Ithaca College

Ithaca College senior Michael Clark’s article on the music of Claude Debussy appears in the 2013 issue of Canadian music journal Nota Bene. 

Senior piano performance major Michael Clark’s essay Fleeting Fairy Footprints: Trails of Influence in a Debussy Prelude appears in the 2013 issue of Nota Bene: Canadian Journal of Undergraduate Musicology, now available for online consumption. Clark’s essay traces the sources of inspiration in Claude Debussy’s solo piano prelude Les fées sont d’exquises danseuses, connecting the composition to the illustrations of Arthur Rackham and the music of Carl Maria von Weber and Felix Mendelssohn.

Clark’s essay presents innovative research asserting the influence of Mendelssohn’s fairy sound on Debussy’s prelude. The essay was originally completed at Ithaca College in Spring 2012 as a term paper for History and Literature of Music III taught by Dr. Sara Haefeli.

Dr. Haefeli recommended that Clark submit his work for publication consideration in Nota Bene, a music periodical based at the University of Western Ontario that specializes in publishing undergraduate research in the field of music. Nota Bene receives paper submissions each November for publication the following year. Clark received notification of his essay’s acceptance in January and worked with a team of editors to revise and expand his work in last spring.

Michael Clark is senior piano performance major at Ithaca College from Bolivar, Missouri. He studies piano in the studio Jennifer Hayghe. Clark is a recipient of the James J. Whalen Talented Young Artist Award and the Peggy R. Williams Award for Academic and Community Leadership. He is also president of the Ithaca College Collegiate Chapter of Music Teachers National Association and is Chair of the Worship Committee for the Ithaca College Protestant Community. Clark is a member of Pi Kappa Lambda and Phi Kappa Phi.

“Nota Bene is a musicology journal developed by the Don Wright Faculty of Music at The University of Western Ontario. It seeks to publish essays of a high critical and rhetorical standard, written by undergraduate students from universities around the world. Essays in historical musicology, ethnomusicology, popular music studies and theory are all encouraged. Submissions are reviewed by a panel of editors from across Canada.” 

 ▶ Read Clark’s article online!