Curriculum Vitae: Katherine Setar

E-Mail: setar@pacbell.net or ksetar@clpccd.cc.ca.us

Degrees

1997	Ph.D. in Music Theory, University of Southern California.
1986	M.A. in Music Theory, University of Southern California.
1981	B.M. in Piano Performance, California State University, Northridge.

Work Experience

2001-2002: Instructor, freshman theory at Chabot College; the duties included creating and implementing a harmony and sightsinging class. The course consisted of a very brief review of music fundamentals; the first seven chapters of Aldwell-Schacter Harmony and Voice Leading; sightsinging and solfeggio and miscellaneous ear training exercises. Texts and curriculum were coordinated with Dr. Frank LaRocca at California State University Hayward to facilitate student transfer to that institution.
1989-90: Lecturer, sophomore music theory at the University of Southern California; the duties included creating the course content and teaching chromatic harmony, form and analysis, and twentieth-century analysis and history. The twentieth-century music course included introduction to Forte set theory.
1988-9: Teaching assistant at the University of Southern California, freshman and sophomore aural skills.
1986: Instructor of class piano at Los Angeles Trade Technical School.
1986-1992: Piano instructor, choir director/conductor/accompanist, instrumental accompanist at the Hollywood Los-Feliz Jewish Community Center. Also formed the Kinnor Trio, a performing ensemble which performed my original arrangements and compositions for concert and social occasions.
1975-present: Private piano instruction, freelance accompanying and piano performing.

Committee Experience

2001-2002

While an instructor at Chabot College, I participated on the curriculum and accreditation committees.

Curriculum committee:: Since the texts and course content of Music 8A, 8B, 10A, and 10B were modified to be consistent with that at California State University Hayward, the Course Outlines (and subsequent Statement of Rationale) needed to be rewritten to reflect these changes. The amended course descriptions will be included in the Chabot Catalog for the 2002-2003 academic year.
Gail Kilbourne and I also proposed the formation of a Music Performance 4911 "Solo and Ensemble Performance," which offers guidance and practical experience for music students of all instruments and voices in the process of performance and auditioning for four-year institutions. It will be offered as a late start course from 3/25/2002-5/25/2002.
Accreditation committee:: I researched and authored the Standard 2.2: Institutional Integrity statement on academic freedom. I also attended and participated in all pertinent meetings.

Artistic Involvement

2001-present: Organized the Pauline Oliveros Foundation - Bay Area Artists' Group. Its purpose is to provide a format or structure with the intent of being productive and inventive in the cause of new music. The group meets regularly at approximately monthly intervals, features informal music-making and music experimentation, and is open to anyone with an interest in any or all of the principles of the Pauline Oliveros Foundation.
2001-present: Co-created and currently maintain the content of Pauline Oliveros Foundation - Bay Area web site at www.pofba.org.
2000-present: Member of the Pauline Oliveros Foundation - Bay Area Chapter. The POFBA also serves as a support network for the Pauline Oliveros Foundation, a non-profit organization which sponsors and supports talented newcomers in the field of experimental music.
2001-present: Member of the Cornelius Cardew Choir, a vocal ensemble devoted to performing experimental works by both established and emerging composers.
2001-2002: Yearbook Committee Chairperson, Sigma Alpha Iota East Bay Alumnae Chapter.
2000-present: Member Sigma Alpha Iota East Bay Alumnae Chapter. The chapter emphasizes both community involvement and musical performance. I performed piano four hands works by Brahms and Khachaturian in one of their musicales in November of 2001.

Publications

2000: "Pauline Oliveros: Listening Through Improvisation." ("Pauline Oliveros: 'Zuhoren' durch Improvisation.") In Annäherung XI-an Sieben Komponisten (Perspectives XI -- of Seven Women Composers). Kassel: Furore Verlag, 2000, pp. 83-106. The article discusses how Oliveros uses improvisation as a creative tool in her philosophy of "listening." Her improvisations constitute a kind of musical symbiosis in which she interacts in a variety of situations with performers steeped in several musical (sometimes non-Western) traditions. The article also includes a list of works and a discography.
1998: "An `Interaction' by Pauline Oliveros with a Resonant Environment using the Harmonic Series: Watertank Software (1984)." (Translated title: "Watertank Software: Eine 'Interaction' zwichen Pauline Oliveros und einem halligen Raum.") Musiktexte: Zeitschrift für neue Musik, 76/77 (December 1998), pp. 96-101. The article explains how the interaction/improvisation Watertank Software is an equally-tempered approximation of the pure intervals of just intonation. These purer intervals enhance the reverberant effects of the cistern in which the work was realized.
1997: Doctoral Dissertation: An Evolution in Listening: An Analytical and Critical Study of Structural, Acoustic, and Phenomenal Aspects of Selected Works by Pauline Oliveros. The dissertation is an investigation into the various philosophical meanings and processes which occur while "listening" to works by living American composer Pauline Oliveros. In addition to the examination of acoustic and phenomenal aspects of the listening process, Oliveros's personal evolution in "listening" as a "life practice" is explored. This investigation into "listening" is achieved through analysis of selected works by Oliveros dating from the years 1961-1984. It discusses the importance of timbre, natural and electronically simulated acoustic spaces, naturally occurring acoustic phenomena such as the harmonic series, and the phenomenological role of the performer/composer/listener in awareness and interaction with sound as they apply to the universals of cognition and sonic organization. These organizational structures include both neo-tonal and formal aspects in Oliveros's compositions. The dissertation also traces the significant influences of composers John Cage and Robert Erickson, the latter being an important writer of timbre studies. Total length: 595 pp.

