Vincent P. Benitez, Ph.D., D.M.A.
![Vincent Perez Benitez, Jr.
Associate Professor of Music Theory, 2011–present
Assistant Professor of Music Theory, 2005–2011
President, Music Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic
Vice-Chair, SMT Interest Group on Improvisation Study
Co-Chair, Commission on Racial /Ethnic Diversity (CORED), 2011–2012
Resident Scholar, Institute for the Arts and Humanities, Spring 2010
The Pennsylvania State University
225 Music Building I
University Park, PA 16802
(814) 863-5392 (office)
vpb2@psu.edu
http://www.music.psu.edu/prospective/faculty/theoryfac.html#benitez
Education
Ph.D., Music Theory, Indiana University (August 2001)
D.M.A., Organ Performance, Arizona State University (August 1985)
M.M., Theory and Composition, Arizona State University (August 1985)
M.M., Organ Performance, University of North Texas (May 1982)
B.M., Organ Performance, magna cum laude, University of North Texas (May 1980)
Applied Organ Study: Marilyn Keiser, Larry Smith, Michael Corzine, Robert Clark, Charles
Brown, and Donald Willing
Publications
Books:
Music, Color, and Drama in Olivier Messiaen’s Saint François d’Assise (in progress; book
manuscript to be submitted to the University of Rochester Press).
The Words and Music of Paul McCartney: The Solo Years. Praeger Singer-Songwriter Collection.
Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 2010. ISBN: 0-313-34969-X. ISBN-13: 978-0-313-
34969-0.
Olivier Messiaen: A Research and Information Guide. Routledge Music Bibliographies. New
York and London: Routledge, 2008. xvi, 337 p. ISBN10: 0-415-97372-4. eBook ISBN10:
0-203-93558-6.
Book Chapters:
“Messiaen and Aquinas.” In Messiaen the Theologian, ed. Andrew Shenton, 101–26. Burlington,
VT: Ashgate, 2010.
“Narrating Saint Francis’s Spiritual Journey: Referential Pitch Structures and Symbolic Images in
Olivier Messiaen’s Saint François d’Assise.” In Poznan Studies on Opera. Vol. 4, Theories
of Opera, ed. Maciej Jablonski, 363–411. Poznan, Poland: Publishing House of the Poznan
Society for the Advancement of the Arts and Sciences, Section of Music and Fine Arts,
Publication of the Committee for Musicology, vol. 16, 2004.
Articles:
“Harmony and Transformational Voice Leading in the Later Music of Olivier Messiaen”
(in progress).
“Reconsidering Messiaen as Serialist.” Music Analysis 28, nos. 2–3 (2009): 267–99.
“A Conversation with Composer Gerald Levinson about Olivier Messiaen.” oliviermessiaen.net
(12 December 2008). http://oliviermessiaen.net/scholarship/recollections
“Messiaen as Improviser.” Dutch Journal of Music Theory 13, no. 2 (2008): 129–44.
“Aspects of Harmony in Messiaen’s Later Music: An Examination of the Chords of Transposed
Inversions on the Same Bass Note.” Journal of Musicological Research 23, no. 2 (April-June
2004): 187–226.
“Simultaneous Contrast and Additive Designs in Olivier Messiaen’s Opera Saint François
d’Assise.” Music Theory Online 8.2 (August 2002).
http://mto.societymusictheory.org/issues/mto.02.8.2/mto.02.8.2.benitez_frames.html
“A Creative Legacy: Messiaen as Teacher of Analysis.” College Music Symposium 40 (2000):
117–39.
“Twentieth-Century Musical Concepts and the Music of the Beatles.” GAMUT 9 (1999): 91–104.
“Bach's Toccata and Fugue In D Minor BWV 538: A Rhythmic/Metric Perspective.” The
American Organist (March 1991): 56–58.
“The Foundation of a Scientific Theory of Music” (third author; in collaboration with Michael H.
