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Lofthouse and Alegant are deciphering the organizational principles of the music of Luigi Dallapiccola.
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Professor and Student Collaborate under McGregor-Oresman Grant to Research 12-Tone Music
By Anne Paine
12
Faculty Members and Their Students to Conduct Research under McGregor-Oresman
Grants
SEPTEMBER 26, 2000--Mention the job title "student assistant," and many people imagine a young apprentice in a white coat, assisting a science professor at a lab table.
That's accurate enough, but it's just one of many scenarios taking place at Oberlin. Over the last four years, the McGregor-Oresman Program has greatly expanded the number of student assistants working in the humanities and social sciences. Of the 88 assistantships awarded through the program to date, 65 have been in the humanities and social sciences.
Through the program, student assistants have collaborated with faculty members on scientific and scholarly research, revising course materials, designing course web sites, and integrating technology into the curriculum. Others have served as teaching or editorial assistants. A new grant from the McGregor Fund will allow the program to continue for four more years.
The work of Brian Alegant, associate professor of music theory, and his McGregor-Oresman student assistant, Marcus Lofthouse, a senior from Billings, Montana, exemplifies the close collaboration and rich opportunities the program makes available to both sides of the research team.
Alegant is researching the organizing principles of the 12-tone music of Luigi Dallapiccola, an Italian composer who lived from 1904 to 1975, in preparation for a forthcoming book. He received a McGregor-Oresman grant to hire Lofthouse for the summer of 1999, and a second grant this past summer allowed the pair to continue their collaboration.
"Marcus did fabulous work two summers ago in the area of 12-tone music theory," says Alegant. "One of his initiatives was to design and implement a computer program that generates musical objects with certain properties. Much to our delight, he stumbled upon an area of research that is entirely uncharted--he discovered a host of extremely rare configurations that are completely unknown to music theorists. It's technical, but suffice it to say that he discovered arrangements of notes that, for all intents and purposes, are akin to 'musical fractals.'"
During their collaboration this summer, Lofthouse refined his computer algorithm, confirmed that all the configurations had been enumerated, classified the configurations, and analyzed their characteristics. He and Alegant also prepared an article for submission to a music-theory journal.
"Being able to go beyond what is done in the classroom has been extremely valuable," says Lofthouse, a composition major who intends to pursue graduate work in music theory and composition. "In our work together, Dr. Alegant is able to teach at my level of knowledge, and we go far beyond what is taught in the conservatory's four modular theory courses or the 20th-century theory course. There's just not time to cover all this material in a standard class. Sometimes what we're doing boggles my mind, and that's the beauty of having Dr. Alegant there. He can explain complex theory to me. It has expanded my horizons in musical analysis and composition."
Alegant emphasizes that the joint work has been invaluable to both partners.
"Our collaboration has furthered my own understanding of Dallapiccola's scores and compositional techniques," he said, "and it has provided an exciting musical and scholarly opportunity for Marcus that will strengthen his application to graduate school."
David Love, associate vice president for research and development, sees the benefits of the student-assistant program in broader terms.
"One of the greatest strengths of the McGregor-Oresman Program is its ability to encourage faculty development and curricular innovation while providing professionally relevant and engaging assistantships to students," Love says. "The assistantships build on the close faculty-student collaboration that characterizes a liberal arts education, and the collaborations that take place through this program transform faculty members from judges into colleagues and mentors."
The McGregor-Oresman Program was begun at Oberlin in 1997 with a $75,000 grant from the McGregor Fund that was matched by Donald Oresman '46. Assistantships are awarded to faculty members on the basis of competitive application. In June, the College received a grant of $100,000 from the McGregor Fund to continue the program through May 2004.
This story originally appeared in the September 2000 issue of the News of the Century, Oberlin's campaign newsletter.
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