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Maureen Carr

Distinguished Professor, Music Theory
Headshot of Penn State Distinguished Professor of Music Maureen Carr
Contact
mac4@psu.edu
814-863-4412
230 Music Building I

Maureen A. Carr is a Distinguished Professor of Music and recipient of the Faculty Scholar Medal for Outstanding Achievement in the Arts and Humanities, teaching undergraduate and graduate music theory.

A scholar of the music of Igor Stravinsky, Carr has studied his manuscripts and other documents extensively at the Stravinsky Archive of the Paul Sacher Stiftung in Basel, Switzerland, as well as archival collections at the Library of Congress and Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, D.C., the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center in New York City, and various archives in Paris and London.

Her works examining Stravinsky’s use of Neoclassicism include Multiple Masks: Neoclassicism in Stravinsky’s Dramatic Works on Greek Subjects and her most recent book, After the Rite: Stravinsky’s Path to Neoclassicism (1914–1925). She is also the editor of Stravinsky’s Histoire du soldat: A Facsimile of the Sketches and Stravinsky’s Pulcinella: A Facsimile of the Sources and Sketches (winner, Citation of Special Merit from the Society for Music Theory). She is currently under contract with Oxford University Press for another project tracing Bach’s influence in Stravinsky’s later works: After Apollo: Stravinsky’s Path Through the Models of Bach (1929–1965). Another project, The Rite at 100, co-edited with Severine Neff, Gretchen Horlacher, and John Reef, was honored with the American Musicological Society’s Ruth A. Solie award. A chapter on The Rake’s Progress appears in the Oxford Handbook of Faust in Music (ed. Fitzsimmons/McKnight). Carr also has several articles in the forthcoming Cambridge Stravinsky Encyclopedia (ed. Campbell/O’Hagan).

She has lectured on Stravinsky at a wide range of venues, most recently at the NOVA University Lisbon (Portugal), the University of Massachusetts Amherst, the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, the China Conservatory of Music in Beijing (China), the University of Huddersfield (UK), Queen’s University (Belfast, UK), the University of Surrey (UK), Furman University (South Carolina), and the University of Strasbourg (France).

Carr is author with Bruce Benward of the fifth, sixth and seventh editions of the book Sight Singing Complete, and the most recent eighth edition with her PSU colleagues Taylor Greer, Eric McKee, and Phillip Torbert, published by McGraw-Hill in 2015.

Carr holds a B.A. from Marywood College; an M.F.A. from Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey; and a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. She received the inaugural Penn State College of Arts & Architecture Barbara O. Korner Faculty Award for Outstanding Service in 2019, the Ruth Solie Award for The Rite at 100 from the American Musicological Society (AMS) along with fellow editors Severine Neff and Gretchen Horlacher in 2018, and was also awarded with the Society for Music Theory (SMT) Lifetime Membership Award in 2017. She also received an Outstanding Teaching Award from the Penn State College of Arts and Architecture in 1995 and the Penn State Faculty Scholar Medal for the Arts and Humanities in 2005 and was named Penn State Distinguished Professor in 2008, recognizing her exceptional teaching, research, creativity, and service to the University community. She was named a Distinguished Alumna by Rutgers University Graduate School in 2009 and the University of Wisconsin at Madison School of Music in 1998 and was a recipient of the Marywood University Alumni Association’s Business/Professional Achievement Award in 2004.

  • Education
    • BA from Marywood College
    • MFA from Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey
    • PhD from University of Wisconsin
  • Courses Taught
    • Music Theory
  • Publications + Presentations

    BOOKS

    2017

    • The Rite of Spring at 100
      Edited by Severine Neff, Maureen Carr, and Gretchen Horlacher With John Reef
      Foreword by Stephen Walsh
      Indiana University Press, 2017
      ISBN: 978-0-253-02420-6
      When Igor Stravinsky’s ballet Le Sacre du printemps (The Rite of Spring) premiered during the 1913 Paris season of Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, its avant-garde music and jarring choreography scandalized audiences. Today it is considered one of the most influential musical works of the twentieth century. In this volume, the ballet finally receives the full critical attention it deserves, as distinguished music and dance scholars discuss the meaning of the work and its far-reaching influence on world music, performance, and culture. Essays explore four key facets of the ballet: its choreography and movement; the cultural and historical contexts of its performance and reception in France; its structure and use of innovative rhythmic and tonal features; and the reception of the work in Russian music history and theory.

    2014

    • After the Rite: Stravinsky’s Path to Neoclassicism (1914–1925)
      Maureen Carr
      Oxford University Press, 2014
      ISBN-10: 0199742936
      ISBN-13: 978-0199742936
      Traces the evolution of Stravinsky’s compositional style as he searched for his own voice in the explosive musical world of the early 20th century as he responded to harsh criticisms of his early work. New transcriptions and sophisticated analyses of selected musical sketches show the genesis of Stravinsky’s musical ideas as he forayed into surrealism, classicism, and abstraction to develop his signature Neoclassical style.
    • Sight Singing Complete, 8th ed.
      Maureen Carr, Bruce Benward with Taylor Greer, Eric McKee, and Phillip Torbert
      McGraw Hill Higher Education, 2014

    2010

    • Stravinsky’s Pulcinella: A Facsimile of the Sources and Sketches
      Edited by Maureen Carr
      This volume contains all of the known musical sources and sketches for Stravinsky’sPulcinella (1919–1920) representing over 250 facsimile pages from the combined holdings of the Paul Sacher Stiftung (Basel) and the British Library (London) with invited essays by Lynn Garafola, Ulrich Mosch, Jeanne Chenault Porter and Richard Taruskin. This publication was enhanced by the research of the late Barry Brook and by an appendix of song texts in the Neapolitan dialect by Dale Monson. ISBN 0-89579-643-0 (10 digit)
      ISBN 978-0-89579-643-1 (13 digit)

    2006

    • Sightsinging Complete
      Maureen Carr and Bruce Benward
      Designed for the sightsinging component of the freshman and sophomore music major curriculum.
      McGraw-Hill, 2006 (7th ed.)
      ISBN-10: 069705845X
      ISBN-13: 978-0697058454

    2005

    • Stravinsky’s Histoire du soldat: A Facsimile of the Sketches
      Maureen Carr
      This edition contains all of the existing musical sketches for Stravinsky’s Histoire du soldat (1918), representing over 250 facsimile pages from the combined holdings of the Paul Sacher Stiftung (Basel) and the Rychenberg Stiftung in Winterthur.
      A-R Editions, Inc., 2005
      ISBN: 0-89579-579-5

    2003

    • Multiple Masks: Neoclassicism in Stravinsky’s Works on Greek Subjects
      Maureen Carr
      A study of Igor Stravinsky’s creative process for Oedipus Rex, Apollo, Pers√©phone, and Orpheus through his musical sketches and other documents‚Äîscenarios, librettos, correspondence, reviews, and philosophical commentaries, as well as previously uncited sources for Stravinsky’s book Poetics of Music.
      University of Nebraska Press, 2003
      ISBN-10: 0803214766
      ISBN-13: 978-0803214767
  • Expertise
    • Music Theory