com
Composition Studio: composition.utk.edu

MP3 Music Samples:

 

Karen Ladd
 

Karen Ladd is Lecturer of Music Theory in the School of Music at UT, having joined the faculty in 1994.  Her academic degrees include B.M. from Muskingum College, M.A. and Ph.D. from The Ohio State University. Her duties in the School of Music at UT have included teaching both graduate and undergraduate courses in musicology and undergraduate courses in music theory.
  E-Mail   Phone Office
  kladd@utk.edu   865-974-7552  
 
 

Dr. Ladd maintains an active role in church music and in the American Guild of Organists, having served as Sub-Dean and Dean for the Knoxville Chapter. She held the position of organist at Sequoyah Hills Presbyterian Church of Knoxville for seventeen years. She is active as a community volunteer and has served on the board of the Joy of Music Youth Music School as well as a volunteer teacher at the school.

Brendan McConville
 

Brendan McConville is Assistant Professor of Music Theory. He received his Ph.D. from Rutgers University.

  E-Mail   Phone Office
  bmcconvi@utk.edu   865-974-7546 209
 
 

Brendan McConville is Assistant Professor of Music Theory and is both an avid music theorist and composer. His undergraduate studies were at the Johns Hopkins University and Peabody Conservatory of Music, and he received M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Rutgers University where he studied composition with Charles Wuorinen and Gerald Chenoweth and music theory with Nancy Rao, Charles Fussell and Richard Chrisman. His research focuses on compositional methods in 20th century music, and his current activities include studies of the recent music of Elliott Carter and 20th century Italian music. He has composed works for an array of contemporary ensembles and his music has been performed in the United States and across Europe. Among the many ensembles that have performed and/or recorded his music are the Kiev Philharmonic Orchestra, the Symphonic Orchestra of Lviv (Ukraine) and the Rutgers University Orchestra. His orchestral work “Tableaux of Katrina” was recently released by ERM media.


Barbara Murphy
 

Barbara Murphy is Associate Professor of Music Theory and Associate Director for Undergraduate Studies. She received the B.M. from Youngstown State University, and the M.A. and Ph.D. from The Ohio State University.

  E-Mail   Phone Office
  bmurphy@utk.edu   865-974-7549 200-A
 
 

As Associate Professor, she teaches courses in the undergraduate theory sequence as well as Theory Pedagogy and Technology in Music Research. As Associate Director for Undergraduate Studies, she serves as head advisor as well as taking care of all curricular matters for the School. Her research focuses on the use of chunking in harmonic dictation, the readiness of college music majors for theory classes, and theory pedagogy, as well as the study of Liturgical Music in the Catholic Church.

Don Pederson
 

Don Pederson is Professor of Music, Coordinator of Theory and Composition, and Coordinator of Computer Activities. He received the M.A. degree from the University of Northern Colorado, and the Ph.D. from the University of Iowa.

  E-Mail   Phone Office
  don-pederson@utk.edu   865-974-7550 217
 
 

He has been an active proponent of technology (computers) in education for nearly forty years. He has given seminars and workshops for Apple Computer at universities in the southeast and was a presenter at a MacWorld Expo in San Francisco. Pederson and associate professor Boling have developed new computer music teaching ear training and theory applications for the UT Music Computer Assisted Learning Lab. Their four semester set of programs, called Curriculum for Aural Training has been adopted by other colleges and universities. In 2006-07 C.A.T. was upgraded and now runs on both Macintosh and Windows computers. In 1997, as a result of support of the UT technology fee, they were able to implement the Vivace Lighthouse project which was created by Coda Music of Minneapolis, MN.