Richard Beaudoin

Associate Professor

Appointments

Associate Professor of Music

Biography

Richard Beaudoin analyzes audio recordings, investigating the expressive rhythm of sounds made by the performer's body, their instrument, and the recording medium itself. His book Sounds as They Are (Oxford University Press, 2024) includes chapters on sounds of breath, sounds of touch, sounds of effort, surface noise, and inclusive track analysis (ITA). His research contributes to the fields of music theory, analytic aesthetics, and sound studies.

He comes to Dartmouth after having taught music theory and composition at Harvard University (2008–16) and having held posts as Valentine Visiting Professor of Music at Amherst College (2005–06) and Visiting Research Fellow at the Royal Academy of Music, London (2016–17).

He has given invited lectures at the Paris Conservatoire, Vienna's Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst, Cambridge University's Centre for Music and Science, The Schweizerische Musikforschende Gesellschaft at the Hochschule Luzern, London's Royal Academy of Music, The University of York, The United States Consulate Shanghai Division, The Shanghai Conservatory of Music, East China Normal University, The Steinhardt School at New York University, Harvard University, Yale University, Tufts University, Boston University, Berklee College of Music, and The New England Conservatory. Published articles have appeared in Music Theory Online, Journal of Music Theory, Journal for the Society for American Music, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Perspectives of New Music, Organised Sound, Divergence Press, and the Journal of the CeReNeM.

His microtiming research is also used to create new music: iconic recordings are transcribed in minute detail, then treated as a palimpsest, forming a parchment over which original material is added. His music has been heard at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Wiener Konzerthaus, Laeiszhalle Hamburg, Brucknerhaus Linz, Schwetzinger SWR Festspiele, New York's Weill Recital Hall, Carnegie Hall Citywide, The Kitchen, Boston's The Institute for Contemporary Art, The Calderwood Pavilion, Sanders Theatre, Jordan Hall, and in London at the Royal Festival Hall, Duke's Hall, The Forge, The Arcola Theatre, Wilton's Music Hall, Pushkin House, King's Place, and the Royal Academy of Music. Commissions include the Konzerthaus Dortmund, Staatstheater Kassel, the President of Harvard University, Sound Icon, and Boston Lyric Opera.

His instrumental music has been performed by Claire Chase, Roomful of Teeth, Rohan de Saram, Neil Heyde, Boston Lyric Opera, the Kreutzer Quartet, the Chiara String Quartet, Sound Icon, Transient Canvas, Mark Knoop, Colin Davin, Constantine Finehouse, Wolfram Rieger, Ulrich Naudé, Jan Philip Schulze, Philip Howard, Carl Rosman, Peter Sheppard Skaerved, and Marilyn Nonken. His vocal music has been sung by Annette Dasch, Dashon Burton, Estelí Gomez, Joseph Kaiser, Annika Sophie Ritlewski, Frank Kelley, and Kevin Burdette. His music has been recorded by Claire Chase and Roomful of Teeth (Another Woman of Another Kind), Mark Knoop and the Kreutzer Quartet (Microtimings), and Neil Heyde and Rohan de Saram (Digital Memory and the Archive).

Education

Ph.D. in Music Theory and Composition, Brandeis University

MMus in Music Composition, The Royal Academy Music, London

B.A. in Music, Amherst College (summa cum laude)

Publications

Beaudoin, Richard. 2024. Sounds as They Are: The unwritten music in classical recordings. New York: Oxford University Press.

Beaudoin, Richard. 2023. "Micro-temporal Measurements of Two Early Debussy Recordings as the Foundation for New Music." In Early Recordings: Academic Research and Creative Practice, edited by Eva Moreda Rodriguez and Inja Stanovic. London: Routledge.

Beaudoin, Richard. 2022. "Dashon Burton's Song Sermon: Corporeal Liveness and the Solemnizing Breath." Journal of the Society of American Music 16 (1): 1–23.

Beaudoin, Richard. 2021b. "The Pen as Camera: Finnissy and Overexposure." Music Theory Online 27.3.

