John Curtis Franklin
Assistant Professor, Classics
University of Vermont
481 Main Street
Burlington VT 05405

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Current Academic Interests   

Music archeology and archeoacoustics; Aegean and Ancient Near Eastern cultural history from the Early Bronze Age through the Classical period; epic, lyric and wisdom poetry; song culture and oral tradition; pre-Socratic philosophers; Indo-European and Near Eastern contexts of Aegean culture, including Hellenic transitions in Iron Age Cyprus, Anatolia and Philistia; Old, New, and Roman Comedy with reception; performance criticism; South-Slavic heroic song; Greek traditional music, incl. rembetiko; music technology, esp. modular synthesis and experimental acoustics.

Higher Education

Degrees

10/96–8/02    Ph.D., Classics, University College London.

9/93–6/95    M.A., Classics, University of Washington (Seattle).

9/84–6/88    B.M(us)., Composition, New England Conservatory of Music.

Other

7/97    Erasmus Foundation Summer Program at the University of Siena.

3/95–6/95    University of Washington Rome Program, intensive study of Roman topography.

7/91–6/93    Postbaccalaureate study of Classics, University of Washington.

6/88–8/88    Aspen Music Festival.

9/87–9/88    Student Member, Media Lab M.I.T.

1/84–5/84    Berklee College of Music.

Teaching Experience

8/06–present    Assistant Professor of Classics, University of Vermont.

2/99–4/99    Postgraduate Lecturer, Department of Greek and Latin, University College London.

9/95–6/96    Greek and Latin tutoring by referral form the Department of Classics, University of Washington.

9/93–6/95    Teaching Assistant, Department of Classics, University of Washington (Seattle).

9/91–12/91    Piano and guitar instruction, Seattle Hebrew Academy.

Research Fellowships and Other Institutional Affiliations

9/07–6/10    Declined: Junior Research Fellowship (three-year), Jesus College, Oxford.

9/05–6/06    Fellow, Center for Hellenic Studies, Washington D.C.

2004    Declined: Visiting Fellowship, Institute for Classical Studies, London.

11/03–6/04    Visiting Scholar, Department of Classics, University of Sydney.

9/02–6/03    Multi-Country Fellow, Council of American Overseas Research Centers (CAORC). Held in conjunction with the American School of Classical Studies in Athens, the Cyprus American
Archaeological Research Institute (Nicosia), and the American Research Institute in Turkey (Ankara branch).

9/02–6/03    Broneer Fellow, American School of Classical Studies in Athens.

9/00–8/02    Rome Prize Fellow (two-year), American Academy in Rome.

9/99–12/99    Frankfort Fellow, The Warburg Institute, London.

9/96–6/99    Overseas Research Studentship (ORS): three year award for doctoral research at University College London.

9/93–6/95    Five-year Teaching Assistantship, University of Washington (two years completed).

Other Awards

4/98    UCL travel grant for colloquium on Philodemus De musica, organized by the Philodemus Project in Paris and Chantilly.

9/97    UCL travel grant for colloquium with Professor Kilmer at University of California Berkeley, Department of Near Eastern Studies.

9/92–6/93    Greenfield Scholarship, for postbaccalaureate study of classics, University of Washington (Seattle).

8/88    BMI (Broadcast Music Incorporated) award for music composition, Aspen Music Festival.

Other Academic Employment

1–3/08    Narrator of and academic advisor/musical contributor to a three-part series on Greek music for ArtsEdge (the National Arts and Education Network), an online educational program run by the
John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington, DC (http://artsedge.kennedy-center.org). Features selections from Clouds and Cyprosyrian Girl (see below). Invited.

10/04–3/05    Freelance academic editing, incl. for the American Schools of Oriental Research, and P. Richards, Black Heart: The Moral Life of Recent African-American Letters (New York, Peter Lang, 2005).

11/97–9/00    Researcher and ‘contributing editor’ for a variety of projects with Erich Segal, including The Death of Comedy (see below) and Oxford Readings in Menander, Plautus and Terence (Oxford, 2001).

2/98–2/99    Researcher, Oxford Marine Research (Oxford): compiled database of historical shipwrecks.

Doctoral Dissertation

Terpander: The Invention of Music in the Orientalizing Period. Advisor, Richard Janko. Examiners, Nick Lowe (internal, Royal Holloway) and Walter Burkert (external, Zürich).

Published Work (* = peer reviewed)

[Books]

[Contributions to *E. Segal, The Death of Comedy (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard, 2001).]

[SoftSplice Digital Audio Editor User Guide (Bellevue, Washington: Digital Expressions, Inc., 1994).]

