Upcoming Projects
Research
• . Book series: Together with Prof. Giorgio Sanguinetti (University of Rome - Tor Vergata), Dr. Burton is Series Editor for Italian Theoretical Treatises, part of Pendragon Press’s Harmonologia: Studies in Music Theory. There will be an initial publication of three volumes—Padre Martini’s 1775 Esemplare (vol. 2), Fedele Fenaroli’s c. 1800 Regole, and Bonifazio Asioli’s 1836 Il maestro di composizione—translated into English and fully annotated for the modern reader, to be completed within five years. She hopes that, after these initial three volumes, the series will continue with annotated English translations of Pier Francesco Tosi’s Opinioni de' cantori, Saverio Valente’s Manoscritti di partimenti (unpublished), and the first volume of Francesco Galeazzi’s Elementi Teorico-pratici di Musica (1791).
• An annotated translation of Padre Martini’s 1775 Esemplare (volume 2) for the series Italian Theoretical Treatises (Pendragon).
• Visiting Scholar, American Academy of Rome: In order to research the above-cited volume on Padre Martini, Dr. Burton has been offered a Visiting Scholar position at the American Academy of Rome in June 2014.
• Contributor to a new volume on opera analysis, co-edited by Gregory Decker and Matthew Shaftel.
Teaching
• Collaboration with MIT: As coordinator of the undergraduate Aural Skills program at Boston University, I am committed to providing the students with the best of both traditional and tech-forward training methods. As such, I have initiated plans with Prof. Michael Cuthbert, director of MIT’s Music 21 Lab, who has been developing cutting-edge music software that greatly enhances the aural skills learning environment. Together, we are planning a collaboration, to be implemented the next two to three years, in which both students and instructors in BU’s aural skills program will help develop a template for innovative new software. Music21 is a foundational library of software tools that can analyze music data at a basic level, using MusicXML or six other standard data formats. They will build aural skills learning applications employing the Music21 Application Program Interface (API), and customize them using teaching techniques developed over years of classroom experience. At present, Music21 can, among other tasks, write Braille music notation, search for strings of notes or chord progressions, check for errors in voice-leading, follow a musical score, compare a single live melody to a written version (which is very useful in sight-singing classes) and it can play back random themes from stored database (useful for musical dictation). The educational potential of this collaboration is very exciting and—while not replacing traditional teaching techniques—this technology can facilitate learning in innumerable ways. For more information about Music21, please see http://mit.edu/music21.
• Electronic classroom resources: I will continue to foster classroom use of electronic resources, such as the ear-trianing program Auralia, and Ipad/Iphone Apps Symphony Pro, ProKeys, Ear Trainer, Karajan, Solfi Ear Trainer Pro, Harmonic Ear Trainer and Rhythm Sight Reading Trainer. There are more Apps developed every day and I hope to be working further with the Dean of the College of Fine Arts in gaining increased access for the Aural Skills Program to Ipads and other platforms.
• New courses: In Spring 2012, 2013 and 2014 I taught a graduate course, MU710: Special Topics: Understanding Opera, which has been quite popular. I hope this will become accepted as a regular course offering. In future incarnations of the Special Topics course, I hope to develop a course on theories of Rhythm and Meter, as well as more narrowly focused courses on specific composers (Mozart, Verdi, Puccini, Wagner) and their repertoire.