Matthew Zeller (Ph.D. musicology, 2020) awarded post-doctoral fellowship at McGill University

At McGill's Schulich School of Music, Zeller will continue research from his graduate studies at Duke on Klangfarbenmelodie, timbral function in music, and planal analysis as part of the ACTOR (Analysis, Creation, and Teaching of Orchestration) Partnership. ACTOR, an international initiative involving 21 academic and private-sector institutions in five countries, is an interdisciplinary team engaging in the analysis, creation, and teaching of orchestration in contemporary classical, popular, film and video game music.

Zeller will also give the presentation "Klangfarbenmelodie in 1911: Anton Webern's Opp. 9 and 10" on September 4 at the virtual conference Timbre 2020. Attendance is free and open for all but registration is required. Originally planned to take place in Thessaloniki, Greece, Timbre 2020 will be presented through Zoom and the Zoom link will be emailed to all registered attendants one day prior to the conference.

Matthew Zeller is a musicologist, music theorist, organologist, and bow maker. His primary research areas include timbre and timbral function in music, Klangfarbenmelodie and the Second Viennese School, music cognition, and musical instruments. His dissertation, “Planal Analysis and the Emancipation of Timbre: Klangfarbenmelodie and Timbral Function in Mahler, Schoenberg, and Webern,” focuses on timbre’s functional role in musical logic in late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century music and develops a new analytical method—planal analysis. In conjunction with auditory scene analysis and music cognition, planal analysis overcomes the stalemate between composer, listener, and analyst by placing musical elements in separate analytical planes, facilitating new ways to study and understand music. Zeller is currently working toward the completion of a book on Klangfarbenmelodie in the free atonal (pantonal) music of Schoenberg, Webern, and Berg.