Articles / Book Chapters

*“Dictionaries & Encyclopedias of Music. II.1 To the 15th Century”, in S. Sadie (ed.), The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition (London, 2001), s.v. Revision of first edition article by J. Coover, who had since died, and whose name remains first: his original discussion of the Medieval period is largely unchanged; I rewrote the section on antiquity.

*“Diatonic Music in Greece: A Reassessment of its Antiquity”, Mnemosyne 56.1 (2002), 669-702.

*“Harmony in Greek and Indo-Iranian Cosmology”, The Journal of Indo-European Studies 30.1/2 (2002), 1-25.

*“Musical Syncretism in the Greek Orientalizing Period”, in Hickmann, E./Eichmann, R./Kilmer, A. (eds.), Archäologie früher Klangerzeugung und Tonordnungen. Studien zur Musikarchäologie 3 (Rahden, 2002), 441–51.

*“Aristophanes Clouds: A Reconstruction” (short paper, metrical translations of Aristophanic choral lyrics, and CD selections), in Hickmann, E./Eichmann, R./Kilmer, A. (eds.), Archäologie früher Klangerzeugung und Tonordnungen. Studien zur Musikarchäologie 3 (Rahden, 2002), 661–4. Proceedings of biennial meeting.

*“The Language of Musical Technique in Greek Epic Diction”, Gaia. Revue interdisciplinaire sur la Grèce archaïque 7 (2003), 295-307.

*“‘Once More the Poet’: Keats, Severn and the Grecian Lyre”, Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome 48 (2003), 227-240. Republished in *The Keats-Shelley Review 18 (2004).

*“Structural Sympathies in Ancient Greek and South Slavic Heroic Singing”, in Hickmann, E./Eichmann, R. (eds.), Musikarchäologische Quellengruppen: Bodenurkunden, mündliche Überlieferung, Aufzeichnung. Studien zur Musikarchäologie 4 (Rahden, 2004).

CD-Jacket notes for Musica Romana, Mesomedes (2004). See also below under Original Music.

*“Hearing Greek Microtones”, in Hagel, S./Harrauer, Ch. (eds.), Ancient Greek Music in Performance. Wiener Studien Beiheft 29 (Vienna, 2005), 9–50 (with CD selections).

*“The Wisdom of the Lyre: Soundings in Ancient Greece, Cyprus and the Near East”, in Hickmann, E./Eichmann, R. (eds.), Musikarchäologie im Kontext: Archäologische Befunde, historische Zusammenhänge, soziokulturelle Beziehungen. Serie Studien zur Musikarchäologie 5 (Rahden, 2006), 379–98.

*“Lyre Gods of the Bronze Age Musical Koine”, The Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions 6.2 (2006), 39–70.

“Orientalism in Ancient Greek Music: The Role of Cyprus”, in CAARI News 31 (Winter, 2006), 10–11 (newsletter of the Cyprus American Archaeological Research Institute).

*“‘A Feast of Music’: The Greco-Lydian Musical Movement on the Assyrian Periphery”, in Collins, B. J./Bachvarova, M./ Rutherford, I. (eds.), Anatolian Interfaces: Hittites, Greeks and Their Neighbors. (Oxford, Oxbow, 2007), 193–203.

“The Global Economy of Music in the Ancient Near East”, in Westenholz, J. G. (ed.), Sounds of Ancient Music (Jerusalem, Keter Press, 2007), 27–37.

*“Realizations in Ancient Greek Music: Beyond the Fragments” (with CD selections), in Hickmann, E./Eichmann, R./Both, A. A. (eds.), Serie Studien zur Musikarchäologie 6 (Rahden, in press).

*"'Song-Benders of Circular Choruses': Dithyramb and the ‘Demise of Music’”, in Wilson, P./ Kowalzig, B. (eds.), Song Culture and Social Change: The Contexts of Dithyramb (Oxford, OUP, in press).

“Ancient Near Eastern Music” and “Ancient Greek Music”, ABC-Clio World History Encyclopedia (Santa Barbara, in press).

Works in Progress (invited, contracted or near completion only):

Books

The Middle Muse (under contract, Oxford). The editors have provisionally approved publishing this study in two volumes. Working titles: I. International Styles in Ancient Near Eastern Music. II. Eastern Approaches to Early Greek Music (or Mesopotamian Echoes in Early Greek Music).

Articles / Book Chapters

*“The Sumerian Model of Musical Management”, in Sounds from the Past: Music in the Ancient Near East and Mediterranean Worlds (Jerusalem, forthcoming). Conference proceedings, invited.

“Epicentric Tonality: The East Face of Ancient Greek Music”, for submission to Wiener Studien.

