Season 3, Episode 16: Our Season Finale!

Philip Ewell has, in recent years, become the most controversial music scholar on the planet. After his incisive work on music theory’s white racial frame was unfairly attacked by fellow academics, he was suddenly thrust into the national spotlight, as right-wing news outlets targeted him as part of a broader backlash. A discussion about what it means to be caught up in the Culture Wars, racism in music scholarship, and how Dr. Ewell has grappled with it all.

Philip Ewell is professor of music theory at Hunter College of the City University of New York.

If you’re interested in learning more about Dr. Ewell’s work, check out:

• The new book On Music Theory, and Making Music More Welcoming for Everyone (University of Michigan Press)
• A 2023 article on anti-Blackness and music education in The Conversation
• The 2020 article “Music Theory and the White Racial Frame” in Music Theory Online
• The 2020 blog series Confronting Racism and Sexism in American Music Theory
• The 2020 article “Harmonic Functionalism in Russian Music Theory: A Primer” in Theoria
• The 2019 introduction to a Music Theory Online  symposium on Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly

Sound Expertise is hosted by Will Robin (@seatedovation), and produced by D. Edward Davis (@warmsilence). Please subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, and/or Spotify. Questions or comments? Email soundexpertise00 @ gmail

A written transcript of this episode is available here; thanks to Andrew Dell’Antonio for volunteering to prepare transcripts for the show!