Elliott S. Schwartz
The summer season, after a period of relative inactivity on many of our respective campuses, has been anything but sleepy at The College Music Society office. On the contrary, it's been an exciting, busy time for CMS and for me personally as the Society's President. A survey of recent develop¬ments and ongoing activities would have to begin with:
1) Summer institutes - not only the 1989 Music Theory Pedagogy Institute, which was highly successful on every count (drawing eighty-five participants and featuring concerts and lectures on topics concerning the integration of theory and performance), but two new institutes scheduled for the summer of 1990. One of these will be devoted to "Music and Technology"; the other will explore new approaches to Music in General Studies—a long-standing CMS concern—and has been given the working title "The Post-Stravinsky Generation". You'll be hearing a great deal more about these two new Institutes in the months to come.
2) A new volume in the College Music Society Reports series is being readied for publication. CMS Report Number 6, edited by Anne Dhu Shapiro, will reprint from College Music Symposium the texts of the presentations made at the 1987 Annual Meeting in New Orleans by four distinguished musicologists on the subject of "Musicology and Undergraduate Teaching".
3) Final preparations are also being made for the 1989 Annual Meeting, with a great many papers, panels, concerts, and other events related to its St. Louis site. Program Chair Patricia Shehan Campbell has created a remarkable network of references, from Ozark fiddling to the St. Louis Symphony, Mark Twain, and the Paris Exhibition of 1889. Our location at the St. Louis Sheraton couldn't be more convenieint—only a short walk away from the Mississippi riverfront, the historic Laclede's Landing, and great Arch.
4) In addition, preliminary plans are being made even now for future national meetings. Nineteen-ninety Program Chair Lloyd Ultan and I have been working together on tentative ideas for the Washington, D.C. meeting, especially those aspects which will draw upon the resources—historic, geographic, and even political!—of this uniquely special region. I am also delighted to announce that Bernard J. Dobroski has accepted the position of Program Chair for the 1991 Annual Meeting to be held in Chicago. He'll bring to this task not only great imagination and administrative skill, but an equally impressive knowledge of the Chicago area (gained through years of teaching at Northwestern University). The 1991 Chicago meeting will be held jointly with the CBMR, the SEM, and the International Association for the Study of Popular Music; it will also continue our biennial meeting "track" northward through the center of the continental United States.
5) Finally, the subject of College Music and the Community continues to occupy our attention. A special CMS committee, headed by Board members David Woods and Roger Foltz, has been appointed to organize and oversee a public forum devoted to this important topic. The site, date, and actual format—whether conference, symposium, institute, or workshop, for example—are still undetermined, but we'll have more to report on this score after we meet in St. Louis.
We hope your summer was as productive as ours! Best wishes for an exciting new academic year.