Conference Information

Seventeenth Annual Conference

Ball State University, Muncie, IN, 12-13 May, 2006, 2006

General Information

This year's meeting of Music Theory Midwest is to be held Friday, May 12 - Saturday, May 13 at Ball State University in Muncie, IN.

The program committee, chaired by Julian Hook (Indiana University), has selected a very interesting group of papers. Topics range from a session on Medieval and Renaissance Music to four sessions on Twentieth-century Music featuring composers such as Copland, Bartok, Aperghis, Ginastera, Rochberg, Crumb, Schoenberg, and Debussy. Two sessions address temporal issues: Time and Unity in Tonal Music; and Brahms and Metric Conflicts. Two sessions -- one on Wagner, and the other on Intervals, Transformations, and Tonnetze -- round out the program.

Keynote Abstract

Our keynote speaker will be Gregory Proctor (Ohio State University), and he will speak on "Real and Apparent Simplicity in Musical Explanation, Occam's Razor and Music-theoretic Wormholes."

Location

The conference will take place in the Music Instruction Building, which is on the southeast corner of McKinley and Riverside Aves. A map of the Ball State University campus is available at www.bsu.edu/map/.

Conference Events

The banquet will be held Saturday evening at 6:30 in downtown Muncie, about two miles from campus, at Vera Mae's Bistro, 209 South Walnut St. Cost of the dinner is $25, including tax and gratuity; there will be a cash bar. Those who wish to attend the banquet will need to choose in advance between the two entrees: (1) grilled chicken with a red-pepper cream sauce, and (2) individual portobella mushroom Wellington with a red-wine reduction (vegetarian).

Travel

By plane: The closest commercial airports to Muncie are in Indianapolis (~75 minutes' drive); Dayton, Ohio (~90 minutes); and Ft. Wayne (~120 minutes). For the most part, those flying should count on renting a car and driving themselves to Muncie. Some limited transportation from the Indianapolis airport may be available. Contact Eleanor Trawick, chair of the Local Arrangements Committee, for further information.

By car, from the west or northwest: Take I-70, I-74, or I-65 to Indianapolis. Follow the directions below.

By car, from Indianapolis and the south: Take I-69 north (actually northeast) from Indianapolis to Exit 41. Turn right from the on-ramp onto SR-322, which will become McGalliard Avenue in town. At the fourth traffic light, turn right onto Tillotson Avenue. To reach the Best Western Inn, turn right at the next light (Bethel Ave.) and you will soon come to the hotel on your left. To reach Ball State University, continue on Tillotson and at the second traffic light turn left onto Riverside Ave., which leads directly to campus and to the Music Instruction Building.

By car, from Ohio and the east: Take I-70 into Indiana to Exit 149, and get onto US-35 north (actually northwest). When you reach the outer edge of Muncie, stay on US-35 as it joins with SRs 3 and 67 north to form the Muncie bypass. Go all the way to the north side of town, and turn left onto McGalliard Avenue. Follow McGalliard past Walnut St. and Wheeling Ave. to Tillotson Ave., which is at the Ball State football stadium. Turn left onto Tillotson and follow the directions above.

Parking and Transportation Within Muncie:
Visitor parking tags will be included in the registration packet. Those driving straight to the conference site should initially park in the parking garage just south of the Music Instruction Building and pay for short-term parking there; or, alternatively, one can find two-hour parking on various side-streets south and east of the Music Instruction Building.

Some limited van transportation will be available between the Best Western Inn and the conference site; contact Eleanor Trawick for more information. Alternatively, the #16 bus runs between the Best Western Inn and the conference site and costs 50 cents. It is suggested that conference attendees carpool to the banquet on Saturday night; some limited van transportation to and from the banquet will also be available.

Accommodations

There are blocks of rooms booked in two different hotels for the conference. Ten rooms (mostly non-smoking, some with 1 king bed and some with 2 twins) are at the Student Center Hotel on campus: 765-285-1555, reference # 3552, rates of $48 or $54, must be booked by May 1. Twenty-five rooms (mostly non-smoking) are at the Best Western Inn about a mile and a half away: 765-282-0600, reference #G 00016-13, rates of $57 or $65, must be booked by April 11. The street address of the Best Western Inn is 3011 West Bethel.

Some hotel rooms are available at the hotel in the Student Center Building, which is on the southwest corner of McKinley and University Aves.

Some limited, no-cost housing in people's homes is available for graduate students. For information, contact Melissa Hoag, mkorte@indiana.edu

Local Information

Local Arrangements Chair: Eleanor Trawick (Ball State University)

Local information

Program Committee

Julian Hook (Indiana University), Chair

Online Program

The online program can be found here once it is available.