“Singing Your Own Songs: How Female Songwriters Navigate Intellectual Property and Public Authenticity”

Jocelyn Neal (Bowman and Gordon Gray Distinguished Term Professor of Music and Adjunct Professor of American Studies) received a BA in music from Rice University in 1993, an MA from the Eastman School of Music in 1995, and a PhD in music theory from the Eastman School of Music in 2002. Her primary areas of research are commercial country music and American popular music, following on her dissertation (titled “Song Structure Determinants: Poetic Narrative, Phrase Structure, and Hypermeter in the Music of Jimmie Rodgers”).  She also researches copyright, rhythm and meter, music-dance intersections, and cultural reception of popular music.

Dr. Neal teaches courses in music theory, analysis, popular music, country music and culture,  songwriting, and bluegrass.  She was a Fellow at the Mannes Institute for Advanced Studies in Music Theory (2005 and 2008).  She has served as chair of the Popular Music Group for the Society of Music Theory, as a member of the editorial boards for the academic journals Music Theory Spectrum, Music Theory Online, and Integral, and as co-editor of  Southern Cultures (2009-2014). Dr. Neal regularly presents her research at national conferences on American music, popular music, music theory, and cultural studies. She served as Director of the Center for the Study of the American South at UNC from 2012-2013. In 2016, she founded the UNC Bluegrass Initiative, which she continues to direct.  She is also a series co-editor for Tracking Pop, a popular music book series from the University of Michigan Press, and served on the College Board’s AP Music Theory Development Committee for four years.

Irna Priore (1963–2014) was a beloved colleague, and associate professor of music theory in the UNCG School of Music. In addition to being a flutist, she was a scholar, teacher, and mentor in music studies, and contributed publications on Luciano Berio, Darmstadt, post-1945 theory, and Brazilian popular music. Her legacy of generosity, strength, and brilliance continues through her family, friends, colleagues, and students; this series is dedicated to her and celebrates her memory.