Ryan Minor
Curriculum Vitae
Music Department office phone (631) 632 7338
Staller Center mobile phone (413) 346 7372
SUNY Stony Brook home phone (347) 987 3041
Stony Brook, NY 11794 Ryan.Minor@stonybrook.edu
Education
Ph.D., Musicology, University of Chicago, 2005
Dissertation: “National Memory, Public Music: Commemoration and Consecration in Nineteenth-Century German Choral Music”
B.M., Music History, Rice University, 1996
Thesis: “Narrating Brahms: Op. 34 and the Principles of Developing Variation”
Academic Appointments
Associate Professor, SUNY Stony Brook, 2011-
Assistant Professor, SUNY Stony Brook, 2005-2011
Visiting Assistant Professor, Williams College, 2004-2005
Doctoral Fellow, Franke Institute for the Humanities, University of Chicago, 2003-2004
Instructor, University of Chicago, 2000-2003
Guest Researcher, Sonderforschungsbereich “Ästhetische Erfahrung im Zeichen der Entgrentzung der Künste,” Freie Universität Berlin, 2013
Research Fellowship, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University, 2007-2008
Participant, “Operatic States,” DAAD Faculty Seminar, Cornell University, 2007
Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship, University of Michigan, 2005-2006 (declined)
Geiringer Award, American Brahms Society, 2002
Bundeskanzler Fellowship, Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung, 2000-2001
Research Grant, Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst, 2000-2001 (declined)
Summer Language Grant, Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst, 1999
Internal Awards and Fellowships
SUNY Stony Brook
FAHSS grant for summer research, “German Opera and its Publics, from Mozart to Weill,” 2013
FAHSS grant for conference “Mozart on the Border: Die Entführung aus dem Serail,” 2012
FAHSS grant for conference “Beyond Opera: Staging Theatricality,” 2010
FAHSS grant for summer research, “Monumentalism Reconsidered: Wagner and Performance in Wilhelmine and Weimar Germany,” 2010, 2009
FAHSS grant for summer research, “Choral Fantasies: Nationhood, Festivity, and the Chorus in Nineteenth-Century Germany,” 2007, 2006
University of Chicago
Dissertation Fellowship, Franke Institute for the Humanities, 2003-2004
Tave Teaching Fellowship, 2002-2003
Katschins Dissertation Fellowship, 2002-2003
Melvin Gray Fellowship, 2001-2002
Century Fellowship, 1996-2000
Rice University
Shepherd Society Scholar, 1992-1996
Monograph
Choral Fantasies: Music, Festivity, and Nationhood in Nineteenth-Century Germany (Cambridge University Press, 2012)
Articles
“The Chorus,” forthcoming in The Oxford Handbook of Opera, ed. Helen Greenwald (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013)
“Choral Music and Choral Singing in Germany: An Overview,” in
19th-Century Choral Music, ed. Donna Di Grazia (London: Routledge, 2012)
“When did German Music Lose its Innocence?” Review essay,
Journal of the Royal Musical Association 133/2 (2008), 334-352.
“Parsifal’s Promise or
Parsifal’s Reality? On the Politics of Voice Exchange in Wagner’s Grail Operas,”
The Opera Quarterly 22/2 (2007), 249-268.
“Occasions and Nations in Brahms’s
Fest- und Gedenksprüche,”
19th-Century Music 29/3 (2006), 261-288.
“Prophet and Populace in Liszt’s ‘Beethoven’ Cantatas,” Franz Liszt and his World, ed. Christopher Gibbs and Dana Gooley (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006), 113-165.
“Wagner’s Last Chorus: Consecrating Space and Spectatorship in
Parsifal,”
Cambridge Opera Journal 17/1 (2005), 1-36.
Shorter Pieces
“Beyond Heroism: Music, Ethics, and Everyday Cosmopolitanism,” in colloquy “Confronting the Cosmopolitan in 19
th-Century Music,” ed. Dana Gooley,
Journal of the American Musicological Society 66/2 (2013)
Assorted entries, including “
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg,” and “The Chorus,” forthcoming in Nicholas Vazsonyi, ed.,
The Cambridge Wagner Encyclopedia (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013)
“Zemlinsky und das Kollektiv,” in Alexander von Zemlinsky und die Moderne. Interdisziplinäres Symposion vom 31. Mai bis zum 3. Juni 2007, ed. Katharina John (Berlin: Deutsche Oper Berlin, 2009)
Introduction to Lars von Trier’s Stage Notes to
Der Ring des Nibelungen and his Bayreuth “Deed of Conveyance,”
The Opera Quarterly 23/1 (2008)
“Voice,” “Hermeneutics,” “Nationalism,” and “Modernism” entries,
New Harvard Dictionary of Music, second edition (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003)
Program Notes
“Wagner and the Choral Tradition,” in program book for the 2009 Bard Music Festival “Wagner and his World”
“Music and German National Identity,” in program book for the 2009 Bard Music Festival “Wagner and his World”
“Zemlinsky und das Kollektiv,” in program book to accompany
Der Traumgörge at the Deutsche Oper Berlin (2007)
Edited Collection
Guest editor, together with Brian Hyer, of special “
Parsifal” issue of
The Opera Quarterly 22/2 (2007)
Reviews
Review of Dieter Borchmeyer, Drama and the World of Richard Wagner, and James Treadwell, Interpreting Wagner, Cambridge Opera Journal 18/1 (2006), 109-123.
