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 of
Music at McGill University. He has active research in three primary streams: 18th and early
19th-century Formenlehre and the study of Beethoven’s compositional processes through
his sketches, the history of music theory, and the analysis of music of music that challenges
supposed aesthetic boundaries, such as Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story (1957). In
these streams, he has submitted two articles for publication in leading music theory
journals and have presented 9 papers at 17 conferences, including conferences in
Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Italy, and at the annual conferences of the American
Musicological Society (2019) and the Society of Music Theory (2017, 2019, and 2020). He
was awarded two Best Student Paper awards, one in music theory and another in
musicology for work drawn from his study of Leonard Bernstein’s music for West Side
Story. He holds a B.M. in Piano Performance, a B.A. in Physics and Astrophysics summa
cum laude, and a dual concentration M.M. in Piano Performance and Music Theory from
the 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.