Bruce Quaglia

Music Theory

Doctor of Philosophy - University of Utah

Doctoral Studies - Brandeis University

Master of Music - Southern Methodist University

Post-Baccalaureate Studies - University of Massachusetts at Amherst

Bachelor of Arts - Hamphire College

Bruce Quaglia, Associate Professor Lecturer in Music Theory, teaches throughout the undergraduate and graduate music theory curricula at the School of Music.

Quaglia's current research primarily engages the music of the Twentieth Century. He has been a frequent writer on various aspects of the composer Arnold Schoenberg's music and musical thought. Quaglia was a Fellow at the 2007 Mannes Institute for Advanced Studies in Music Theory where the topic was “Schoenberg and His Legacy.”

With the support of a University Faculty Research Grant, Quaglia recently visited the Paul Sacher Stiftung in Basel to study Stravinsky's final fragments for an unfinished orchestral work. This research extends his recent exploration of the twelve-tone music of American composer Charles Wuorinen and will culminate in articles about the exegesis of the Reliquary for Igor Stravinsky and the Rhapsody for Violin and Orchestra.

Quaglia’s research interests also include the intersection of disability studies with music theory and musicology. Quaglia’s article-length survey of recent scholarship in this area appears as a review in Music Theory Online 13.2. His 2007 paper, “Beethoven’s Pathétique Sonata, First Movement, and the Normal Body: The Idea of Formal Prosthesis”, was presented at the 2007 annual meeting of the Rocky Mountain chapter of the American Musicological Society. It was also discussed at the works in progress session of the Interest Group on Music and Disability at the Society for Music Theory National Meeting in Baltimore this past fall. The paper explores recent critical theories of prosthesis in relation to the compensatory musical functions of parageneric formal spaces such as codas in the music of Beethoven. Quaglia has also contributed entries on Rahsaan Roland Kirk and Art Tatum to the forthcoming Encyclopedia of American Disability History. Quaglia serves on the graduate advisory committee for the U's Disability Studies Certificate program.

As a composer, Quaglia has received awards, honors and fellowships from the Utah Arts Council-NEA, The Lipa New Music Festival, The California Summer Institute for the Arts and others. He has received performances and/or commissions from Carlton Vickers and the Canyonlands Ensemble, Speculum Musicae, and Jason Hardink of the Utah Symphony. His music appears on the Centaur label.

Selected Publications

“Review of Ethan Haimo's Schoenberg's Transformation of Musical Language, Music Theory Online, 14.4 (December 2008).

"Transformation and Becoming Other in the Music and Musical Poetics of Luciano Berio: Derritorializing the Musical Work.: A chapter contributed to a book, Sounding the Virtual: Gilles Deleuze and the Theory and Philosophy of Music, ed. Brian Hulse and Nick Nessbit. Ashgate Publishing. (Forthcoming).

“Tonal Space and the Tonal Problem in Schoenberg’s Op.11 no.1.” A chapter contributed to a book, Musical Currents from the Left Coast, edited by Bruce Quaglia and Jack Boss. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008.

“Reviews of Sounding Off: Theorizing Disability in Music, Straus and Lerner eds. and “Normalizing the Abnormal: Disability in Music and Music Theory” by Joseph Straus, JAMS 59-1”, Music Theory Online, 13.2 (June 2007). An article-length survey of the field of disability studies in music scholarship.

“Review of Tonal Pitch Space by Fred Lerdahl”.
Computer Music Journal: 26:4.

“Review of Bryan Simms’ The Atonal Music of Arnold Schoenberg 1908-1923.”
Music Theory Online 8.1

“Review of Charles Madden’s Fractals in Music: Introductory Mathematics for Musical Analysis.” Computer Music Journal: 24:3.

Quartetto (Flute, Clarinet, Violin and Violoncello) released on New Music from Utah. Centaur 1996 (CRC2360).

Selected Presentations

“Common Practice Vs. Intertextual Relation in Late Stravinsky and Wuorinen,” on a special panel session: “Theories and Aesthetics: An Historical Reconsideration of Serialism as Practice,” Society for Music Theory, National Meeting, October 29 – November 1, 2009, Montreal, QC.

“A View into Schoenberg's Classroom, Summer of 1936: The Leroy Robertson Papers, A Satellite Collection of the Arnold Schoenberg Center,” Society for American Music National Meeting, March 18-22 2009, Denver CO.

"The Path from Late Stravinsky to Wuorinen's 'Rhapsody for Violin and Orchestra'," West Coast Conference of Music Theory and Analysis, March 7-9 2008, hosted by The University of Washington, Seattle WA.

"Formenlehre, The Normal Body, and Musical Teratology," at the 21st Annual Women's Studies Conference of the University of South Carolina: "Representing Bodies: Disability, Difference and Identity." February 28-29, 2008, Moore School of Business, USC.

"Teratology, The Biological Model of Analysis in the Nineteenth Century, and the Musical Organism," Rocky Mountain Society for Music Theory, March 28-29 2008, hosted by Utah State University, Logan UT.

“Beethoven’s Pathetique Sonata, First Movement, and the Normal Body:
The Idea of Formal Prosthesis”, Rocky Mountain Chapter of the American Musicological Society, Annual Meeting, March 30-31, 2007, Tempe, AZ.

“Tonal Space, The Musical ‘Idea’ and the Normal Body in Schoenberg’s Op. 11 No. 1”, presented on a special session on Schoenberg’s Op. 11 at the West Coast Conference of Music Theory and Analysis, April 20-22, 2007. (Hosted by the School of Music, University of Utah).

“Schoenberg’s ‘Idea’ in Op. 20 Herzgewåchse.” Rocky Mountain Society for Music Theory Annual Meeting, March 31, 2006, Denver, CO.

“Wuorinen’s Reliquary for Igor Stravinsky: Legacy and Patrimony.” Society for Music Theory National Meeting, November 2003, Madison WI.

“Wuorinen’s Reliquary for Igor Stravinsky: Legacy and Patrimony.” West Coast Conference of Music Theory and Analysis, March 2003, Albuquerque, NM.)

“Bach’s Fugue, Schoenberg’s Combination.” Rocky Mountain Society for Music Theory Annual Meeting, April 2002, Boulder, CO.

“Reconciling Sets, Motives and Developing Variation in Schoenberg’s Op. 11 No. 1” Rocky Mountain Society for Music Theory Annual Meeting. March 2001, Provo, UT.