Episode 39 - The Musical Sketches of Beethoven: Music Theorist Thomas Posen

Do the sketches of Beethoven unlock the secret code to Beethoven's genius? (Classic history channel voice) Our "Year of Beethoven" concludes with a fascinating discussion with Thomas Posen. Co-hosted with Dr. Elias-Axel Pettersson, we delve into the Eroica Symphony. We look at why Beethoven's sketches are important and why scholars are so interested in studying them.  This was fun! Thomas is a music theorist, pianist, educator, and composer-producer living in Montréal,Canada where he is a Ph.D. Candidate (ABD) in Music Theory at the Schulich School ofMusic at McGill University. He has active research in three primary streams: 18th and early19th-century Formenlehre and the study of Beethoven’s compositional processes throughhis sketches, the history of music theory, and the analysis of music of music that challengessupposed aesthetic boundaries, such as Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story (1957). Inthese streams, he has submitted two articles for publication in leading music theoryjournals and have presented 9 papers at 17 conferences, including conferences inSwitzerland, the Netherlands, and Italy, and at the annual conferences of the AmericanMusicological Society (2019) and the Society of Music Theory (2017, 2019, and 2020). Hewas awarded two Best Student Paper awards, one in music theory and another inmusicology for work drawn from his study of Leonard Bernstein’s music for West SideStory. He holds a B.M. in Piano Performance, a B.A. in Physics and Astrophysics summacum laude, and a dual concentration M.M. in Piano Performance and Music Theory fromthe University of New Mexico. You can read more about him on his website,www.thomasposen.com, which includes samples of his scholarly work, video projects,piano performances, and newly composed electronic dance music tracks.