West Coast Conference of Music Theory and Analysis - 34th Annual Meeting

Please join us for the 2026 Annual Meeting of the West Coast Conference of Music Theory and Analysis, hosted May 16th by the University of California, Irvine. The conference will be held at the Contemporary Arts Center at the Claire Trevor School of the Arts at UCI starting at 8:30am.

The full program and details can be downloaded here. For more information about WCCMTA, please visit our website: www.wccmta.com.

Schedule

All sessions will take place in the Contemporary Arts Center (CAC) Colloquium Room

8:30 a.m. 

Registration and coffee
CAC 3rd floor 3001A; all sessions CAC Colloquium Room

9–10:30 a.m.

Session 1: 
Theorizing phrasing and hypermeter
Stephen Hudson, chair, Occidental College

Metric Reinterpretation in the Music of DOMi & JD BECK
Anna Peloso, Indiana University Bloomington

A Formal Grammar of Raga: Weighted Directed Graphs, Ornamental Subgraphs, and Melodic Conditioning in Yaman 
Arka Ashis Gupta, Independent Researcher

Pentatonicism in Jazz: An Analysis of Anhemitonic Pentatonicism’s Affordances for Dissonance throughout Jazz Styles
Collin Felter, University of California, Irvine

10:30–10:45 a.m

Coffee break
CAC 3100A

10:45 a.m.–12:15 p.m.

Session 2: 
Gesture as a Tool for Analysis of New Music
Jack Boss, chair, University of Oregon

Serial Displacement in George Walker’s Spatials 
Aiden Brych, University of Oregon

Constructing Destruction: An Anamorphic Analysis of Simon Steen-Anderson’s Piano Concerto 
Nolan Miranda, University of California, Irvine

Monoculture and Myth: Simon Steen-Anderson’s TRIO and the Role of Institution in New Music
Brandon Woo Snyder, University of California, Irvine

12:15–1:45 p.m.

Lunch break 

1:45–2 p.m.

Business meeting  

2–4 p.m.

Session 3: 
Meaning and Narrative
Stephen Rodgers, chair, University of Oregon

Fanny Hensel’s Textual Interventions: Reimaging Heine in Lied
Deirdre Toh , University of California, Irvine

Losing Perspective in Song 
Caleb Hermann, University of Chicago

Hyperverses 
Michael Dekovich, Loyola Marymount University

Creative Process as Metanarrative: 
Diegetic Layering in “Whisper of the Heart” (1995)
Bailey LaBrie, University of Oregon

4–4:15 p.m.

Coffee break
CAC 3100A

4:15–5:15 p.m.

Session 4: 
Beyond the Twelve-tone Equal-tempered scale
Andrew Aziz, chair, San Diego State University

Piano Keyboard (Mod-14) Voice-Leading Spaces
Alexander Shannon , Indiana University Jacobs School of Music

Messiaen, mod 24
Lee Cannon-Brown, University of British Columbia

5:30 p.m. 

Reception
Music and Media Building (MM) 302

6:30 p.m. 

Conference dinner 
Eureka, University Center

8 p.m.

ICIT Showcase Concert
Original works by Ph.D. students in Integrated Composition, Improvisation and Technology (ICIT) showcase innovative approaches to contemporary music-making. 
xMPL Experimental Media Performance Lab, CAC first floor

8 p.m. 

Joanna Baird, M.F.A Capstone recital in Collaborative Piano
Winifred Smith Hall