Oliveria Prescott and the "Problem" of Music Theory

Tue, October 19, 2021 12:45 PM at Zoom Webinar

Dr. Rachel Lumsden, Assistant Professor of Music Theory at Florida State University, presents a guest lecture at Michigan State University. The event is free, open to the public, and will take place via Zoom Webinar. If you would like to attend, please register here.

Lecture Abstract

Over the past thirty years, feminist scholars such as Cusick, Hisama, McClary, and Parsons/Ravenscroft have noted music theory’s struggles with its disciplinary practices and the diversity of its practitioners. What can our histories of music theory add to these debates? 

This talk focuses on the life and career of Oliveria Prescott, a nineteenth-century British woman who wrote extensively about music, but worked entirely outside “professional” realms such as conservatory or academia. Instead of publishing advanced treatises for professional musicians, Prescott wrote exclusively for a public (non-academic) audience. 

The first part of this talk examines Prescott’s final publication, About Music, And What it is Made Of: A Book for Amateurs (1904). After my presentation, we’ll have a discussion where we work together to examine the following questions: 1) How does Prescott’s career reflect patterns of disciplinary exclusion in the nineteenth century?  2) How does About Music problematize the boundaries between amateur and professional musicians…and music theorists? 3) Should Prescott’s work “count” as music theory? 4) What lessons could we learn from Prescott’s career and published writings as we strive to diversify music theory in the twenty-first century?

Guest Teaching

MUS 970 Pedagogy of Music Theory on Wednesday, October 20, 2021 at 3:00pm EDT

Please contact Dr. Bruce Taggart (taggartb@msu.edu) if interested in attending.

Bio

Rachel Lumsden is Assistant Professor of Music Theory at Florida State University. Her research interests are wide-ranging, and include experimental music, gender and race in British and American music, music by women composers, and music theory pedagogy. She is co-editor of The Norton Guide to Teaching Music Theory (W.W. Norton, 2018). Her peer-reviewed articles have been published in American Music, Black Music Research Journal, Feminist Studies, Music Theory Online (2017 and 2020), and Studies in American Humor. When she’s not doing music theory research or fighting the patriarchy, she enjoys studying Spanish, vegetarian cooking, and chasing after her two toddlers.