Complete 2026 Festival Schedule

University of Washington, Seattle

All events are held in Brechemin Recital Hall (except the Thursday opening event and Saturday Session 5) and are free and open to the public.

Thursday, January 15

Live Music Jukebox! featuring University of Oregon and University of Washington students
(Intellectual House 4:45-7:45pm)

Friday, January 16

Registration and coffee (School of Music Fishbowl, 9:00am–9:30am)
Welcome and opening remarks (Brechemin, 9:45am)

Session 1 (10:00am–12:00pm)
Session chair: Anne Searcy, Associate Professor, Music History (University of Washington)

Lunch break (Noon–1:30pm)

Session 2 (1:30pm–3:30pm)
Session chair: Carrie Shaw, Artist in Residence, Chair, Voice (University of Washington)

Coffee break (3:30pm–4:00pm)

Masterclass with Louise Toppin (4:00-6:00pm)

Paula Alva Garcia (DMA student, University of Oregon) La luna tiene cabellos blancos by Modesta Bor
Shuhan Gao (DMA student, University of Washington) Green, Debussy
Grace Kuo (PhD student, University of Oregon) Capullito by Irme Urteaga
Lameya Appling (MM student, University of Washington) I am in doubt, Undine Smith Moore

Dinner break (6:00pm–7:30pm)

Keynote: Matt BaileyShea *Friday, 7:30pm

“It’s Been Said and Done”: Lyric Clichés in Popular Song

“You set me free.” “You are the light of my life.” “I’m so high I can touch the sky.” These are all familiar, common expressions in pop songs and have been for quite some time. Most people, I think, would agree that they qualify as clichés. Unlike most poets, pop-song lyricists often seem to have a fairly high tolerance for clichés. They seem to serve an important role.

What are we to make of this? This paper considers some basic questions about what a scholarship of clichés might look like. How do they work? How do we best define them? Do they necessarily have a negative effect on music? Can they be redeemed in some way? I begin by introducing some of these core questions and then discuss a number of examples from pop music of the past several decades.

Matt BaileyShea

Matt BaileyShea is a Professor of Music Theory and Chair of the Arthur Satz Department of Music at the University of Rochester, where he also holds a secondary appointment at the Eastman School of Music. He received his Ph.D. in Music Theory from Yale University in 2003 with a dissertation on the music of Wagner. He has published on a variety of topics including form, gesture, agency, chromatic harmony, and recomposition. He recently published the book Lines and Lyrics: An Introduction to Poetry and Song with Yale University Press, which won the 2022 Wallace Berry Award from The Society for Music Theory, and he is currently working on a book called Troubled Sleep: The Dark Side of Lullabies in Rock, Broadway, and Beyond.

Saturday, January 17

Coffee (School of Music Fishbowl, 9:30am)

Session 3 (10:00am–12:00pm)
Session chair: Stephen Rodgers, Professor, Music Theory and Musicianship (University of Oregon)

Lunch break (12:00pm–1:30pm)

Session 4 (1:30pm–3:00pm)
Session chair: Stephen Rumph, Chair, Music History (University of Washington)

  1. Sam Falotico (Eastman School of Music) Performed, Mediated, and Reconfigured Identity in Kyary Pamyu Pamyu’s Recent Works
  2. Annie Liu (Princeton University) Mu Shiying’s “Shanghai Foxtrot” (1934) and Li Jinhui’s “Express Train” (1936)
  3. Anabel Maler (University of British Columbia) Signing Divas: Sign Language Covers of “Defying Gravity”

Coffee break (3:00pm–3:30pm)

Session 5 (3:30pm–5:00pm) *To be held in room 213, School of Music Building
Session chair: Shannon Dudley, Professor, Ethnomusicology (University of Washington)

Catered dinner for festival participants (5:30–7:00) Walker-Ames room

Louise Toppin & John O’Brien in Recital *Saturday, 7:30pm
Event free and open to the public

Soprano Louise Toppin

Louise Toppin has received critical acclaim for her operatic, orchestral, oratorio and recital performances world-wide.  Represented by Joanne Rile Management, she toured “Gershwin on Broadway” with pianist Leon Bates.   She has recorded more than ninteen commercial CDs including on Albany Records Ah love, but a day, La Saison des fleurs and Dear Friends and Gentle Hears with Darryl Taylor released February 7, 2025.  Since 2021 she has published 13 scores with Classical Vocal Reprints, Carl Fischer and Hal Leonard (soon for release) including An Anthology of Undine Moore Songs, An Anthology of African and African Diaspora Songs, Songs of Harry Burleigh, Songs of Adolphus Hailstork, and Rediscovering Margaret Bonds.  She is the publisher of the unpublished works of Julia Perry (distributed by Boosey and Hawkes). (more…)

John O’Brien was born into a musical family and studied piano with his father through high school. He began his undergraduate studies as a double major in violin and piano performance studying violin with Robert Gerle and piano with William Masselos.  He continued his college piano studies with John Perry completing the BM and MM in piano performance at the University of Southern California.  In 1989 O’Brien was awarded the DMA in accompanying from the University of Southern California studying with Gwendolyn Koldofsy and Jean Barr. (more…)

Sunday, January 18

Coffee (School of Music Fishbowl, 9:30am)

Session 6 (10:00am–12:00pm)
Session chair: TBD