McLarty and William H. Braun). Psychological Record 40 (Fall 1990): 491–504.
“Rhythm and Meter in Buxtehude's Toccata in D Minor BuxWV 155.” Diapason (July 1989):
14–16.
“Musical-Rhetorical Figures in the Orgelbüchlein of J. S. Bach.” Bach 18, no. 1 (January 1987):
3–21.
Book Reviews:
Review of Sander van Maas’s The Reinvention of Religious Music: Olivier Messiaen’s
Breakthrough Toward the Beyond (New York: Fordham University Press, 2009). MLA
Notes 67, no. 4 (June 2011): 741–43.
Review of Jon Gillock’s Performing Messiaen’s Organ Music (Bloomington, IN: Indiana
University Press, 2009). Performance Practice Review (forthcoming).
Review of Siglind Bruhn’s Messiaen’s Explorations of Love and Death, and Messiaen’s
Interpretations of Holiness and Trinity, 2 vols. (Hillsdale, NY: Pendragon Press, 2008). MLA
Notes 66, no. 3 (March 2010): 524–27.
Review of Peter Hill and Nigel Simeone’s Olivier Messiaen: Oiseaux exotiques (Aldershot, UK
and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2007). MLA Notes (June 2008): 743–45.
Review of Björn Heile’s The Music of Mauricio Kagel (Aldershot, UK and Burlington, VT:
Ashgate, 2006). MLA Notes (December 2007): 298–300.
Review of Messiaen’s Language of Mystical Love, ed. Siglind Bruhn (New York and London:
Garland Publishing, Inc., 1998). MLA Notes (December 1999): 424–26.
Review of Benito V. Rivera’s Translation of Joachim Burmeister’s Musica Poetica 1606 (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1993). Indiana Theory Review 18, no. 1 (Spring 1997):
97–114.
Review of E. Thomas Glasow’s Translation of Olivier Messiaen: Music and Color: Conversations
with Claude Samuel (Portland, OR: Amadeus Press, 1994). Indiana Theory Review 17, no. 2
(Fall 1996): 93–102.
Grants/Interviews
Penn State Incentives and Innovations Grant, 2011, to support the creation of an online general
education course on the music of the Beatles, and to enhance the development of MUSIC
498, The Music of the Beatles, to be taught in the spring of 2012.
Interviewed on 31 March 2008 by Cathy Peters of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation –
Radio National Benitez for her program on Messiaen’s Quatuor pour le fin du Temps: “Into
the Music: Transcending Time – Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time.” ABC aired the
program on 12 July 2008.
Lectures
International (refereed):
“Harmony and Transformational Voice Leading in the Later Music of Olivier Messiaen.”
VII European Music Analysis Conference, Conservatory of S. Cecilia, Rome, Italy,
September 29–October 2, 2011; Seventh Biennial International Conference on Music Since
1900 and the International Conference of the Society for Music Analysis, Lancaster Institute
for the Contemporary Arts, Lancaster, England, July 31, 2011.
“Music as Incantation: An Examination of André Jolivet’s Influence on Olivier Messiaen.”
Messiaen 2008 International Centenary Conference, City University of Birmingham,
Birmingham Conservatoire, Birmingham, England, June 21, 2008; International Conference
of Messiaen Studies, The University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, Queensland,
Australia, March 31, 2008.
“The Fusion of the Philosophies of Saint Thomas Aquinas and Henri Bergson in Olivier
Messiaen’s Theology of Time.” Boston University Conference, “Messiaen the Theologian,”
October 12, 2007.
“Messiaen as Improviser.” Ninth International Conference of the Dutch-Flemish Society for Music
Theory, Prince Claus Conservatoire, Groningen, The Netherlands, February 24, 2007.
