Rebecca Leydon

  • Professor of Music Theory

Areas of Study

Education

  • PhD, McGill University, 1996
  • MA, Eastman School of Music, 1991
  • BM, University Toronto, 1988

  • Leydon, R. (2018). Review: Yayoi Uno Everett, Reconfiguring Myth and Narrative in Contemporary Opera in JAMS 71/1 (April 2018)
  • Leydon, R. (2016). “Scelsi’s Pfhat: Apparitions of a Monumental Past.” https://sites.google.com/oberlin.edu/rvleydon/essays
  • Leydon, R. (2013). “Debussy Redux,” Music Theory Online Volume 19/2 (June 2013)
  • Leydon, R. (2012). “Clean as a Whistle: Timbral Trajectories and the Modern Musical Sublime,” Music Theory Online Volume 18/2.
  • Leydon, R. (2012). “Narrativity, Descriptivity, and Secondary Parameters: Ecstasy Enacted in Salvatore Sciarrino’s Infinito Nero,” in Michael Klein and Nicholas Reyland, eds, Narrative and Music Since 1900. Indiana University Press.
  • Leydon, R. (2010). “Recombinant Style Topics: Musical Form and the Logic of Sampling,” Sounding Out Pop: Analytical Essays in Popular Music. Mark Spicer and John Covach, eds. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
  • Leydon, R. (2005). “The Sounds of Early Cinema.” Book review in Journal of the American Musicological Society 58/1.
  • Leydon, R. (2004). “Forbidden Planet: Effects and Affects in the Electro Avant-garde,” in Off the Planet: Music, Sound, and Science Fiction Cinema, Philip Hayward, ed. London, Bloomington: John Libbey, Indiana University Press.
  • Leydon, R. (2004). “Hooked on Aetherophonics: The Day the Earth Stood Still,” in Off the Planet: Music, Sound, and Science Fiction Cinema, P. Hayward, ed. London, Bloomington: John Libbey, Indiana University Press.
  • Leydon, R. (2002). “‘Ces nymphes, je les veux perpétuer:’ The Post-war Pastoral in Spaceage Bachelor-Pad Music,” in Popular Music 22/2: 159-172.
  • Leydon, R. (2002). “Towards a Typology of Minimalist Tropes,” Music Theory Online 8.4.
  • Leydon, R. (2002). “The Soft-Focus Sound,” in Perspectives of New Music. 39/2: 96-107.
  • Leydon, R., K. Kärki, H. Terho, eds. (2002). Looking Back, Looking Ahead: Proceedings of the 11th Conference of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music. Turku, Finland: IASPM-Norden.
  • Leydon, R. (2001). “Debussy’s Late Style and the Devices of the Early Silent Cinema,” in Music Theory Spectrum, 23/2: 217-241.
  • Leydon, R. (2000). “Utopias of the Tropics: Les Baxter and Yma Sumac,” in Widening the Horizons: Exoticism in Post-War popular Music, Phil Hayward, ed. Bloomington: Indiana University Press: 45-71.
  • Leydon, R. (1996). “Narrative Strategies in Debussy’s Late Style,” PhD Dissertation, McGill University. UMI Dissertations.

Musical semiotics, 20th century music, music and visual culture, musical form, popular music, film music, and avant-garde practices.

Fall 2024

Music Theory I — MUTH 131
Polyphonies — MUTH 261PT

Spring 2025

Music Theory II — MUTH 132
Musical Grooves — MUTH 360