2025 MusCan Conference

Kudos to the many Faculty of Music participants at the 2025 MusCan Conference which was hosted by the University of Waterloo. Prof. Rea Beaumont (Piano) presented the paper “‘Shattered Ice’ and Arctic Connections: The Musical Manifestations and Experiential Perspectives of Performing Virtuosic Program Music”; Prof. Carolyne Sumner (Musicology) presented “Canadian Foreign Policy and Transatlantic Cultural-Musical Exchanges during the 1970s.” Graduate students presentations included Evan Chan with “Is this GenAI or Human? An Experimental Pilot Study on Distinguishing Between AI-Generated and Human- Composed Music”, Emily McCallum with “Entanglements of Music and Industry: Railway Musical Societies c. 1900-1920”, Daria Michirin with ”Ambiguous Thematic Functions in the Scherzo of Robert Schumann’s Piano Sonata Op. 14", Daniella Kistemaker with “A Typology of Argentine Tango Anacruses from 1890s-1955”, and Kirsten Whittle with “Listening to Anne Elliot: Music, Speech, and Silence in Persuasion” Prof. Pei-Chen Chen (Piano) and Mengjie Xiong performed in concert “From Near to Far: Soundscapes for Piano Duet. Prof. Robin Elliott (Musicology) delivered the Keynote Address, “Canadian Music Studies and/under the Second Trump Presidency.”