Zane Gillespie

Jackson, MS

Zane Gillespie is a composer, theorist, scholar, pianist, vocalist, Immediate Past Executive Board Member for Music Theory for The Southern Chapter of The College Music Society (CMS), & Music Ministry International’s Ecumenical Director of Music at Little Rock Air Force Base in Jacksonville, AR. His original research has been published in peer-reviewed journals including Cybernetics & Human Knowing, College Music Symposium, The Edgar Allan Poe Review, as well as forthcoming in the proceedings of Le Neuvième Congrès Européen d'Analyse Musicale (EuroMAC9). His music-theoretical research has been accepted for presentation by The 13th International Music Theory & Analysis Conference 2016 in Rimini, Italy, the 2016 meeting of the New Zealand Musicological Society at Waikato University in Hamilton, New Zealand, MS University for Women’s Inaugural Music by Women Festival, EuroMAC9 in Strasbourg, France, by the 60th CMS National Conference, as well as the 2020 American Society for Cybernetics/British Cybernetics Society Global Conversation, & a number of CMS regional conferences, including the 2020 CMS Southern Chapter/South-Central Society for Music Theory Joint Conference at Vanderbilt University, which also selected his Reliquiae for performance by The Belmont New Music Ensemble. In 2019, the 40th Annual CMS Southern Chapter Conference selected four of his 11 pieces for piano and digital delay entitled The Human & Non-Human for performance in Composers’ Concert III, held at The University of Central Florida. As a guest of the 2017 & 2018 conferences of The American Society for Cybernetics (held in Salem, MA & University Center, Chicago, IL, respectively), Zane has given lecture demonstrations of his own works including his Ploutonion Quartet (“The Night Watches”) for amplified clarinet, electric violin, electric violoncello, & fixed-media electronics. The 2016 CMS South-Central Regional Conference selected his Two Noumenist Poems (for soprano & alto vocalists & piano) for performance, & shortly after Zane’s Quartet for Alto Saxophone & Strings (commissioned by concert saxophonist Walter Hoehn) was performed in Concert V of The 8th Annual Belvedere Chamber Music Festival (2014), he chaired the session “Aesthetics & Philosophy” at The 4th International Poe Studies Association Conference (2015) in NYC. His music earned him the Nancy Van de Vate Composition Award three times from The University of MS (Ole Miss). Zane holds degrees from Ole Miss (BM; MM), & The University of Memphis (DMA) where he received The Scheidt School of Music's 2011 Smit Composition Award.