Student Society for Musicology hosts vibrant symposium with world-renowned composer Manfred Stahnke as featured guest

From Thursday, March 23rd - Saturday, March 25th, the Student Society for Musicology hosted guest composer and musicologist Dr. Manfred Stahnke, from the Hamburg University for Music and Theater (Humburg, Germany), as a part of an interdisciplinary symposium: Intonations: Music Near and Distant. The symposium featured two days of academic papers by graduate student from around the country, a concert of Dr. Stahnke’s music Friday night and Dr. Stahnke’s keynote address Saturday afternoon.

The symposium brought together musicologists, ethnomusicologists and composers in masters and doctoral degrees from the University of Illinois, University of Tennessee, Butler University, Bowling Green State University, University of Georgia and Florida State University as well as two presenters from the University of Florida (PhD students Dong Jin Shin and Heather Bergseth). Student Society for Musicology (SSM)’s symposium, importantly, brought together many scholarly disciplines within music for rich and diverse conversations throughout the weekend.

During his time at UF, Dr. Stahnke also interacted with UF composition students in a masterclass and lecture Thursday. The concert of Stahke’s music was performed by current UF students, Diogo Carvahlo (guitar), Emily Theobald (flute), Pablo Marquine (piano) and Patrick Bain (percussion), as well as SoM alum Gerard Spicer (saxophone).

The symposium was organized by SSM president Emily Theobald, PhD candidate Navid Bargrizan and the members of SSM. They received financial support from the School of Music, College of the Arts, Office of Research and Student Government at UF.