Beaudoin, Richard. 2021a. "Gould's Creaking Chair, Schoenberg's Metric Clarity." Music Theory Online 27.1.

Beaudoin, Richard. 2020. "After Ewell: Music Theory and 'Monstrous Men'." The Journal of Schenkerian Studies 12 (1): 129–132.

Beaudoin, Richard, and Danick Trottier. 2013. "Conceiving Musical Photorealism." Perspectives of New Music 51 (1): 174-195.

Beaudoin, Richard, and Neil Hyde. 2013. "The Handless Watch: On Composing and Performing Flutter echoes." CeReNeM: Journal of the Centre for New Music Research 3: 7–20.

Beaudoin, Richard, and Andrew Kania. 2012. "A Musical Photograph?" Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 70 (1): 115-127.

Beaudoin, Richard. 2010. "You're There and You're Not There: Musical Borrowing and Cavell's 'Way'." Journal of Music Theory 54 (1): 91-105.

Beaudoin, Richard, and Joseph Moore. 2010. "Conceiving Musical Transdialection." Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 68 (2): 105-117.

Beaudoin, Richard. 2007b. "Anonymous Sources: Finnissy Analysis and the Opening of Chapter Eight of The History of Photography in Sound." Perspectives of New Music 45 (2): 5-27.

Beaudoin, Richard. 2007a. "Counterpoint and Quotation in Ussachevsky's Wireless Fantasy." Organised Sound 12 (2): 143–151.

Selected Lectures & Presentations

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY, Queens' College, Cambridge, UK, 14 October 2024: "Inclusive Track Analysis" Lecture given in the Munro Room, Old Court, presented by Queens' Music and Sound Studies

THE ROYAL ACADEMY OF MUSIC London, UK, 11 October 2024: "Reading and Writing Recordings" Lecture given in York Gate Building

NECMT ANNUAL CONFERENCE [Northeast Conference of Music Theorists], Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, 20 April 2024: Keynote address titled “Inclusive Track Analysis”

AMS ANNUAL CONFERENCE [American Musicological Society], Denver, Colorado, 9 November 2023: “Sound, Sex, and Somaesthetics" [session title: Gender & Voice on Record]

IIICON: INSTRUMENTS, INTERFACES, INFRASTRUCTURE Harvard University, 13 May 2023: “Wax Cylinder Music: Surface Noise as Fluttering Wings in Anna Krushelnytska’s Ukrainian Lament” [session: Noisy Interfaces]

THE ROYAL ACADEMY OF MUSIC London, UK, 10 Mar 2023: “Dialogues with Recordings: Digital Memory and the Archive” Lecture-concert devoted to my music, presented with Professor Neil Heyde and Yanyan Lin in the Angela Burgess Recital Hall at the Royal Academy of Music, London

UNIVERSITÄT FÜR MUSIK UND DARSTELLENDE KUNST WIEN Vienna, Austria, 6 Mar 2023: “On Sounds as They Are” Lecture at the Institut für Musikwissenschaft und Interpretationsforschung [seminar: (New) Organologies: Theories of Bodies and Instruments]

TUFTS UNIVERSITY Medford, Massachusetts, 14 Feb 2023: “On Sounds as They Are” [MUS 165: Sound Studies and Sound Art]

SMT/AMS/SEM 2022 CONFERENCE New Orleans, Louisiana, 12 Nov 2022: “On Sounds as They Are” [Society of Music Theory's Music & Philosophy Interest Group session devoted to my forthcoming book]

NAMING, UNDERSTANDING, AND PLAYING WITH METAPHORS Toronto, Canada (held virtually), 29 Apr 2022: “Mars, Blemishes, and Indexed Taboos: Recasting Noise Metaphors in Recording Analysis” [A symposium hosted by the UCLA PEER Lab & Durham University Music Department; session: Casting the Voice]

SMT/AMS 2021 CONFERENCE (held virtually), 4 Nov 2021: “‘We like no noise unless we make it ourselves’: Music Theory’s (Insidious) Norms” [session title: Whose Voices? Epistemic Injustice and Exclusion in Music Academia, convened by the Committee on Accessibility and Disability]

DIALOGUES: ANALYSIS & PERFORMANCE Toronto, Canada (held virtually), 7 Oct 2021: “Dashon Burton’s Song Sermon: Corporeal Liveness and the Solemnizing Breath” [session: Who and What Counts?]

