Katherine Syer

Assistant Professor of Musicology
on leave 2009-2010 academic year

B.A. (Economics), B.A.(Music) and M.A.(Music), McMaster University; Ph.D. (Musicology), University of Victoria.

Katherine Syer’s main research areas include opera production history and the music and aesthetics of the Romantic era. She specializes in the stage works of Richard Wagner, and her work with sketches is part of an overarching concern with the creative process. Syer is co-editor of a Companion to Richard Wagner’s Parsifal (Boydell and Brewer/Camden House Press, 2005). Her contributions to the volume include tracing the production history across several continents, considering dozens of productions from 1882 until the 21st century. In another chapter she examines motivic handling, tonal structure, and large-scale dramatic shape. These issues are central to a current book project, Altered States, a study of the metaphorical significance of early nineteenth century psychology for Wagner’s early and ongoing musico-dramatic experiments. Another book concerns the production history of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen, with an emphasis on theatre and reception history of the last 30 years. This project is supported by the Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung; Syer was based in Munich for the academic year 2007-8, affiliated with the Bayerische Akademie der schönen Künste, and she will return as a Humboldt-Stipendiatin for 2009-2010.

Syer regularly leads seminars on Wagner in conjunction with the Wagner Festival at Bayreuth, Germany, and often lectures for various opera societies. Her research in the area of production history overlaps with dramaturgical work for staged productions. She served as artistic advisor for Moisés Kaufman’s new play 33 Variations, which was performed in workshop at UIUC before premiering in Washington D.C. in August of 2007. The play premieres on Broadway in March of 2009. Syer’s book chapter on Wagner’s early influence as Regisseur will appear in the volume Wagner and his World, edited by Tom Grey (Princeton University Press, 2009), and her research and writings on recent Wagner productions have been featured in several issues of The Wagner Journal. Other recently published articles include one concerning Beethoven’s “Eroica” sketchbook (Landsberg 6) in Bonner Beethoven-Studien 5 and a critical study of Peter Konwitschny’s Munich production of Tristan und Isolde in Tristania. Her reviews have been published in The Journal of Musicological Research, Notes, and Music and Letters. Syer’s research has been supported by the UIUC Research Board, DAAD, and Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.