WILLIAM MASON CV
rev. Jan 2024


ACADEMIC EMPLOYMENT

2022-
Wheaton College
Associate Professor of Music

2018-2022
Wheaton College
Assistant Professor of Music

2017-18
Oberlin Conservatory of Music
Visiting Instructor of Music Theory

2015
New York University, Steinhardt School     
Adjunct Instructor of Music Theory


EDUCATION

2019
Columbia University
PhD, Music Theory

Dissertation: “Feeling Machines: Timbre, Expression, and Technological Embodiment in French Spectral Music”

Advisor: Ellie Hisama
Committee: George Lewis, Benjamin Steege, Mariusz Kozak, Jennifer Iverson

2013
Columbia university
MA, Music Theory

2010
Oberlin Conservatory of Music
BMus, Contemporary Improvisation
Principal teachers: Billy Hart, Jamey Haddad, Wendell Logan, Brian Alegant, Rebecca Leydon

Oberlin College
BA, Political Science


RESEARCH AND TEACHING INTERESTS

music technology and technics, embodied cognition, microtonal music, timbre, music as labor in the age of the internet and artificial intelligence, musical modernisms and postmodernisms, improvisation, music theory pedagogy


PUBLICATIONS

2024

Review: Body and Force in Music: Metaphoric Constructions in Music Psychology, by Youn Kim
Journal of Music Theory, Vol 68 no 1


2023 (Online)
2024 (print)
Oxford Handbook of Spectral Music
Co-edited with Amy Bauer and Liam Cagney 
New York: Oxford University Press
Anticipated print publication 2024

2022

“Introduction”
in Oxford Handbook of Spectral Music
co-written with Amy Bauer and Liam Cagney

“Expression and Technologies of Perception in Zosha DiCastri & David Adamcyk’s Phonobellow (2015).
in Oxford Handbook of Spectral and Post-Spectral Music

2020

“Haas, Georg Friedrich.” Grove Music Online.
ed. Deane L. Root. www.oxfordmusiconline.com


DISCOGRAPHY

2020
Michi Wiancko - Planetary Candidate. New Amsterdam Records. includes my composition Rime for solo violin

Happy Place - Tendrils. Exit Stencil Records composer, drums + electronics, bandleader

2016
Happy Place - Northfield. Exit Stencil Records composer, drums + electronics, bandleader

2015
Will Mason Ensemble - Beams of the Huge Night. New Amsterdam Records.
composer, drums + electronics, bandleader


PRESENTATIONS

2023
Spectralism and the Computer
Guest lecture, 20th Century Music, Prof. Sarah Iker
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, MA

Music meets Web 3.0: Assessing the Holly+ Decentralized Autonomous Organization
Music and the Internet (University of Chicago)
Chicago, IL

Holly, Plus Whom?: The Holly+ Deepfake and Musical Labor Under Artificial Intelligence
Instruments, Interfaces, Infrastructures (Harvard University)
Cambridge, MA

2022
Some Embodied Poetics of EQ and Compression
Society for Music Theory Annual Meeting (jointly with American Musicological Society and Society for Ethnomusicology)
New Orleans, LA

2021
Invited presentation: Georg Friedrich Haas and the French Spectral School
“Spectralism and After” course, Prof. Mischa Salkind-Pearl
Boston Conservatory at Berklee College of Music, Boston MA

2020
Invited keynote: “Metaphors of Construction in the Recording Studio.”
University of Connecticut Graduate Music Forum
Storrs, CT

2019
“Workshop: Teaching Timbre in the Aural Skills Curriculum”
Pedagogy Into Practice: Music Theory Pedagogy Conference
Santa Barbara, CA

“Locating the Afrological in the Acousmatic Music of Matana Roberts”
Society for American Music annual meeting
New Orleans, LA

2018
“Vocal Synthesis and Figural Narratives in Grisey’s Les Chants de l’Amour
Society for Music Theory Annual Meeting
San Antonio, TX

“New Amsterdam Records: An Oral History” (Invited panelist)
New Music Gathering
Boston, MA

2017
“French Spectralism’s Technological Legacy in DiCastri and Adamcyk’s Phonobellow
American Musicological Society Annual Meeting
Rochester, NY

“Liminal Spaces in Georg Friedrich Haas’ limited approximations
Society for Music Theory Annual Meeting
Arlington, VA