“Kinyras: Lordly Lyre of Cyprus”, for submission to Syria.

“South-Slavic Heroic Melody: Towards a New Method of Analysis”.

“Music”, “Aulos” and “Phorminx” for Finkelberg, M. (ed.), The Homer Encyclopedia (Blackwell, forthcoming 2009).

Review of A. Barker, The Science of Harmonics in Classical Greece (Cambridge, 2007), forthcoming in Mnemosyne.

Conference Papers and Other Lectures

Upcoming

Lecture at Willamette University (March 2009)

Proposed conference on Music in the Ancient Near East, The Oriental Institute, University of Chicago (March, 2009, pending institutional approval).

Music in Sumer and After: International Conference of Near Eastern Archaeomusicology. British Museum, December 4–6, 2008.

Lecture on ancient music at the Smithsonian, September 2008.

Invited lecture on music archeology at Tufts, Fall 2008.

Musical Perceptions Past and Present: On Ethnographic Analogy in Music Archaeology: 6th Symposium of the International Study Group on Music Archaeology. Ethnologisches Museum, Berlin, September 9-13, 2008.

Delivered

“Eastern Approaches to Ancient Greek Music”, Jerusalem, Bible Lands Museum (Jan. 2008).

“The Epicentric Arrangement of the Archaic Heptachord”, Ionian University, Corfu, Greece (Jul. 2007).

“Introduction to Ancient Greek Music”, Vermont Classical Languages Association meeting (October, 2006).

"Realizations in Ancient Greek Music: Beyond the Fragments", Fifth of the International Study Group on Music Archaeology, Berlin (September, 2006).

“The East Face of Ancient Greek Music”, Center for Hellenic Studies, Washington DC (May 2006).

“Computer Media and the Realization of Ancient Music”, Emory University (March 2006).

“Computer Media and the Realization of Ancient Music”, Center for Hellenic Studies, Washington DC(February 2006).

“The East Face of Ancient Greek Music”, Bryn Mawr (Sept. 30, 2005).

"Dithyramb and the 'Demise of Music'", Song Culture and Social Change: The Contexts of Dithyramb (Oxford, 2004).

“Lyre Gods, East and West”, Boston University (April 2, 2004).

"Lyroscopy in Greece, Cyprus and the Ancient Near East", Fourth Symposium of the International Study Group on Music Archaeology, Michaelstein, Germany (September, 2004).

"A 'Feast of Music:' Assyria, Lydia, and the Asiatic Kithara", Hittites, Greeks and their Neighbors in Ancient Anatolia, Emory University, Atlanta, (September 2004).

“Terpander and the ‘Asiatic Kithara’”, University of Sydney (April 29, 2004).

"Hearing Greek Microtones", Performing Ancient Greek Music Today, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna, September/October 2003).

“The Orientalizing Period in Greek Music”, the Cyprus American Archaeological Research Institute, Nicosia (February, 2003).

"Musical Sympathies in Ancient Greek and South-Slavic Heroic Song", Third Symposium of the International Study Group on Music Archaeology, Michaelstein, Germany (June, 2002).

“The Melic Revolution: Assyria, Greece and the Seven-Stringed Lyre”, American Academy in Rome (January, 2002).

“The Melic Revolution: Assyria, Greece and the Seven-Stringed Lyre”, University of Manchester (U.K.) (January, 2002).

“The Orientalizing Period in Greek Music”, American Academy in Rome (March, 2001).

"Syncretism and the Greek Musical Genera" and "Aristophanes Clouds: A Musical Reconstruction", at the Second Symposium of the International Study Group on Music Archaeology, Michaelstein, Germany (September, 2000).

“Harmony and Indo-European Cosmology”, at The Warburg Institute, London (November, 1999).

“Harmonia and Yoga: Cognate Sciences?”, Eleventh UCLA Indo-European Conference (June, 1999).

“Recomposing the Music of Aeschylus’ Choephori”, King’s College London (February, 1999).

“Terpander and the Harmonic Circle”, University College London (June, 1997).

Declined

Iraqi embassy, Washington D.C. (Nov. 2006).

“Homer and Terpander”, Ionian University, Corfu, Greece (July 6-7, 2005).

Professional Memberships

2007–present    MOISA: International Society for Study of Ancient Greek and Roman Music and its Cultural Heritage. http://moisasociety.org/

2000–present    Hartkerngruppe, International Study Group for Music Archaeology (Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, Orient-Abteilung). http://www.musicarchaeology.org/

2006–present    Classical Association of New England.

2006–present    Vermont Classical Languages Association.

2004–present    American Philological Association.