“Understanding Messiaen as Serialist: Theological Time and Its Musical Expression through
Number.” Fourth Biennial International Conference on Music Since 1900 (member of
a special Messiaen panel with Stephen Broad, Christopher Dingle, and Nigel Simeone),
University of Sussex, Brighton, England, August 25, 2005; Dublin International Conference
on Musical Analysis, University College Dublin, Ireland, June 25, 2005; Third Annual
Conference of the Society for Musicology in Ireland, University College Cork, Ireland, May
8, 2005.
“Aspects of Harmony in Messiaen’s Later Music: An Examination of the Chords of Transposed
Inversions on the Same Bass Note.” 14th Nordic Musicological Congress, Sibelius Academy,
Helsinki, Finland, August 13, 2004.
“Narrating Saint Francis’s Spiritual Journey: Pitch Structures and Symbolic Images in Messiaen’s
Saint François d’Assise.” International Conference of the College Music Society, University
of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland, July 7, 2001.
“Simultaneous Contrast and Additive Pitch Designs in Messiaen’s Saint François d’Assise.”
OXMAC 2000, University of Oxford, Oxford, England, September 23, 2000.
National (refereed):
“Messiaen’s Language” (formal session). 2008 Annual Meeting of the American Musicological
Society, Nashville, TN, November 6, 2008. Authored a formal session proposal that was
accepted in its entirety. Panelists included: Robert Fallon, Bowling Green State University;
Wai Ling Cheong, Chinese University of Hong Kong; Christoph Neidhöfer, McGill
University; and Andrew Shenton, Boston University.
“‘Tout mon opéra est un immense acte de Foi en Dieu’: Understanding the Theology of
Olivier Messiaen's Opera Saint François d'Assise.” Symposium, “Olivier Messiaen: The
Musician as Theologian,” The Meadows School of the Arts and The Perkins School of
Theology of Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX, September 26, 2008.
“The Influence of Saint Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae on the Compositional Aesthetic of
Olivier Messiaen.” Forum on Music and Christian Scholarship, Yale Institute of Sacred
Music, New Haven, Connecticut, March 10, 2007.
“Timbre as Religious Symbol in Olivier Messiaen’s Opera Saint François d’Assise.” Forum on
Music and Christian Scholarship, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, February 18,
2005; Thirty-Seventh Annual Contemporary Music Festival, Indiana State University, Terra
Haute, Indiana, October 31, 2003.
“Simultaneous Contrast and Additive Pitch Designs in Messiaen’s Saint François d’Assise.”
Twenty-Second Annual New Music & Art Festival, Bowling Green State University, Bowling
Green, Ohio, October 18, 2001; National Meeting of the College Music Society, Toronto,
Ontario, November 4, 2000.
“Twentieth-Century Musical Concepts and the Music of the Beatles.” National Meeting of the
Society for Music Theory, Phoenix, Arizona, October 31, 1997.
Regional (refereed):
“Pop Pedagogy in the Twenty-First Century: Teaching the Music of the Beatles to Millennials”
(co-authored with Randal Baier). Twentieth Regional Conference of the Great Lakes Chapter
of the College Music Society, Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green, Kentucky,
April 2, 2005.
“Aspects of Harmony in Messiaen’s Later Music: An Examination of the Chords of Transposed
Inversions on the Same Bass Note.” Mid-Atlantic Society for Music Theory, Temple
University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, March 26, 2004.
“Exploring Messiaen's Later Harmonic Language: An Examination of Three Non-Modal Chord
Types in Saint François d'Assise.” Rocky Mountain Society for Music Theory, University of
Colorado, Boulder, April 19, 2002; South-Central Society for Music Theory, Louisiana State
University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, February 22, 2002; Texas Society for Music Theory,
University of Texas at Austin, February 16, 2002.
“A Creative Legacy: Messiaen as Teacher of Analysis.” GAMUT, Georgia State University,
Atlanta, GA, April 24, 1999; South-Central Chapter of the American Musicological Society,
University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky, March 26, 1999; South-Central Society for
Music Theory, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, March 12, 1999; Texas Society
for Music Theory, University of North Texas, Denton, Texas, March 5, 1999.