“Hugues Dufourt and the ‘Subject’ of Computer Music”
Spectralisms
Oxford University, Oxford, UK

2016
“Genesis of formal and narrative structures in Grisey’s Les Chants de l’Amour
Paul Sacher Foundation
Basel, Switzerland

2015
“Affect in contemporary electroacoustic music: A perspective from embodied cognition”
NUNC2: Northwestern University New Music Conference
Northwestern University, Evanston, IL

“Some theoretical properties of 72-tone equal temperament and their realization in Georg Friedrich Haas’ limited approximations
Music Theory Society of New York State
Binghamton University, Binghamton, NY

2014
“Collaborative Learning in the Music Theory Classroom and Lab”
Pedagogy workshop at Columbia University
Columbia University, New York, NY

“Grisey and the Posthuman Voice”  
Gérard Grisey, the Spectral Moment, and its Legacy
McGill University, Montréal, QC, Canada

“Sonic Transgression in Recent Extreme Metal Music”
Music Theory Society of New York State.
Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY


FELLOWSHIPS, GRANTS, AND AWARDS

2023
MacColl Johnson Fellowship Finalist

2022
Rhode Island State Council for the Arts in support of compositions for cello, percussion, electronics, and two pianos in 29-tone just intonation

2019
Mellon Foundation / UNH Center for Humanities Seed Grant Grant to mount a concert and roundtable conversations in Maine featuring Somali immigrants, and to document those concerts for the web
Mellon Foundation / UNH Summer Institute for the Public Humanities
Participated in week-long training for humanities scholars to craft and execute public humanities projects

2018
Wheaton College Library Technology and Learning Committee Grant

Puffin Foundation West Grant is for artistic projects thematizing social or environmental justice

2017
GSAS Teaching Scholars University-wide fellowship to design and teach the course “Music and Technology in Critical Perspective”
2016
Paul Sacher Stiftung Scholarship three month fellowship to study the manuscripts of Gérard Grisey
2014-16
Barker Endowed Fellowship, Columbia University Honorary fellowship awarded via nomination by music department faculty; awarded fellowship two years in a row
Columbia University Lead Teaching Fellowship
H.S. Gerstle Travel Grant


SERVICE

2024
Chair, Society for Music Theory Award for Diversity in Course Design adjudication committee
Chair, Northeast Conference of Music Theorists program committee

2023
Society for Music Theory Award for Diversity in Course Design adjudication committee member
Wheaton College Music Department Chair
Wheaton College Director of Performance Program
Honors thesis advisor: electroacoustic art song cycle
Wheaton College Provost Advisory Committee, Chair

2022
Wheaton College Music Department Chair
Wheaton College AAUP, Vice President
Wheaton College Provost Advisory Committee, Chair
Honors thesis advisor: Dett, Beach, Ives, and American Identity in Art Song
Search committee member, Vice President of Marketing, Wheaton College
External reviewer, UC Davis promotion dossier
Q+A and concert with Anna Webber. Organizer and moderator, Wheaton College
Q+A and concert with andPlay string duo. Organizer and moderator, Wheaton College
Faculty advisor, Wheaton Music Cooperative (ongoing)

2021
SMT Scholars for Social Responsibility Interest Group program committee
Wheaton College Curriculum Committee
Wheaton College First Year Experience Steering Committee
Wheaton College Writing subcommittee, Educational Policy Committee.
Music department colloquium series organizer and chair (Ongoing)
Music technology lab fundraising

2020
Wheaton College Music Department Anti-Racism task force (with Matthew Allen)
Q+A and presentation with Courtney Bryan. Organizer and moderator, Wheaton College
Q+A and presentation with Matthew Morrison. Organizer and moderator, Wheaton College
Q+A and presentation with Marc Hannaford. Organizer andmoderator, Wheaton College
Wheaton College Writing subcommittee, Educational Policy Committee.