Review of Celia Applegate and Pamela Potter, eds.,
Music and German National Identity, H-NET Liste für Sozial- und Kulturgeschichte; available at http://hsozkult.geschichte.hu-berlin.de/rezensionen/2003-1-088.pdf
Work in Progress
German Opera and its Publics, from Mozart to Weill (monograph)
Wagner’s Meistersinger
in the Twentieth Century (monograph)
Papers and Presentations
“Songs and Space in Billy Budd,” talk at the conference “Britten and Literature,” UCLA and LA Opera, February 2014
“Wagner contra Wagner: Listening in, and to,
Tannhäuser,” University of Manchester, December 2013
“Fugues, Fugue States, and other Operatic Contagions,” University of Cambridge, November 2013
“
Schlusschoral: Ethics, Performance, and the Fourth Wall in Ullmann and Weill,” Kings College London, October 2013
“The Mastersongs of Nuremberg, or: What Spooked Hans Sachs?”
University College Cork, September 2013
“Wagner contra Wagner: Listening in, and to, Tannhäuser,” talk at the conference “Jenseits von Bayreuth. Richard Wagner Heute: Neue Kulturwissenschaftliche Perspektiven,” Université du Luxembourg, June 2013
“Tannhäuser contra Wagner, or the Pitfalls of Operatic Adaptation,” talk at the conference “Wagner and Adaptation,” University of Toronto, January 2013
“Beyond Heroism: Cosmopolitanism and Musical Commmunities,” International
Musicological Society, Rome, July 2012
“Fugues, Fugue States, and other Operatic Contagions,” talk at the conference “Opera After Freud,” Stanford University, February 2012
“Zuhörerschaft, Emotionen, und Wagners
Tannhäuser-Problem,” talk at the conference “Wagner und die Emotionen” held at the Bayreuth Festival, August 2011
“
Die Meistersinger, Indoors and Out,” American Musicological Society, Indianapolis, November 2010
“In Search of the (Opera) Chorus,” keynote address at the conference “The Choir,” Sibelius Academy, Helsinki, May 2010
“What—and Why—did the Hamburg Cäcilienverein Sing in the Forest?” talk at the symposium “German Choral Traditions,” Harvard Divinity School, April 2010
“
Schlusschoral: History and Meaning in Ullmann and Weill,” talk at the conference “Recovered Voices: Staging Suppressed Opera of the Early 20
th Century,” UCLA and LA Opera, April 2010
“
Die Meistersinger, Indoors and Out,” International Musicological Society, Amsterdam, July 2009
“Memory and Multiplicity in Felix Mendelssohn’s ‘Gutenberg’ Works,” talk at the conference “Purcell, Haydn, Handel, and Mendelssohn,” Oxford University, March 2009
“The Birth of Germany out of the Spirit of Song: Brahms, Memory, and Nationhood,” talk at the conference “Brahms and Memory,” University of New Hampshire, April 2008
“Music and Liberalism in Germany, c. 1840,” presentation at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University, December 2007
“Zemlinsky and the Collective,” talk at the symposium “Alexander von Zemlinsky und die Moderne,” Deutsche Oper Berlin, June 2007
“Nuremberg Reimagined:
Die Meistersinger in the Parlor,” colloquium at Rice University, March 2007
“The Birth of Germany out of the Spirit of Song, or Music’s Crisis c. 1871,” colloquium at Stony Brook University History Department, December 2006
“Choral Fantasies: Beethoven, von Schwind, and the Aesthetics of Participation,” American Musicological Society, Los Angeles, November 2006, and the 14
th International Conference on 19
th-Century Music, Manchester, England, July 2006
“Genre, History, and Disciplinarity in Recent Opera Studies,” Modern Language Association, Washington, D.C., December 2005
“‘Dich nur besingen wir’:
Lohengrin,
Parsifal, and the Politics of Voice Exchange,” talk for the conference “Wagner’s
Parsifal and the Performance of Culture,” University of Chicago, October 2005
“Brahms, the
Triumphlied Op. 55, and the Space of Song,” 11
th Annual International Conference on Romanticism, Texas A&M University, October 2004
“‘Heil ihm! Heil uns!’: Choral Participation in Occasional Works of Felix Mendelssohn,” Symposium on the Composers and Compositions of the Berliner Sing-Akademie, Rhodes College, November 2003
“‘Solch ein Fest hat uns verbunden’: Music, Festivity and the Chorus in Liszt’s 1845 ‘Beethoven’ Cantata,” colloquium at Washington University in St. Louis, October 2002
“Occasions, Nations, and Disseminations in Brahms’s Op. 109
Fest- und Gedenksprüche,” American Musicological Society, Midwest chapter meeting, Chicago, September 2002