“Motives and Musical Structure: An Analysis of the Last Movement of the String Quartet in C
Minor of Johannes Brahms.” Great Plains Chapter of the College Music Society, University
of Missouri at Columbia, April 10, 1992.
“Musical Style and Dramatic Meaning in the Wolf's Glen Scene of Weber's Der Freischütz.”
South-Central Chapter of the College Music Society, University of Central Arkansas,
Conway, Arkansas, April 12, 1991; South-Central Society for Music Theory, University of
Arkansas at Fayetteville, March 1, 1991.
“Rhetoric and the Music of Johann Sebastian Bach.” Southeastern American Society for
Eighteenth-Century Studies, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, March 2, 1990.
“Rhythm and Meter in Buxtehude's Toccata in D Minor BuxWV 155.” Southwest Chapter of the
American Musicological Society, Rice University, Houston, Texas, April 8, 1989.
“Musical-Rhetorical Figures in the Orgelbüchlein of J. S. Bach.” Central Gulf Music Theory
Society (currently South-Central Society for Music Theory), University of Southwestern
Louisiana, Lafayette, Louisiana, March 25, 1989.
Invited/Campus:
“Oye cómo va mi ritmo [Listen to the rhythm of my music]: Celebrating the Music of Carlos
Santana.” Esber Recital Hall, School of Music, February 18, 2011; also given for LAGRASA
(Latin American Graduate Student Association), 122 Thomas, November 10, 2010.
“Motown’s ‘Pride and Joy’: The Music and Legacy of Marvin Gaye.” Celebration of African-
American Music Festival 2011, Esber Recital Hall, School of Music, February 4, 2011.
“Musical Rhetoric in the Organ Music of Dieterich Buxtehude and Johann Sebastian Bach,”
Lecture-Recital for the Musicology/Music Theory Colloquium, St. Paul’s United Methodist
Church, January, 21 2011.
“Tracing the Compositional Path of Olivier Messiaen’s Opera, Saint François d’Assise: An
Assessment of the Influence of Wagner, Debussy, and Dukas on Messiaen.” Institute for the
Arts and Humanities, Spring 2010 Faculty Lecture Series, The Pennsylvania State University,
University Park, PA, April 20, 2010.
“Hitsville, U.S.A.: The Musical Legacy of Motown.” Celebration of African-American Music
Festival 2009, Esber Recital Hall, School of Music, The Pennsylvania State University,
University Park, PA, February 27, 2009.
“Olivier Messiaen: Composer-Organist, Man of Faith.” Pre-Concert Lecture for an all-Messiaen
organ concert by Jon Gillock. Worship Hall, Pasquerilla Spiritual Center, The Pennsylvania
State University, University Park, PA, April 15, 2008.
“The Influence of Saint Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae on the Compositional Aesthetic of
Olivier Messiaen.” Institute for the Arts and Humanities, Fall 2006 Faculty Lecture Series,
The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, November 14, 2006.
“Music that Transports Us to God: Tonalities and Religious Symbolism in Olivier Messiaen’s
Opera Saint François d’Assise.” Franciscan University, Steubenville, Ohio, April 20, 2001.
“Musical-Rhetorical Figures in the Orgelbüchlein of J. S. Bach.” St. Joseph Chapter of the
American Guild of Organists, First Presbyterian Church, St. Joseph, Missouri, September 16,
1990.
Chair, Paper Sessions
“Approaches to Harmony and Voice-Leading.” Seventh Biennial International Conference on
Music Since 1900 and the International Conference of the Society for Music Analysis,
Lancaster Institute for the Contemporary Arts, Lancaster, England, July 30, 2011.
“Chord Roots and Harmonic Function in Twentieth-Century Music.” Seventh Annual Meeting of
the Music Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic, George Washington University, Washington,
DC, March 18, 2011.
