Ithaca College

Les Black, associate professor in the School of Music, presented a paper at the Fifth International Jean Sibelius Conference, held at Worcester College, in Oxford England. The presentation follows the recent appearance of another paper in the collection "Sibelius in the Old and New World."

The Oxford paper was entitled, "Musical Narrative as a Tale of the Forest in Sibelius's Opus 114."  It has been selected for inclusion in a future conference report.  The article contributed to the book was one of a handful selected from the papers presented at the Fourth International Sibelius Conference held in 2005 at the University of North Texas in Denton. That paper, "Symmetry as Modal Abstraction: The Evolving Language of Sibelius's Violin Concerto," was the third in a series presentations dealing with folk song and modality in Sibelius's music.  Professor Black is currently on sabbatical, gathering materials for a book on modality and symmetry in Sibelius's music.