Kyle Hutchinson

BA, University of Western Ontario
MA, University of Western Ontario
PhD, University of Toronto

• Chromatic Harmony, Models of Pitch Relationships, and Tonal/Formal Structure in Early-to-mid Twentieth-Century Tonal Music (Richard Strauss, Alma Mahler, Arnold Schoenberg, Florence Price)
• Psychoacoustics and Phenomenology of Tonality and Querying Eighteenth-Century Tonal Models
• Theories of Formal Functions and the Role of Melodic Structure
• Tonal Structure, Syntax, and Narrative in Contemporary Broadway Musicals
• Intersections of Analysis, Ethnography, and Intertextuality in the music of Florence Price

Books

Order, Design, Harmony: Musical Structure and Development in Broadway Musicals. Oxford University Press (forthcoming).

Chromatic Harmony: Methodological Approaches in Dialogue: Alma Mahler-Werfel's "Ich wandle unter Blumen." Co-edited with Stephanie Venturino. Routledge (forthcoming).

Processual Tonality and the Psychoacoustics of Chromaticism. Oxford University Press (2025).

Articles

“Changed for Good: Pathways of Tonal and Motivic Development in Wicked.” Music Theory Online 42/2 (2026). 

“Associative Tonal Structure and the Referential Role of the Elektra and Salome Chords.” Music Analysis 45/1 (2026): 3-39.

“Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tonal Structure in Musical Theatre: Plagal and Authentic Conflict in Jesus Christ Superstar.” Journal of Music Theory 49/2 (2025): 285-315.

“Pendular Thirds and Pentatonic Parallelisms: Intersecting Black Folk and neo-Romantic Idioms in the Second Movement of Florence Price’s Piano Sonata in E minor.” Intégral: The Journal of Applied Musical Thought 36 (2023): 163–174.

“The Predominant Six-Four in the Late Music of Richard Strauss.” Music Theory Spectrum 45/1 (2023): 20–41.

“Cadential Melodies: Form-Functional Taxonomy and the role of the Upper Voice.” Co-authored with Matthew Poon. Music Theory Online 28/2 (2022).

“Chromatically Altered Diminished-Seventh Chords: Reframing Function Through Dissonance Resolution in Late Nineteenth-Century Tonality.” Music Analysis 41/1 (2022): 94–144.

“Retrospective Time and the Subdominant Past: Tonal Hermeneutics in Contemporary Broadway Megamusicals.” Music Theory Online 26/2 (2020).

“Chasing a Chimera: Challenging the Myths of Augmented-Sixth Chords.” Theory and Practice 45 (2020): 93–126.

“From a Certain Point of View: Learning to Hear Consonance as Dissonance in Late Nineteenth-Century Tonality.” Patricia Carpenter Emerging Scholar Award. Theory and Practice 45 (2020): 127-152.

Colgate Torch Medal (2024-2025)

2024 Society for Music Theory Emerging Scholar Award (Article), for “Chromatically Altered Diminished-Seventh Chords: Reframing Function Through Dissonance Resolution in Late Nineteenth-Century Tonality” (published in Music Analysis)

Patricia Carpenter Emerging Scholar Award for Best Graduate Student Paper, Music Theory Society of New York State (2020)

Award to an Individual for Distinguished Service to the Faculty of Music, University of Toronto Faculty of Music Undergraduate Association (2020)

George Proctor Award for Best Graduate Student Paper, Canadian University Music Society (2018)

Award for Teaching Excellence, University of Toronto Center for Teaching Excellence (One of twelve TAs shortlisted university-wide, 2017)

Faculty of Music Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award, University of Toronto (2016)

Ontario Graduate Scholarship, University of Toronto (2018, 2015)

