Mark McFarland

Foundation Studies: Theory and Composition

Mark McFarland received his Ph.D. in music theory from the University of California at Santa Barbara, where he studied with Pieter van den Toorn. He also studied at the Université François-Rabelais de Tours with the late Jean-Michel Vaccaro. He is a former president of the South-Central Chapter of the Society for Music Theory.

He has delivered papers on Stravinsky, Debussy, Milhaud, Brubeck, Bill Evans, Holst, Vaughan Williams, theories of musical influence and the tonal jazz repertory at regional, national and international conferences in England, Canada, Belgium, Finland, Serbia, Russia and Italy. His articles and reviews appear in journals including The International Journal of Musicology, Cahiers Debussy, Theoria, Music Theory Spectrum, The Journal of Music Theory, Jazz Perspectives, Music Theory Online, Notes, The Journal of Schenkerian Studies, Les Cahiers de la Société québécoise de recherche en musique and Ad Parnassum. Dr. McFarland wrote the “Igor Stravinsky” entry for the Oxford Bibliography Online: Music as well as the “pianola” entry for The Cambridge Stravinsky Encyclopedia.

Dr. McFarland is the recipient of both a GSU Research Initiation Grant and  School of Music Summer Research Grants, which allowed him to deliver papers at international conferences and conduct archival research on Stravinsky at the Paul Sacher Stiftung in Basel, Switzerland. The results of these research trips appear as articles in the journals Studi Musicali and La Revue de Musicologie.

Dr. McFarland recently presented a paper at the West Coast Conference of Music Theory and Analysis’ Steve Larson Memorial Conference held at the University of Oregon at Eugene. This paper was published under the title “Schenker and the Tonal Jazz Repertory: A Response to Martin” in the Festschrift honoring Steve Larson in Music Theory Online. He also presented a paper at the international conference «L’héritage de Claude Debussy: du rêve pour les générations futures» held at the Université de Montréal that celebrated the 150th birth year of the composer. His paper was published as a chapter in the proceedings of this conference, Debussy’s Resonance. He also presented his paper “Stravinsky as Analyst: The Firebird and Petrushka” at the international conference “Rethinking Stravinsky” at the Università degli studi di Salerno. This paper comprises a chapter in the proceedings of the conference, Igor Stravinsky: Sounds and Gestures of Modernism.

Most recently, Dr. McFarland has published a book entitled The Musical Relationship between Claude Debussy and Igor Stravinsky with the University of Rochester Press.

A horn player, Dr. McFarland studied with Jim Thatcher and published an interview with his former teacher in The Horn Call. He can be heard on the upcoming Centaur compact disc of chamber works by Robert Muczynski.