Service

UVM Faculty Grievance Committee (2007–); Classics Dept. bibliographer (2006–); academic advisor, Lyre of Ur Project (www.lyre-of-ur.com, 2006–); occasional referee for Classical Philology, Mnemosyne (2004–); English editorial work for International Study Group for Music Archaeology (2000–).

Music   

Compositions, Emulations, Performances

2008    Selections from The Cyprosyrian Girl and Clouds (see below) featured in ArtsEdge program, Kennedy Center (see above under Other Academic Employment).

2006    Selections from The Cyprosyrian Girl (see above) featured in two broadcasts on Italian National Radio (RAI Radiotelevisione Italiana), part of a series on music archaeology produced by Emiliano  Li Castro. International, invited.

2003    ‘Virtual Lyre’ developed using Reaktor, a modular softsynth platform from Native Instruments. Allows microtonal adjustment of standard MIDI keyboard to achieve ancient tunings. Featured on The Cyprosyrian Girl and description published in “Beyond the Fragments” (see above). I have declined numerous internet requests for this program.

2001    Aristophanes Clouds, revival directed by the late David Mowat, Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, London. Four performances in Rome, at the American Academy and the Museo Nazionale, Palazzo Altemps, produced in collaboration with the English Language Theatre of Rome, and sponsored by the American Academy, the Beni ed Attività Culturali, the Greek Embassy, and Cronos-Aegean Airlines. Sound recordings from show and reperformances published in several places (see above and below).

2000     Aristophanes Clouds. Executive producer, co-translator (with Charles Connaghan, UCL), musical ‘recomposition’, visual design and phallic procession. Directed by Dan Robb, with choreography by David Mowat (as above). Premiered in six performances at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

1999    Composed and conducted chamber-orchestra score for Midsummer Night’s Dream, production of the Arion Theatre Company, London.

1999    Aeschylus Choephori. Musical ‘recomposition’ for production at King’s College London, in ancient Greek, six performances in the Twelfth London Festival of Greek Drama.

1996    Filmscore for Over the Rainbow, directed by Patty Mulcahy. Seattle Film Festival.

Ethnomusicological Fieldwork

2002    Ten days of filming interviews and performances of Romanian street musicians in Rome, in collaboration with Dr. Maria Craciun, University of Cluj, towards a documentary provisionally entitled Arrivederci Romania.   

Discography

2006    The Cyprosyrian Girl: Hits of the Ancient Hellenes. Vanity pressing with less than modest internet sales.

2004    Musica Romana (Cologne, Germany) record the parabasis from Clouds (see above) on their CD Mesomedes, promoted through museum concerts in Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxemburg, Switzerland, Italy, Austria, and Hungary. Their performances of the parodos and parabasis is also featured on CD accompanying Ancient Greek Music in Performance (see above).

2004     Audio demonstrations for “Hearing Greek Microtones” included on CD accompanying Ancient Greek Music in Performance.

2002     Selections from Clouds included on CD accompanying E. Hickmann and R. Eichmann (ed.), Archäologie früher Klangerzeugung und Tonordnungen. Serie Studien zur Musikarchäologie, Orient-Archäologie (Deutsches Archäologisches Institut Berlin, Orient-Abteilung, 2002).

1999    The Bigger the God, . . . And the Ugly (Outdigo Records). Accordion, keyboards, some arrangement.

1999     Cud Scouts tracks included in The Aspen Sampler, Volume 1 (Flying Dogs Records, Aspen Colorado). Song-writer, accordion, keyboards.

1997     Sheryl Wiser, Month of Saints (Bopgirl). Accordion.

1995     Interruptus, Umbrella Man (Cold Feet Records). Accordion, keyboards, some arrangement.

Other Employment

1/97–9/98    Record reviews and other occasional pieces, The Gist (magazine, Oxford).

7/92–8/96    Numerous gigs in Seattle with SubMed (mandolin/accordion duo) and The Bête-Noires (accordion, guitar, drums ).

11/91–7/92    Founding partner, Rain or Shine Waffles (Seattle).

10/91–9/93    Hummus-maker (Oasis brand), Kastoria Inc. (Seattle).

7/90–9/91    School Secretary, Seattle Hebrew Academy.

1/90–5/90    Receptionist and word-processor, Camp Dresser McKee Federal Programs Corporation (Boston).

1/89–9/89    Assistant Bookkeeper, North of Nell Condominium Association (Aspen, Colorado).

11/88–12/88    Data entry, Godiva Chocolatier (New York City).

1986–1988    Usher, Symphony Hall and Jordan Hall (Boston).

9/85–6/88    Audio engineer and archivist, New England Conservatory of Music (Boston).

9/86–10/87    Production intern, WGBH Public Radio (Boston).