Program
Cole Burger
Title: Demographics of Instructors of Selected First-Year Undergraduate Music Courses
Abstract:
Using data from university websites and other online sources, this study gathers the gender identity, rank, and terminal degree status of teachers of selected courses for first-year undergraduate music majors – specifically, group piano, music theory, and mixed choirs (n=1942). A higher proportion of teachers of these classes identify as women than current music faculty overall. Additionally, despite holding terminal degrees at levels similar to or higher than those of all music faculty, the instructors in this study are more likely to hold contingent positions, rather than tenured or tenure-track jobs. Results of this study also identify differences in gender, rank, and terminal degree percentages between group piano, music theory, and mixed choir faculty.
More than 50% of those who teach theory and mixed choirs identify as men, while more than 50% of those who teach group piano identify as women. Choir has the most tenured and tenure-track faculty, followed by music theory, and then group piano. The study compares its results with similar reports from group piano, music theory, and choir, as well as for academia in the U.S. overall. Further examination of these findings alongside existing research on teaching expertise has the potential to transform how faculty, administrators, and others determine faculty positions to maximize the first-year undergraduate music major experience.
Piyawat Louilarpprasert
Title: Reimagining Composition through Mechanism, Physicality, and Human (Inter)action
Abstract:
“Machine and Labor” explores the intricate relationship between sounds created through mechanical processes and the role of human performers. As composers, we engage with a multifaceted interaction between sound and machinery, working alongside performers who utilize instruments and labor to bring compositions to life. This presentation will feature excerpts from my works, illustrating the integration of mechanical processes and human interaction in composition. We will examine how these elements—machines, instruments, and the labor of performers—interact and can blur the origins and ownership of sounds. By discussing these dynamics from an expanded perspective, we will consider the roles of the composer (as architect), the instrument (as machine), and the performer (as interpreter), highlighting how their collaboration shapes the overall experience and performance landscape.
Cole Burger teaches class piano and piano pedagogy in the College of Musical Arts at Bowling Green State University. He also teaches applied piano, chamber music, music theory, and related subjects at Lutheran Summer Music and served for twelve summers on the faculty at Camp Encore/Coda. He was also a guest professor at the University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur, while a member of the Fulbright Specialist Roster, sponsored by the United States Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.
As a solo and collaborative pianist, he has performed throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia, including Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall, Rome’s Teatro di Marcello, the Romanian Athenaeum in Bucharest, the Goethe Institute in Bangkok, the American Cathedral in Paris, and the United States Ambassador’s Home in Malaysia. The American Record Guide calls his playing “both extraordinarily strong and achingly tender” in his CD, Beyond the Traveler: Piano Music by Composers from Arkansas. He has won prizes at the American Protégé International Piano and Strings Competition, Seattle International Piano Competition, the American Prize in Piano Performance, and the Janice K. Hodges Contemporary Piano Performance Competition. He has also organized and performed in various benefit recitals for non-profit organizations that have raised more than $60,000.
Burger has given lectures, presentations, and master classes at the local, state, national, and international levels, including the National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy, MTNA Group Piano and Piano Pedagogy Forum, Hawaii International Conference on Arts and Humanities, the Milan Conservatory (Italy), UCSI University in Malaysia, and the Greek chapter of the International Society for Music Education in Thessaloniki. His peer-reviewed journal publications appear in the College Music Society Symposium and American Music Teacher.
Dr. Burger holds degrees in piano performance and economics from Northwestern University and the University of Texas. His primary studies were with Anton Nel, David Renner, and Sylvia Wang, as well as masterclasses with Claude Frank, John Perry, and Douglas Humpherys. He also gratefully acknowledges Marcia Bostis, Sophia Gilmson, and Martha Hilley for their deep influence on his teaching.
