About

Antares (Tara) Boyle is currently Assistant Professor of Music Theory at Portland State University, and previously served on the faculty of the University of Northern Colorado. Her research focuses on contemporary art music, ranging from that by European post-serial composers Salvatore Sciarrino and Harrison Birtwistle to Canadian minimalist Ann Southam and American jazz pianist Craig Taborn. Tara completed her PhD in music theory at the University of British Columbia in 2018. Her dissertation, which theorized segmentation and form in repetitive post-tonal music, was awarded the Society for Music Theory’s SMT-40 Dissertation Fellowship in 2018, and her writing will appear in upcoming issues of Music Theory Online and Perspectives of New Music. Tara’s other research interests include theorizing musical meter, ostinato, and groove; the interactions between performance and analysis; and minimalist and process composition and improvisation. She has presented her research at various regional, national, and international conferences, including the annual meetings of the Society for Music Theory, the West Coast Conference of Music Theory and Analysis, the New England Conference of Music Theorists, the Rocky Mountain Society for Music Theory, and the Music Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic. She serves as co-chair of the Society for Music Theory’s Post-1945 Music Analysis Interest Group and is an associate editor with the journal Analytical Approaches to World Music. Tara is also an accomplished flutist. Before turning her attention to music theory, she earned a Master’s degree in flute performance from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, won prizes in the International Sydney Flute Festival Competition and the Gisborne International Music Competition, and spent several years working as a freelance flutist in Los Angeles. She enjoys performing new music, especially as part of a duo with her husband, pianist Rory Cowal.