Faculty Awards 2021: Catherine Losada

Music Theory Professor honored with George Rieveschl Jr. Award for Creative and/or Scholarly Works

Winner of this year’s George Rieveschl Jr. Award for Creative and/or Scholarly Works, Catherine Losada has been on the UC College-Conservatory of Music faculty as a Professor of Music Theory since 2004. One of the most notable aspects of Losada’s research, which often examines 20th-century music, is its ability to cross national, cultural and disciplinary divides.

Catherine Losada teaches Music Theory at CCM. Photo/Andrew Higley UC Creative + Brand

“Professor Losada’s work is perhaps best characterized as consistently transcending geographic and scholarly boundaries: She has published in multiple languages, expanding the reach of North American music theory to Europe, Asia and South America; she has effectively questioned and redefined entire areas of study within the discipline; and she has illuminated a path through which music theory can interact with critical music studies more broadly and the field of musicology in particular,” says Brian Moseley of the State University of New York at Buffalo.

In addition to serving on the editorial boards of Music Theory Online and the Journal of Music Theory, Losada has published over a dozen articles in a variety of journals and edited volumes. Her 2016 article on complex multiplication in Boulez’s Structures II, published in Music Theory Spectrum, won her the Society for Music Theory’s Outstanding Publication Award, the highest recognition of a publication in her field.

“My main research interest lies in understanding the musical traditions of recent times and developing methodologies to approach such music. My most recent projects study underlying connections between the mainstream European music that has been the focus of my research and aesthetic issues derived from world cultures that influenced this music,” says Losada.

Catherine Losada at the European Music Analysis Conference. Photo/Provided

In a time when more music scholars are turning toward studying non-European music and encouraging greater diversity of topics, Losada’s work has served as a shining example, both for its prescience and high quality of research.

“The recognition that my work has achieved by some of the most prominent scholars in Europe, Asia and Latin America, in addition to the United States, gives me great pleasure, because my aim has always been to build methodologies that draw from a broad range of scholarship and approaches,” Losada said.

Jonathan Kregor, head of CCM’s Division of Composition, Musicology, and Theory, said his colleague “embodies the best of what University of Cincinnati faculty can achieve as scholars and creators.” Losada credits UC’s support for research and its engaging student body with facilitating her work and continuing her own scholarly growth.

Losada holds a Bachelor of Music from Rutgers University, master’s degrees in music theory and oboe performance from the University of Michigan, and a PhD in music theory from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. She is currently a member of the Fulbright Specialist Roster and recently joined a new research project in Italy called “New Concepts of Harmony in Musical Composition, 1945-1975.”