Postponed | Cities of Music: Vienna & Nashville

Note: This event has been postponed to Saturday, October 24.

Hear from two experts: Robert Buxton, speaking on Vienna, and Jocelyn Neal, who will focus on Nashville. Check back soon for more information!

Robert Buxton is a lecturer (piano) in the UNC-CH Department of Music. He seeks to bring music from the past to life for people today through performing and teaching. Robert completed a D.M.A in Piano Performance at the University of North Texas in 2018, where he also received an M.M., studying with Vladimir Viardo. Previously, he studied with Solomon Mikowsky at the Manhattan School of Music, where he received a B.M. degree, and attended the Precollege. He has performed as a soloist and chamber musician; in New York, at Symphony Space, the YIVO institute, Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, The Spanish Consulate, and Steinway Hall, in Europe, at the Scuola di Musica in Castelnuovo di Garfagnana (Lucca, Italy), and the Maison Erard (Amsterdam, Netherlands), and in Japan, in Sakata, Yamagata Prefecture, Kyoto, and Tokyo. Interviews and recordings of his playing have been featured on major classical radio stations in New York and Kyoto. In 2018, Robert performed solo recitals at the Governors Club and Carol Woods in Chapel Hill NC, and a fundraiser recital at Monumental United Methodist Church in Portsmouth, VA. He performs weekly solo and chamber lecture-recitals at retirement homes and schools, aiming to bring live classical music to a wider audience.

Jocelyn Neal is Bowman and Gordon Gray Distinguished Term Professor of Music and Adjunct Professor of American Studies at UNC-CH. She received a BA in music from Rice University in 1993, an MA from the Eastman School of Music in 1995, and a PhD in music theory from the Eastman School of Music in 2002. Her primary areas of research are commercial country music and American popular music, following on her dissertation (titled “Song Structure Determinants: Poetic Narrative, Phrase Structure, and Hypermeter in the Music of Jimmie Rodgers”). Dr. Neal teaches music theory, analysis, and popular music courses; her research addresses commercial country music, rhythm and meter, and dance/music interactions in popular music. She was a Fellow at the Mannes Institute for Advanced Studies in Music Theory (2005 and 2008). She has served as chair of the Popular Music Group for the Society of Music Theory, as a member of the editorial boards for the academic journal Music Theory Spectrum and Music Theory Online, and as co-editor of Southern Cultures (2009-2014). Dr. Neal regularly presents her research at national conferences on American music, popular music, music theory, and cultural studies. She served as Director of the Center for the Study of the American South at UNC from 2012-2013. She is also a series co-editor for Tracking Pop, a popular music book series from the University of Michigan Press, and serves on the College Board’s AP Music Theory Development Committee.

This event is co-sponsored by Carolina Public Humanities.