Research Experience

1995-1997: Wrote doctoral dissertation on the works of Pauline Oliveros.
1995: Interviewed Pauline Oliveros during her "Ear Rings" concert series in New York.
1995: Investigated selected correspondence of Pauline Oliveros at New York City Library at Lincoln Center.
1993: Investigated the archive at University of California, Los Angeles on composer La Monte Young.
1992-3: Created an inventory of the entire written holdings of the Pauline Oliveros Archive, University of California, San Diego.
1985-1986: Researched and wrote master's thesis: An Interdisciplinary Study of the Aesthetics of Minimalism (University of Southern California).

Honors and Awards

1988-9: Teaching fellowship at the University of Southern California in music theory and composition.
1987-8: Dean's Fellowship at the University of Southern California in music theory. This was a competitive award based on excellence in theory.
1986: Recipient of the California State Leadership Award, Sigma Alpha Iota; finalist for National Leadership Award. The award was in recognition of the chapter creating a concerto competition during the year I was its president.
1985: Winner of a Hollywood Alumnae, Sigma Alpha Iota Performance Competition in piano performance.
1981: Member of Iota Kappa Lambda (music honors society).
1976: Music Achievement Award and scholarship for entering freshman in piano performance at California State University, Northridge.

Areas of Specialization

Piano Performance and Pedagogy: I have accompanied instrumental, vocal and choral, chamber music, and solo performers. I currently perform two piano and piano four hands works with my partner, Kendelyn Beck. I composed and performed figured bass realizations for the Ph.D. qualifying examinations under the guidance of world-renowned harpsichordist Malcolm Hamilton. I organized and formed a piano trio and composed and arranged works for that ensemble. I formed an amateur choir, and was both its rehearsal pianist and conductor. I have over twenty years' private teaching experience with adults and children, beginning through advanced, plus one semester of class piano.
Music Theories: In addition to the traditional Rameau-style chord labeling, Aldwell-Schacter/Gauldin harmony, figured bass, species counterpoint (Salzer and Schacter), composition model counterpoint and rhetorical models of form and analysis, I had five semesters of Schenkerian tonal analysis and have read selected writers who have expanded on his theories (Beach, Salzer, Mitchell, Barkin, et al). I have had at least five semesters of Forte and other post-tonal theories. I have read and applied the following: several rhythmic theories (Epstein, Komar, Yeston, Lerdahl and Jackendoff) and analyzed a few pieces using Lerdahl and Jackendoff; theories of musical proportion (Lendvai, Howat, et al); various aspects of theories of time (Jonathan Kramer); several works on serialism and combinatorics (Babbitt and Martino); timbre theories (Erickson, Cogan and Escot, Slawson); phenomenology (Clifton, Ferrara); and cognitive theories (Meyer, Narmour), to name but a few. I have also read some of the deconstruction-inspired theories of Lawrence Kramer and McClary. I taught myself musical acoustics by reading and working out the solutions to problems in Benade's Fundamentals of Music Acoustics, Helmholtz's On the Sensations of Tone, and Winkel's Music, Sound and Sensation: A Modern Exposition. I outlined the articles on the history of theory or analysis in Groveby Bent and Palisca in order to get a sense of the progression of ideas in the history of music theory. This was in addition to the translations of the original writings required for the two semesters of course work in the history of music theory. I have supplemented these readings with my own investigations into tuning systems, particularly just intonations as they apply to works from ancient, medieval, renaissance, and selected modern works.
Composition: My course work as a theorist was almost comparable to that of a composition major at the University of Southern California. I studied advanced composition with Robert Linn and Dr. Tony Vazzana, and advanced analysis with Drs. Robert S. Moore and William Thompson. Subsequent to my graduation, I have participated in composition workshops with Pauline Oliveros, and was a participant at the performance of her Lunar Opera at the outdoor festival at Lincoln Center in August 2000. I organized and formed a piano trio and composed and arranged works for that ensemble. While working at the Hollywood-Los Feliz Jewish Community Center, I formed an amateur choir, and was both its rehearsal pianist and conductor; I wrote a few simple choral arrangements of folk melodies for that ensemble. I also have composed electronic compositions and have participated in free improvisation workshops.
Electronic Music: I am familiar with MIDI, sequencing, music notation programs (Finale, Personal Composer), "classic" electronic studio technology (Moog synthesizer), FM synthesis (Yamaha DX7), and in studio techniques, such as mixing, noise reduction, and sampling. I am also acquainted with Slawson's theory of Sound Color based on comparison filtered sound source with linguistic phonemes and a notation method for the Classic Electronic Studio of the 1960s (Fennelly). I possess a personal library of significant electronic literature beginning with the early Conrte experiments of the 1940s and 1950s to the present digital manipulations of sound and "live electronic" experiments.
Ethnomusicology: I have independently investigated selected readings in ethnomusicology as a portion of my dissertation. These include Ethnomusicology: An Introduction (Helen Myers ed.) from the Norton/Grove Handbooks on music, articles by Blacking, Hood, Kurath, Lomax, Nattiez, and Nettl from the journal The World of Music and Danielou's study on scales and tuning. These articles were cited as support for a "feminist" tonal analysis of an improvisation by Oliveros with minimal hierarchical structures and multiple, uncoordinated climaxes (as suggested in McClary's Feminine Endings).