SMT/AMS 2020 CONFERENCE Minneapolis, Minnesota (held virtually), 14 Nov 2020: “Microtiming the Marginal: The Expressive Rhythm of ‘Insignificant Noises’ in Recordings by Claire Chase, Evgeny Kissin, and Maggie Teyte" [session: Analyzing Recordings]

SMT 2019 CONFERENCE Columbus, Ohio, 10 Nov 2019: “Beethoven Overexposed: From Source to Sketch to Autograph in Michael Finnissy’s The History of Photography in Sound” [session: From the Source]

EARLY RECORDINGS: PAST PERFORMING PRACTICES IN CONTEMPORARY RESEARCH Pushkin House, London, UK, 22 Jun 2019: “Early Recordings as New Music: Microtiming, Transcription, and Composition in Richard Beaudoin’s Digital Memory and the Archive” talk given with Professor Neil Heyde of the Royal Academy of Music and Rohan de Saram, Distinguished Guest Artist

THE PARIS CONSERVATOIRE [Conservatoire national supérieur de musique et de dance de Paris], 21 & 22 Mar 2019: "Le microminutage et la technique de l’emprunt dans ma musique" [Two invited lectures presented in French to the course Analyse musicale B (Professor Yves Balmer)] 
 
SMT/AMS 2018 CONFERENCE San Antonio, Texas, 4 Nov 2018: “Solti Recording Time in Mahler: Microtiming and Phrase Rhythm Annotations in Two Conducting Scores of the Fourth Symphony” [session: Recorded Sound]  
 
UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA Vancouver, British Columbia, 6 Mar 2018: “Microtiming as a Compositional Material” at the conference Microtiming and Musical Motion

SMT/AMS 2016 CONFERENCE Vancouver, British Columbia, 5 Nov 2016: “Creaking Chairs and Metric Clarity: Microtiming Glenn Gould Recording Schoenberg Op. 19/1” [session: Performing Meter] 
 
THE LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS London, UK, 2 Jun 2016: "The tenor, the vehicle, the naked base" at the conference The Transformation of Rhetoric in the 21st Century 
 
UNITED STATES CONSULATE The Shanghai American Center, Shanghai, China, 12 May 2015: "What Makes Music Beautiful?" Hosted by The U.S. Consulate General Shanghai Public Affairs Section 
 
EAST CHINA NORMAL UNIVERSITY Shanghai, China, 8 May 2015: "Linear Analysis of Lieder by Schubert and Schumann" part of the research program Study on Chinese and Western Modern Music from Perspective of Semiotics 
 
SHANGHAI CONSERVATORY OF MUSIC Shanghai, China, 6 May 2015: “Composition and Microtiming”  
 
HARVARD UNIVERSITY Cambridge, Massachusetts, 20 Jan 2015: "Microtiming: Borrowing, Measuring, Composing", part of "Sensing the Data" for the FAS Group Expanding the Boundaries of Authorship  
 
THE UNIVERSITY OF YORK York, UK, 4 Jun 2014: “Recent Developments in Microtiming as a Compositional Material" 
 
HARVARD UNIVERSITY Cambridge, Massachusetts, 26 Mar 2013: “Writing Across Music” as part of the Seminar Series Rethinking Translation 
 
HOCHSCHULE LUZERN MUSIK Lucerne, Switzerland, 3 May 2012: "On the Art of Composing with Micro-Temporal Data" at the Schweizerische Musikforschende Gesellschaft 
 
THE CENTRE FOR MUSIC AND SCIENCE at UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE Cambridge, UK, 23 Mar 2010: “Some Account of the Process of Microtiming and Musical Photorealism”

Contact

Richard.A.Beaudoin@dartmouth.edu

603.646.1391

Sudikoff Lab, Room 218

HB 6187