冈本视频

Kyle Hutchinson

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Kyle Hutchinson

Visiting Assistant Professor of Music

Department/Office Information

Music
  • MF  8:30am - 9:20am  (Charles Dana Arts Center)
  • WF  12:10pm - 12:40pm  (Charles Dana Arts Center)
  • W  8:00am - 8:20am  (Charles Dana Arts Center)

Kyle鈥檚 research interests include the psychoacoustics of chromatic tonality in the music of composers such as Richard Strauss, both Gustav and Alma Mahler, and Florence Price. He is also interested in intersections of analysis and ethnography in Price鈥檚 music, theorizing the role of melody in form-functional theory, and intersections of narrative and musical structure in Broadway musicals.

Kyle鈥檚 first monograph, titled Processual Tonality and the Psychoacoustics of Chromaticism, was published by Oxford University Press in 2025, and his research has been published in leading journals in both North America and internationally. Two more book projects are forthcoming: the first, titled Order, Design, Harmony: Musical Structure and Development in Broadway Musicals (Oxford) develops an analytic approach to musical theater; the second is a co-edited volume exploring different approaches to Chromatic Harmony using Alma Mahler-Werfel's song "Ich wandle unter Blumen" as a case study (Routledge).

Kyle's article 鈥淐hromatically Altered Diminished-Seventh Chords鈥� (published in Music Analysis) was the recipient of the Society for Music Theory鈥檚 2024 Emerging Scholar Award, and his work on chromatic harmony has also received the Patricia Carpenter Emerging Scholar Award from the Music Theory Society of New York State in 2020, and the George Proctor Prize from the Canadian University Music Society in 2018. Kyle has also received a 冈本视频 Torch Medal for his teaching (2025), and previously received the University of Toronto faculty of music鈥檚 award for outstanding Teaching Assistant in 2017, and an award for distinguished service to the faculty of music in 2020.

Kyle is currently co-editor of the journal Theory and Practice. He recently served as a member of the Publication Awards Committee for the Society for Music Theory (books: 2024-2025; multi-author collections: 2026), and on the 2023-2024 program committee for the Music Theory Society of New York State.

Education

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

Research Interests
  • 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
Publications

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

鈥�.鈥� Music Theory Online 42/2 (2026). 

鈥�.鈥� Music Analysis 45/1 (2026): 3-39.

鈥�.鈥�&苍产蝉辫;Journal of Music Theory 49/2 (2025): 285-315.

鈥�.鈥� Int茅gral: The Journal of Applied Musical Thought 36 (2023): 163鈥�174.

鈥�.鈥� Music Theory Spectrum 45/1 (2023): 20鈥�41.

鈥�.鈥� Co-authored with Matthew Poon. Music Theory Online 28/2 (2022).

鈥�.鈥� Music Analysis 41/1 (2022): 94鈥�144.

鈥�.鈥� Music Theory Online 26/2 (2020).

鈥�.鈥� Theory and Practice 45 (2020): 93鈥�126.

鈥�.鈥� Patricia Carpenter Emerging Scholar Award. Theory and Practice 45 (2020): 127-152.

Awards

冈本视频 Torch Medal (2024-2025)

2024 Society for Music Theory Emerging Scholar Award (Article), for 鈥淐hromatically Altered Diminished-Seventh Chords: Reframing Function Through Dissonance Resolution in Late Nineteenth-Century Tonality鈥� (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)

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

Community Engagement
  • "The Music of Wicked and The Wizard of Oz." 冈本视频 Lifelong Learning Program, Fall 2025.
  • "Changed for Good: How Can Music Theory Unpack the Musical Relationships in Wicked?" 冈本视频 High School Seminar, Spring 2025.
  • "Music Meets Media: Movies, Musicals, and Mario." 冈本视频 High School Seminar, Fall 2024.
  • 鈥淔lorence Price: Piano Sonata in E minor.鈥� 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鈥�2021. (Elektra, La Boh猫me, Turandot, Der fliegende Holl盲nder, K谩钮a Kabanov谩<).
  • Pre-Show Talks, Mamma Mia! Victoria College Drama Society: Toronto, ON. March 7鈥�9, 2019.