Madison Heying is a Teaching Fellow and PhD candidate in Cultural Musicology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her research focuses on electronic and experimental music. She is particularly interested in how technology shapes musical and compositional practices, and conversely, how musicians and composers craft, manipulate, utilize technology to suit their creative aims. Her dissertation explores these issues through a study of Carla Scaletti, the Kyma system, and the Kyma user community. She presented papers regarding her dissertation research at chapter meetings of the Society for Ethnomusicology and American Musicological Society, as well as the national conferences of the American Musicological Society and the Society for American Music.
Dissertation: "A Complex and Interactive Network: Carla Scaletti, Kyma, and the Kyma User Community"
Madison's research focuses on 20th-21st century electronic and experimental music. She is particularly interested in the interplay between how technology shapes musical and compositional practices, and conversely, how musicians and composers have crafted, manipulated, utilized technology to suit their creative aims. Her current research centers almost exclusively on the work of women.
2017 Prisms Contemporary Music Festival, Arizona State University. “Wonder: The Integration of Art and Science in the Music of Carla Scaletti” (Invited Speaker)
2017 Society for Ethnomusicology Annual Conference, Denver, Colorado. "The Technology of Connection: Carla Scaletti, Kyma, and Community Formation in Computer Music"
2017 Taller Música Algoríthmica, Querétaro, México. “Electronic Music and the Environment” (Invited Speaker/Co-organizer)
2017 Society for American Music Annual Conference, Montreal, Canada. “‘Hearing the Music of Our Spheres’ : Data Sonification and the Modeling of Complex Physical Systems in the Music of Carla Scaletti”
2017 Society for Ethnomusicology, Northern California Chapter. Stanford University. Palo Alto, California. "The Technology of Connection: Carla Scaletti, Kyma, and Community Formation in Computer Music"
2016 American Musicological Society Annual Conference, Vancouver, Canada. “The Coding of Community: Carla Scaletti, Kyma, and Community Formation in Computer Music”
2016 Astro-Bio-Geo-Physical Music, The Nief-Norf Research Summit, Knoxville TN. “‘Hearing the Music of Our Spheres’: Data Sonification and the Modelling of Complex Physical Systems in the Music of Carla Scaletti” (Selected)
2015 Minimalism Unbounded, Biannual Conference for the Society for Minimalist Music, Helsinki, Finland. “'I Trust I’ve Done Them No Harm': John Luther Adams’s Engagement with Native Alaskan Cultures" (Selected)
2015 Kyma International Sound Symposium, Bozeman, MT. “Generative Algorithms in AQULAQUTAQU”
2015 American Musicological Society Northern and Southern California Joint Chapter Meeting, San Louis Obispo, CA. “The Magic and Crudeness of the Electronic World: A Cyborg Reading of Laetitia Sonami’s Lady’s Glove” Dahl Award Finalist
2015 Eureka! Musical Minds of California, Santa Cruz, CA. “The Musicologist as Computer Programmer: How learning Kyma Has Informed My Study of Carla Scaletti”
2015 Hearing Landscapes Critically, Boston, MA. “The Dilemma of the ‘Out-of-Town Composer:’ John Luther Adams’s Engagement with Native Alaskan Cultures”
Arts Division Summer Fellowship
Arts Dean's Fund for Excellence, (2017, 2015)
Outstanding TA Award, (2016)
UCSC Regent's Fellowship, 2013
Ethnomusicology/Musicology Student Research Scholarship, 2012
Courses Taught:
The History of Sound Art (Winter 2017)
Electronic Music History (Summer 2016, Fall 2016, Summer 2017, Fall 2017)
The History of Western Art Music, The Romantic Era (Spring 2016)
Music 101: Classical Music Survey (Spring 2012)