“Sublimating the Sublime: Communal Passions and the Founding of the German Choral Movement,” “Music and the Passions” conference, University of Chicago, March 2000
“‘without a center to surround’: Wagner,
Die Meistersinger, and the Fantasm of the Chorus,” Lyrica Society conference “Dramaturgy On Stage/In Theory,” Flagstaff, September 1998
Invited Panels
“The Agon of Opera and Dance,” Princeton University, May 2013
“Performative Languages of Emotion: Ein Dialog von Kunst und Wissenschaft,” Staatsoper unter den Linden Berlin and the Freie Universität Berlin, June 2012
“Thinking through Performance: Operatic Production since 1960,” American Musicological Society, San Francisco, November 2011
“Opera and the Place of Performance,” Tufts University, April 2011
“Remixing Opera,” Columbia University and Princeton University, January 2011
“The Nose in Transit: William Kentridge and the Poetics of Displacement,” Columbia University and The Metropolitan Opera, March 2010
“Opera and Austerity,” University of Virginia, February 2009
“Brahms at 175,” American Musicological Society, Nashville, November 2008
“Wagner
and Scandal,” Brown University, March 2008
Conference Organization
“Mozart on the Borders: Die Entführung aus dem Serail,” SUNY Stony Brook, April 2012
“Beyond Opera: Staging Theatricality,” SUNY Stony Brook and Yale University, April 2010 (co-organized with Mauro Calcagno, Gundula Kreuzer, and Ellen Rosand)
“Wagner’s Parsifal and the Performance of Culture,” University of Chicago, October 2005 (co-organized with Brian Hyer)
Other Conference Activities
Session Chair, “Producing Minimalist Opera,” American Musicological Society, Pittsburgh, November 2013
Session Chair, “The Idea of Opera,” American Musicological Society, San Francisco, November 2011
Session Chair, “Rival Sisters: Art and Music at the Birth of Modernism,” New York, March 2011
Session Chair, “
L’Orfeo at 400,” Stony Brook University, April 2007
Pre-Concert and Non-Academic Talks
New York Wagner Society, “
Götterdämmerung Study Day,” February 2012
Lincoln Center “White Light” Festival, Collegium Vocale Gent, conductor Philippe Herreweghe, November 2010
Così fan tutte, Stony Brook Opera, April 2009
“Piano Project” on 4-Hand
Piano Music, Stony Brook Music Department, March 2009
Stony Brook Chamber Music Festival, May 2006
Academic Service
Organizations:
The Opera Quarterly
Co-Executive Editor, with David Levin, 2012-
Editorial Board and Associate Editor, 2008-2012
American Musicological Society
Program Committee, 2014 Annual Meeting
Council, 2010-2012
Subcommittee on Corresponding and Honorary Members, 2010
American Brahms Society
Chair, Geiringer Award, 2013-2015
Program Committee, “Brahms in the New Century,” 2012
Board of Directors, 2008-
Outside referee:
Oxford University Press
University of Chicago Press
Cambridge University Press
W.W. Norton
Journal of the American Musicological Society
Music & Letters
Journal of Musicological Research
The Opera Quarterly
Acta Musicologica
Institutional Service
Stony Brook University:
Curriculum Committee, College of Arts and Sciences, 2012-2015
“Faculty” Subcommittee, Middle States Accreditation, 2012-2013
Promotions and Tenure Committee, College of Arts and Sciences, 2008- 2009
Selection Committee, Mellon Foundation Seminar “Framing the Object,” 2008-2009
Fulbright Committee, 2006-2007
Honors College Advisory Committee, 2005-2006, 2006-2007
Stony Brook Music Department:
Chair, Baroque Search Committee, 2013-2014
18th-19th-Century Opera Search Committee, 2012-2013
Pre-1500 Search Committee, 2012-2013
Chair, 20th-Century Search Committee, 2011-2012
Head, History-Theory-Ethnomusicology Faculty, 2008-2009, 2009- 2010
20th-Century Search Committee, 2006-2007
Baroque-Classical Search Committee, 2006-2007
Digital Media Search Committee, 2006-2007
Chair, Colloquium Committee, 2005-2007, 2010-2011
20th-Century Search Committee, 2005-2006
University of Chicago:
Midwest Graduate Music Consortium: Co-organizer, 1999
Graduate Music Society: Secretary, 1997-1998
Professional Affiliations
American Musicological Society
Alexander von Humboldt Society of America
Research and Teaching Interests
Nineteenth- and early twentieth-century music
Opera staging and dramaturgy
Music and the public sphere
Spectatorship and mass culture
Wagner
Brahms
Mozart
Languages
German: fluent
French: reading knowledge
Italian: reading knowledge
Performance
Chicago Symphony Orchestra Chorus, 1999-2000
Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Chorus, 1991-1992