Smith Receives Award From Society For Music Theory

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Charles J. Smith, associate professor of music and coordinator of the Music Theory Program at UB, has received the Outstanding Publication Award from the Society for Music Theory.

The award, presented during a special awards ceremony at the society's annual conference held recently in Atlanta, honors an article published in the field of music theory during the previous three years. Smith was recognized for his article, "Musical Form and Fundamental Structure: An Investigation of Schenker's Formenlehre," which was published in the British journal Music Analysis.

The society's Publication Awards Committee cited Smith for presenting "a critique of Schenker's theory of form which is both encyclopedic and provocative. This investigation is based not merely on the Viennese theorist's explicit rehearsals of the topic, but also on a series of canny readings of individual analyses from different stages of Schenker's career. The central portion of the work puts forward its own theory of structure, offering new solutions toward the problem of correlating traditional categories with Schenkerian paradigms, and the speculative concluding section opens the whole Schenkerian analysis to renewed critical engagement."

A UB faculty member since 1987, Smith received a bachelor's degree, cum laude, from Yale University and master's and doctoral degrees in music theory from the University of Michigan.

He resides in Cheektowaga.