• “Sondheim, Styne, Schwartz, and...Schoenberg?: Developing Variation and Generative Motifs in Musical Theater.” Music Theory Society of New York State, Poughkeepsie, NY, April 11-12 2026.
• “Changed for Good: Pathways of Motivic and Tonal Development in Stephen Schwartz's Wicked (2003),” Music Theory Midwest, Online, May 16-17 2025. Also presented at the Canadian University Music Society Annual Conference, Waterloo, ON, Canada, May 22-25, 2025.
• “The Applied Subdominant: Reconceptualizing Functional Retrogression in Contemporary Popular Music,” New England Conference of Music Theorists, Williamstown, MA, April 4-5, 2025.
• “The Psychoacoustics of Chromatic Tonality in Phenomenological and Retrospective Spaces: A Dialogue,” Society for Music Theory, Jacksonville, FL, Nov. 7-10, 2024.
• “Plagal and Authentic Conflict as Tonal and Narrative Structure in Jesus Christ Superstar,” Society for Music Theory, Denver CO, Nov. 8–12, 2023. Also given at Music Theory Society of New York State, New York, NY, April 1–2, 2023.
• “Outlander(s): Interpreting Twentieth-Century Dissonance in Nineteenth-Century Contexts,” Society for Music Theory, New Orleans, LA, Nov. 10–13, 2022. Also given at Music Theory Midwest Annual Conference, Kansas City, KS, May 5–6, 2022; Music Theory Society of New York State, Rochester, NY, April 9–10, 2022.
• “Black Narratives in the White Racial Frame: Dialogue, Persistence, and Structure in Florence Price’s Piano Sonata in E Minor,” Society for Music Theory, Jacksonville, Fl., November 4–7, 2021 (online). Also given at the Canadian University Music Society, Online, May 31–June 4, 2021; South Central Society for Music Theory, Online, Feb. 19–21, 2021.
• “Processual vs. Prospective Tonality in Late Nineteenth Century Harmonic Syntax,” Music Theory Midwest, Online, June 10–13 2021.
• “Richard Strauss’s Processual Tonality: Modernism and the Case of the Dissonant Sixth,” The 21st Biennial International Conference on Nineteenth-Century Music. Vancouver, B.C. Canada, June 18–20, 2020 (paper accepted, conference cancelled owing to COVID-19); Canadian University Music Society, London ON, June 3–5, 2020 (paper accepted, conference cancelled owing to COVID-19).
• “From A Certain Point of View: Learning to Hear Consonance as Dissonance in Late Nineteenth-Century Tonality,” Music Theory Society of New York State, Online, April 4–5, 2020.
• “Chasing a Chimera: Challenging the Myth of Augmented-Sixth Chords,” Music Theory Society of New York State, Albany, NY, April 6–7, 2019. Also read at Music Theory Midwest, Cincinnati OH, May 10–11, 2019
• “Music Theory, Musicology, and Cultural Hermeneutics: Revisiting the Salome Complex from an Analytic Vista,” Canadian University Music Society, Vancouver, BC, June 5–7, 2019
• “Tristan, Liszt, and Till Eulenspiegel: Chromatically Altered Diminished-Seventh Chords and Half Enharmonic Polysemy in Late Nineteenth-Century Harmonic Syntax,” Canadian University Music Society, Edmonton, AB, May 23–25, 2018
• “Strauss and the Supertonic: Integrating Thoroughbass Approaches with Conventional Tonal Theory in Late Nineteenth-Century Harmonic Analysis,” Music Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic, Wayne, NJ, March 23–24, 2018.
• “Static Tonal and Formal Structures as Depictions of Memory and Psychosis in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Sunset Boulevard,” Western University Graduate Symposium on Music, Western University, August 25–26, 2017
• “When is a Triad not a Triad?” Music Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic, Washington DC, March 24–25, 2017. Also read at the Canadian University Music Society, University of Calgary, June 1–3, 2017.

• "The Music of Wicked and The Wizard of Oz." Colgate Lifelong Learning Program, Fall 2025.
• "Changed for Good: How Can Music Theory Unpack the Musical Relationships in Wicked?" Colgate High School Seminar, Spring 2025.
• "Music Meets Media: Movies, Musicals, and Mario." Colgate High School Seminar, Fall 2024.
• “Florence Price: Piano Sonata in E minor.” Lecture-Recital for the University of Toronto Faculty of Music Anti-Racist Alliance BIPOC Benefit Concert (2021).
• Pre-Opera Talks for the Canadian Opera Company: Toronto, ON, 2019–2021. (Elektra, La Bohème, Turandot, Der fliegende Holländer, Káťa Kabanová<).
• Pre-Show Talks, Mamma Mia! Victoria College Drama Society: Toronto, ON. March 7–9, 2019.