Originally from Bangkok, Piyawat Louilarpprasert is a Thai composer/artist who works interweave of composition, visual art and technology. Piyawat has been awarded commissions and prizes including Fromm Foundation Commission, Harvard University (USA), Hellerau Europäisches Zentrum der Künste Commission (Germany), Impuls Composer Commission 2025 (Graz), International Coproduction Fund (IKF)—Goethe Institut, ISCM/Asian Composer League Prize 2022 (New Zealand), Südwestrundfunk (SWR) Experimental Studio (Freiburg), MATA Festival (New York), Mizzou Composer Festival (Missouri), ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award 2018-20-21 (USA), Fritz Gerber Award, Lucerne Festival Commission 2021 (Switzerland), American Composer Orchestra-Aguascalientes Symphony Orchestra, Earshot Reading 2019 (USA), British Council Grants 2021: Connections Through Culture (United Kingdom), The Matan Givol International Composers Competition Winning Prize 2019 (Israel), Call for Scores Winner Northwestern University Conference 2021 (Chicago), Call for Scores Winner the 40th Annual Bowling Green New Music Festival 2019 (Ohio), Pro Helvetia Swiss Art Council (Switzerland), Japan Foundation Director Grants (Japan), The Charles Stewart Richardson Scholar Award and Commissions (Royal College of Music, UK), Unheard-of//Ensemble Multimedia Prize 2019, The Otto R. Stahl Memorial Award 2018 (USA), Sergei Slonimsky Composition Award 2018 (Russia), Léon Goossens Prize 2016 (UK), Princess Galyani Vadhana Youth Orchestra Award 2015 (TH), Young Thai Artists Awards, Young Composers in Southeast Asia Competition 2013 (Germany) and many more. In 2017, he was a composer in residence at KulturKontakt 2017 (AIR), Vienna, offered by the Austrian Federal Chancellery Austria. In 2019, his “Smelly Tubes” was featured in CNN News World: “Young and Gifted”. His recent work, “Ohm-Na-Mo” was commissioned by Donaueschinger Musiktage for 100 years celebration in 2021.
Piyawat’s music explores possibilities of creating the amalgamation of sonic and visual arts, including integrating multimedia and music, deconstructing instruments’ s mechanism and physicality with sound production method, and involving Thai traditional music elements in new compositions. Louilarpprasert’s compositions have been performed more than 20 countries in Asia, Europe and United States. His music has drawn attention in numerous music festivals such as Darmstadt New Music Festival (Germany), Lucerne Festival (Switzerland), MUSIIKIN AIKA – Time of Music (Finland), European Creative Academy, International Composition Residency (France), Saint Petersburg New Music Festival (Russia), Kulturkontakt Residency (Vienna), Gaudeamus Musikweek (Netherlands), China – ASEAN Music Week (China), London National Portrait (UK), Mozart of Tomorrow (UK), Musica y Arte: Correspondencias Sonoras (Spain), Asian Composer League (Japan) and Dian Red Kechil Young Composers Residency (Singapore). He collaborated with several established ensembles and orchestras such as Tacet(i), Alarm Will Sound, Berlin Philharmonic Horn Section and Horn Pure, American Composer Orchestra, Aguascalientes Symphony Orchestra, Arditti Quartet, International Contemporary Ensemble, Yarn Wire, Wet Ink, Lucerne Alumni Ensemble, Orkest Ereprijs, Oerknal!, Platypus, Reconsil, Quasars, Surplus, Mozaik, Switch Ensemble, ASEAN Contemporary Ensemble, Omnibus, University Cincinnati Chamber Players, University of Austin Texas Chamber Ensemble, Vienna Improvisor Orchestra, Royal Northern Sinfonia, Stockport Youth Orchestra, RCM Philharmonic Orchestra, Thailand Philharmonic Orchestra and more.
He holds a DMA in composition from Cornell University where he was awarded the Don Michael Randel Research Fellowship to conduct his new music course: P.I.Y. (Perform it Yourself) as well as degrees from Royal College of Music (M.M.), London and College of Music, Mahidol University (B.M.), Bangkok. Piyawat was previously a faculty member at Cornell University and Ithaca College.
More info: www.piyawatmusic.com
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Updated: 02/20/2025 10:56AM