“Lines, Layers, and Spaces.” Seventh Annual Meeting of the Music Theory Society of the Mid-
Atlantic, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, April 3, 2009.
“Messiaen’s Language.” 2008 Annual Meeting of the American Musicological Society, Nashville,
TN, November 6, 2008. Panelists include: Robert Fallon, Bowling Green State University;
Wai Ling Cheong, Chinese University of Hong Kong; Christoph Neidhöfer, McGill
University; and Andrew Shenton, Boston University.
“Teacher Education: Tutoring, Technology, and Techniques,” CMS International Conference at
the University of Limerick, Ireland, July 10, 2001.
New Music and Art Festival, BGSU, October 10, 1998; October 5, 1996.
Moderator, “The Arts,” Third Annual Latino Issues Conference, BGSU, April 25, 1997.](Vincent_Benitez_Personal_Web_Site_files/shapeimage_1.png)
profile
Name: Vincent P. Benitez
Gender: Male
Birthday: January 29
Status: Married to Esther Ann Wingfield Benitez
Hometown: El Paso, Texas
occupation
Profession: Education
Occupation: University Professor
Institution: The Pennsylvania State University
Location: University Park, Pennsylvania
favorites
Quote: “God dazzles us by an excess of Truth. Music carries us to God by an absence of Truth”
(Olivier Messiaen, Saint François d’Assise, Tableau 5)
New Reading: Don Quixote by Miguel Cervantes
Movies: The Seven Samurai, Rashômon, Godfather I and II, Spartacus, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Barry Lyndon
TV Shows: Masterpiece Theatre
Musicians: J. S. Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms, Monteverdi, Buxtehude, Debussy, Schoenberg, Bartók, Berg, Messiaen, and the Beatles, among others
Travel Destination: England and Rome, Italy, Summer/Fall 2011
Olivier Messiaen: A Research and Information Guide
Olivier Messiaen: A
Research and
Information Guide
Routledge Music
Bibliographies. New
York and London:
Routledge, 2008.
http://www.amazon.com/Oliver-Messiaen-Information-Routledg-Bibliographies/dp/0415973724
“Benitez displays an impressive command of the literature on Messiaen. . . . Far more than a compendium of research sources on Messiaen, this book offers an essential guide that will prove beneficial both for the specialist—who will discover a wealth of helpful new sources to examine—and for the person who is beginning to explore the fascinating and captivating music of this modern master.” - - Brian Hart, Music References Services Quarterly 12, nos. 1–2 (2009): 61–63.
For a list of errata/addenda and
updated Web links, click here:
The Words and Music of Paul
McCartney: The Solo Years
The Words and Music
of Paul McCartney:
The Solo Years.
Praeger Singer-
Songwriter Collection.
Westport, CT:
Praeger Publishers, 2010.
http://www.abc-clio.com/product.aspx?id=53286
"[This] book is required reading . . . for any Beatles scholar or fan. Proving that the scope of McCartney's 'musical activities [are truly] mind-boggling,' Benitez adds to the understanding of the various musical heights (and lows) this musical icon has attained thus far. Summing up: Highly recommended. All readers.” - - T. Emery, Austin Peay State University, Choice (January 2011).
CHOICE_Review_of_Vincent_Benitez_The_Words_and_Music_of_Paul_McCartney.pdf
“Benitez . . . analyzes McCartney’s composition[s] after his time with [t]he Beatles, beginning with his 1970 album McCartney and through the 2007 Memory Almost Full. The focus is on the elements of his musical language, and how he integrates music and text into a unified song.” Reference and Research Book News 25, no. 2 (May 2010): 225.
Music, Color, and Drama in Olivier Messiaen’s Opera, Saint François d’Assise (to be submitted to the University Of Rochester Press)
Musical Heroes Since Childhood:
contact
Curriculum Vitae
