Roe-Min Kok

My interests lie primarily in identifying and analyzing specific cultural frameworks through which music is/was created, received, understood, and discussed, with the premise that culture-specific elements are inherent, even inescapable, in any work of art. I studied musicology, ethnomusicology and cultural anthropology, receiving my Ph.D. in 2003 with a dissertation about representations of romantic childhood in Robert Schumann's music, which contextualized close analyses of primary sources within the social and cultural history of childhood (supervisor: Christoph Wolff). With Susan Boynton, I edited Musical Childhoods and the Cultures of Youth (2006). Rethinking Schumann, a collection of eighteen new essays showcasing Anglo-American approaches to Schumann studies, appeared with Oxford University Press in January 2011. Currently I am working on a monograph about folklore and children’s music in romantic Germany with the support of a three-year Standard Research Grant from SSHRC, and preparing an edition of Kreisleriana Op. 16 for the Neue Robert Schumann Ausgabe. My research and supervision areas include Robert and Clara Schumann, German romantic discourse and constructions of childhood, gender studies, music and ideologies of empire, early romantic performance practice, and colonial music education in postcolonial and globalized contexts.

Professional Activities

Committees

Editorial Board, Journal for the History of Childhood and Youth; Co-Chair, American Musicological Society Committee for Cultural Diversity; Interdisciplinary Initiatives Committee, German Studies Association; Implementation Committee, Institute for the Public Life of Arts and Ideas, McGill University; Corresponding Member for Canada, Centre for the History of Music in Britain, the Empire and Commonwealth (Bristol, U.K.). Past Member-at-Large and Nominations Committee Member of the American Musicological Society Council.

Conference presentations and colloquia

American Musicological Society, International Musicological Society, International Conference on Nineteenth-Century Music, Society for Ethnomusicology, Royal Musical Association, Gesellschaft für Musikforschung; themed conferences in Italy, Greece, Germany, U.K., and U.S.A; invited colloquia in U.S.A., U.K., Germany, and Switzerland.

Schumann Bicentenary Talks (2010)

Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Canada (March); Universität Leipzig, Germany (April); University of Southampton, U.K. (July); Mount Allison University, Canada (October); AMS Indianapolis, U.S.A. (November); Universität Basel, Switzerland (December).

Grants 

Standard Research Grant, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (2010-2013); British Academy Visiting Fellowship (2007); Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst Summer Fellowship, Cornell University (2007); Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Conference Grant, British Council, and German Consulate-General Travel Grants for the international conference “New Paths: Robert Schumann, 1848-1856” (McGill University, September 2006).

Publications (selected)

Books

Rethinking Schumann, ed. Roe-Min Kok and Laura Tunbridge. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.

Musical Childhoods and the Cultures of Youth, ed. Susan Boynton and Roe-Min Kok. Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press, 2006.

Book Chapters

“Schumann’s Choral Music,” in Nineteenth-Century Choral Music, ed. Donna Di Grazia. Routledge Studies in Musical Genres. General Editor: R. Larry Todd. New York: Routledge, forthcoming.

“Music for a Postcolonial Child: Theorizing Malaysian Memories,” in Musical Childhoods and the Cultures of Youth, eds. Susan Boynton and Roe-Min Kok. Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press, 2006. 89-104. Reprinted in Learning, Teaching, and Musical Identity: Voices across Cultures. Ed. Lucy Green. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2011. 73-90.

“Who was Mignon? What was she? Popular Catholicism and Robert Schumann’s Requiem für Mignon Op. 98b,” in Rethinking Schumann, eds. Roe-Min Kok and Laura Tunbridge. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. 88-108.

Journal articles

“Negotiating Children’s Music: New Evidence for Schumann’s ‘Charming’ Late Style.” Acta musicologica LXXX/1 (2008): 99-128.

“Falling Asleep: Schumann, Lessing and Death in a Wunderhorn Lullaby.” Studien zur Wertungsforschung 48 (2007): 236-72.

“Of Kindergarten, Cultural Nationalism and Schumann’s Album for the Young.” The World of Music 48/1 (2006): 111-33.

Editions

Neue Robert Schumann Ausgabe III/1/4: Klavierwerke 4. Kreisleriana Op. 16. Mainz: Schott, projected 2013.

Felix Mendelssohn: Herr Gott, dich loben wir. First edition. Stuttgart: Carus-Verlag, 1996.  

Handbook entries

“Klaviermusik (Gattung, musikalische)”; “Hilary Hahn”; “Liza Lim”; “Midori”; “Younghi Pagh-Paan”; “Miki Yui” in Lexikon Musik und Gender, ed. Annette Kreutziger-Herr and Melanie Unseld. Kassel and Stuttgart: Bärenreiter Metzler, 2010. 226-28, 276, 340-41, 368-69, 425-26, 533-34.

 “Fantasie C-Dur op. 17,” in Robert Schumann: Interpretation seiner Werke, ed. Helmut Loos. Laaber, Germany: Laaber-Verlag, 2006. Vol. 1, 99-105.

Book reviews

Erika Reiman, Schumann’s Piano Cycles and the Novels of Jean Paul. 19^th Century Music Review 2/2 (2005): 182-186.

John Daverio, Crossing Paths: Schubert, Schumann, and Brahms. Music & Letters 86/1 (February 2005): 135-139.

Conference proceedings

“Schumann im anglophonen Kontext,” in Robert Schumann: Persönlichkeit, Werk und Wirkung: Bericht über die Internationale Musikwissenschaftliche Konferenz vom 22. bis 24. April 2010 in Leipzig, ed. Helmut Loos. Leipzig: Gudrun Schröder Verlag, 2011. 434-42.

“Family and Gender in Imaginative Children's Music.” Instrumental Music and the Industrial Revolution: International Conference Proceedings, Cremona, 1-3 July 2006. Eds. Roberto Illiano and Luca Sala. Bologna: Ut Orpheus Edizioni. Ad Parnassum Studies 5, 2010. 269-277.

“Märchen-Musik,” in Übergänge: Zwischen Künsten und Kulturen, Internationaler Kongress zum 150. Todesjahr von Heinrich Heine und Robert Schumann. Eds. Henriette Herwig, Volker Kalisch, Bernd Kortländer, Joseph A. Kruse and Bernd Witte. Stuttgart and Weimar: J.B. Metzler, 2007. 337-46.