Stanley Ralph Fink’s research interests include twentieth- and twenty-first century opera, post-tonal analysis, and musical representations of stigma and trauma; additionally, he researches forms and harmony in popular music. His article, "Benjamin Britten's Musical Characterization of the Madwoman in Curlew River" was published in the Journal of Music Theory. His article, "The 'Anchoring vi Schema' and Its Relation to Phrase Rhythm in Popular Music" was published in Popular Music. His chapter, "Embellishing the Verse-Chorus Paradigm: Max Martin and the Descant Chorus" was published in Musical Waves: West Coast Perspectives of Pitch, Narrative, and Form.
Dr. Fink has presented his research at both national and regional conferences, including the Society for American Music, the North American British Music Studies Association, and several regional music theory societies. From 2017–2020, Fink served as co-chair for the Music Theory Forum at Florida State University. In 2020, Fink joined the Society for Music Theory’s Development Committee.
An accomplished keyboardist, Fink has served as répétiteur for the Princeton Festival’s opera productions between 2011 and 2019. He studied with Jean-Louis Haguenauer, Shigeo Neriki, and Robert Durso.
Fink is the current Visiting Assistant Professor of Music Theory at Drake University. Previously, he was a lecturer at James Madison University. Fink holds a Ph.D. in music theory and composition from Florida State University, where he was a Legacy Fellow. He also has an M.M. in music theory from Indiana University, Bloomington.
My 2023 Society for American Music Paper
The subject of Jeanine Tesori’s opera Blue (2019) is pithily summarized by one of its principal characters: “The shooting and killing of unarmed black men and boys all over the country,” a heartbreaking and distinctly American tragedy. Given the opera’s politically charged premise, the questions of how an audience might receive such a work and to what extent the score influences their reception are critical. I argue that, for the purpose of managing the audience’s emotional reception of the story, Tesori manipulates the audience’s musical expectations through three strategies: repetitive accompanimental patterns, familiar melodic embellishments, and traditional uses of tonality.
Johann Sebastian Bach—Prelude and Fugue in E-flat, BWV 876
Performed by Stanley Ralph Fink at the Church of St. Jude and the Nativity, Lafayette Hill, PA