2019
Project Spectrum faculty mentor (ongoing)
Faculty advisor, Wheaton Radio Station and Recording Club (ongoing)
Faculty advisor, Wheaton Music Cooperative (ongoing)
Program committee member, New England Conference of Music Theorists 2019
Peer reviewer, Music Theory Online
Peer reviewer, Music Theory Spectrum
Honors thesis committee member, Wheaton College
Q+A and presentation with Paula Harper. Organizer and moderator, Wheaton College
Q+A and concert with Tyshawn Sorey. Organizer and moderator, Wheaton College
Q+A and presentation with Asha Tamirisa. Organizer andmoderator, Wheaton College
Music theory curriculum redesign, Wheaton College

2018
Q+A with Steve Lehman. Organizer and moderator, Oberlin Conservatory
Q+A with Caroline Shaw. Organizer and moderator, Oberlin Conservatory

2015
Columbia Music Theory Pedagogy Group Founder and Chair 2012-2015
New York Music Theory Pedagogy Study Group Member 2015-2017
Current Musicology Reviews Editor 2015-2016 Solicited and edited reviews for a special issue titled Race, Sound, and Technology “Women Music Power” Conference, Symposium Performance Manager 2015
Current Musicology Editorial Board Member 2011-2017


SELECTED PERFORMANCES AND COMMISSIONS

2022
Happy Place at Roulette (Brooklyn NY)
Happy Place in concert presented by WUOL Louisville KY

2020
Somali Independence Day Celebration and Roundtable Discussions, Portland ME Organized and documented; funded through UNH/Mellon Foundation grant

2018
Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project: Will Mason (solo electronics concert)
Will Mason Electroacoustic Quintet at Roulette (Brooklyn, NY)
With Charlotte Mundy, Matt Mitchell, Miles Okazaki, and Greg Chudzik
Soo. Noolaynta Dhaqanka Soomaaliyeed (Rebirth of the Somali Culture) Co-curator and co-organizer; performed songs in collaboration with local Somali musicians and poets in Portland ME. Raised over $4,000 for Somali Mainer Youth Network Nouveau Classical Project - ‘Larsen C’ for chamber ensemble 2018 Co-commission with NCP and the Puffin Foundation

2016
Michi Wiancko - ‘Rime’ for solo violin 2016
Premiered at Art of Elan & Villa Musica, San Diego CA

2015
Will Mason Ensemble at Le Poisson Rouge (NYC) 2015
Mannes College: The Music of Will Mason 2015 Performance of my compositions by the Mannes College The New School for Music jazz ensemble, which I coached for a week

TEACHING EXPERIENCE

Wheaton College


Music Technology I: Music for Fixed Media
Music Technology II: Interactive electronic music
First year seminar: Sing The Body Electric: Making and Consuming Music in the Digital Age
Music Theory I, II, III, IV
Musicianship Through Improvisation
Jazz Ensemble and Advanced Jazz Combo
Seminar: Musical Modernisms and Postmodernisms
Seminar: Analytic Approaches to Western Music
Seminar: Tonality at the Fringes
Senior seminar: Music and/as labor
First year seminar: What Is Music? (Co-taught with Professor of Psychology Kate Eskine)
First year seminar: Mind, Evolution, Culture (with Professor of Literature Tom Dolack)

Independent studies: Max/MSP and instrument building; composition of electroacoustic art songs setting poems by Emily Dickinson; analysis of art songs by Ives, Beach, and Dett; advanced music production and recording; corpus analysis of Thelonious Monk compositions; intersections of analysis + performance in Chopin preludes op 28

Oberlin Conservatory

General Music Theory: “Music of Today” (survey course for non-majors, focused on music by six living composers as a foil for looking at broader trends in contemporary music. Composers were: Caroline Shaw, Kaija Saariaho, Tyshawn Sorey, John Luther Adams, Liza Lim, and Matana Roberts)

Music Theory III: Chromatic Harmony

New York University, Steinhardt School

Graduate Review of Tonal Theory


SELECTED GRADUATE COURSEWORK

Interactive Sound and Video, Terence Pender
Tonal Analysis, Alfred Lerdahl
Set Theory, Joseph Dubiel
Musical Improvisation: Philosophy and Aesthetics, George Lewis
Media and Technology, Brian Larkin
Microtonality, Georg Friedrich Haas
Analysis of Popular Music, Ellie Hisama
Music 1900-1950, George Lewis
Music 1950-Present, Alfred Lerdahl
Schenkerian Analysis, L. Poundie Burstein
Advanced Analysis, Joseph Dubiel
Modal Counterpoint, Peter Schubert
Proseminar in Music Theory, Benjamin Steege
Proseminar in Music Theory, Joseph Dubiel
Proseminar in Historical Musicology, Karen Henson
History of Music Theory, Benjamin Steege