JOEL LESTER, DEAN OF NEW SCHOOL UNIVERSITY'S
MANNES COLLEGE OF MUSIC, ELECTED PRESIDENT OF
THE SOCIETY FOR MUSIC THEORY

(New York, NY – November 6, 2002) New School University announces that Joel Lester, Dean of the University's Mannes College of Music in Manhattan, was named President-Elect of the Society for Music Theory (SMT) at the Society's recent annual meeting. Dean Lester will serve as President of the Society beginning in November, 2003. Elizabeth West Marvin, Professor at the Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester, is the current President. The Society for Music Theory, founded 1977, is an international society for music theorists. It runs annual meetings, is the liaison with a host of regional societies (within the U.S. and Canada and abroad), publishes "Music Theory Spectrum" (a leading journal in the field) and "Music Theory Online." The Society also sponsors special-interest groups (on jazz, music cognition, pedagogy, and other topics) and provides professional development support for its members. The Society for Music Theory is celebrating its 25th Anniversary this year. Over the years, it has grown to over 1,500 members. The organization is a member of the American Council of Learned Societies.

Joel Lester, Dean of Mannes College of Music of New School University, is an accomplished scholar, violinist, and administrator. He is author of more than half a dozen books on music, including Compositional Theory in the 18th Century (Harvard University Press, 1992; winner of the Wallace Berry Publication Award of the Society of Music Theory), Analytical Approaches to Atonal Music (W.W. Norton, 1989), a widely-used textbook, Between Modes and Keys (Pendragon Press, 1989), The Rhythms of Tonal Music (Southern Illinois University Press, 1986) and Harmony in Tonal Music (Knopf, 1982). His latest book, Bach's Works for Solo Violin (Oxford University Press, 1999) won the ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award. He has also published dozen of articles on a wide range of musical topics in scholarly journals and served as the editor of "Music Theory Spectrum" from 1995-1997. From 1970 until 1991, he was violinist in the Da Capo Chamber Players, winners of the prestigious Walter W. Naumberg Chamber Music Award in 1973.

Dean Lester holds a doctoral degree in music from Princeton University, 1970. He was Professor of Music at The City College and the Graduate School of the City University of New York from 1969 until 1995; from 1986-1995 he was Deputy Executive Officer of the Doctoral Programs in Music at the Graduate School of CUNY, in charge of the program leading to the Doctorate in Musical Arts. He was a Visiting Associate Professor at Eastman School of Music during 1977-78 and taught doctoral seminars at The Juilliard School during 1994-95. He has been Dean of Mannes College of Music since 1996.

For the past two summers, Dean Lester has helped organize the Mannes Institute for Advanced Studies in Music Theory. Mannes College of Music was the first American conservatory to teach Schenkerian theory when Hans Weisse began teaching for the first time in the United States in 1931. Schenker's theories of musical structure are the basis of Mannes's renowned Techniques of Music Program, a comprehensive curriculum comprising music theory, analysis, ear training, sight-singing, and keyboard skills.

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Mannes College of Music, founded in 1916, is one of the world's major conservatories of music. A division of New School University, Mannes offers undergraduate and graduate degree programs, as well as a Professional Studies Diploma program. Notable alumni from Mannes include soprano Frederica von Stade, pianists Murray Perahia and Richard Goode, and conductors Semyon Bychkov, Myung-Whun Chung, JoAnn Falletta and Julius Rudel. Joel Lester is Dean of the College. For further information on Mannes, call (212) 580-0210 or go to the Web site at www.mannes.edu.

New School University, with 7,000 matriculated students and 25,000 continuing education students, is a New York City university committed to critical scholarship, artistic integrity, and ethical responsibility in the social sciences, humanities, the arts and design. It is comprised of a liberal arts foundation of three schools: The New School, Eugene Lang College and the Graduate Faculty of Political and Social Science, and five professional schools: Parsons School of Design, Mannes College of Music, Actors Studio Drama School, Milano Graduate School of Management and Urban Policy, and the Jazz & Contemporary Music Program. New School Online University offers one of the largest selections of online courses in the nation. For further information about admission to New School University, call (877) 5Ave-321 or go to the Web site at www.newschool.edu.