June 29, 2022
The Butler School of Music is saying goodbye to four incredible faculty members this year, who all completed their final semesters this past spring. Here’s a look at some of their greatest achievements during their storied careers.
Robert S. Hatten
Marlene & Morton Meyerson Professor in Music Theory Robert S. Hatten spent more than a decade with the Butler School. He has served as President of Society for Music Theory (2017-19) and President of the Semiotic Society of America (2008). A renowned Beethoven scholar, Dr. Hatten’s first book Musical Meaning in Beethoven: Markedness, Correlation, and Interpretation (1994) was co-recipient of the Wallace Berry Award from the Society for Music Theory. His second book, Interpreting Musical Gestures, Topics, and Tropes: Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert (2004) helped launch the book series Musical Meaning and Interpretation (Indiana University Press), for which he served as general editor until 2020, shepherding the publication of over 35 books by musicologists and theorists. His latest book, A Theory of Virtual Agency for Western Art Music, appeared in the series in 2018. His most recent articles, on music hermeneutics and on intersections of music semiotics with other disciplines, appeared in The Musical Quarterly and Open Semiotics, respectively. Illustration and performance at the piano informed Hatten’s most recent research, including explorations of texture and expressive meaning in the Bach keyboard partitas, and enrichments of melos in two late nocturnes of Chopin. Hatten is also an active librettist–one of his libretti served as the basis for his one-act opera, Compassion. In retirement, Hatten plans to continue his active career as a researcher while enjoying more time for creative endeavors.
Delaine Fedson Leonard
Delaine Fedson Leonard has been an active performer and educator in the Central Texas area since 1982. In 2000, she was invited to join the Butler School of Music faculty. Over the years she has enjoyed collaborating with many young artists, helping them define, and refine, their musical voices as they launch their careers.
Over the years, Ms. Leonard has been tenured with multiple symphonies, including the Dallas Opera Orchestra and the Waco and Valley Symphony Orchestras, and she has been a frequent guest with the San Antonio, Ft. Worth, and Austin Symphonies. No stranger to the pop and jazz world, she also performed and recorded with multiple musical artists and Broadway touring companies.
During her 22 years on the Butler School faculty, Ms. Leonard held concurrent faculty positions at Baylor University, St. Edwards University, Texas A&M, Southwestern University, Winthrop University (Rock Hill, SC), and Austin Community College. Throughout her 12-year tenure on the American Harp Society Board of Directors, she was a two-term AHS national President, and currently serves as the Chair of the AHS Nominating Committee. She is a Suzuki Association of the Americas and Hong Kong Suzuki Talent Education Harp Teacher Trainer who has trained Suzuki teachers and students all over the world.
Darlene Wiley
Darlene Wiley was inducted into the American Academy of Teachers of Singing in March, 2021. Her collection of Essays on the Human Voice, Singing and Spirituality, Singing: The Timeless Muse (2019) discusses the breadth and depth of the role of singing in the lives of conductors, composers, musicologists, theorists, philosophers, and health professionals.
Her performance career began as lyric coloratura at the Staatstheater Darmstadt performing over 50 roles in such operas as I Pagliacci, Die Zauberflöte, Don Pasquale, Tales of Hoffmann, La Traviata, and Le Nozze di Figaro. A veteran of over 1,500 performances, Ms. Wiley has sung at over 25 opera houses, including Mannheim, Wiesbaden, Kassel, Mainz, Ulm and Kiel. As an oratorio performer she has sung with the Radio Sinfonie Orchester Frankfurt, the Cleveland Orchestra, Santa Fe Symphony, Dallas Symphony and the Austin Symphony. In 1985 she gave her first Carnegie Hall Recital featuring the lieder of Mozart and Strauss. Darlene Wiley's broadcasting credits include PBS, Canadian Broadcasting, KUT, KLRU's Front Row Center, Deutschefunk, Hessischer Rundfunk, Seoul Educational Broadcasting, and WFMT. At The University of Texas at Austin Wiley was director of the Vocal Arts Lab and supervisor of the Vocal Pedagogy Program. Her master classes include Taejon, Seoul, Chuncheon, Pusan, Ulsan, Korea, University of Missouri, University of Kansas, Augustana College, Bluffton College, Pittsburg State University, Chopin Conservatory, Warsaw, L'Ecole du Opera, Liceo, Barcelona, Darmstadt, Germany, Oklahoma State University, College of Wooster, Akron University, University of West Virginia, Salzburg, Austria. Awards include that of Distinguished Professor at Myong Ji University, Seoul, Korea and Sook Myong University, Seoul, Korea.
While on faculty at the Butler School, Wiley launched the Butler Opera Center Young Artist Program, which allowed Central Texas high school students to experience opera performance during summers for many years. Seven years ago, she also launched Butler Opera International, a competition support burgeoning opera stars, which has grown significantly since its beginnings.
Many of Wiley’s students have developed successful careers, including appearances at the Metropolitan Opera, Staatsoper Berlin, Salzburg Festspiele, Washington Opera, Los Angeles Opera, St. Louis Opera, City Opera of New York, Seoul National Opera, Opera Hagen, Austin Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Ft. Worth Opera, Dallas Opera, Florida Grand Opera, Arizona Opera et al.
Stephen Slawek
Specializing in the musical traditions of South Asia with secondary interests in Southeast Asian music and American popular music, Stephen Slawek's publications drew upon extensive field experience and personal studies of performance practice in India. Slawek has served on the Council and as Second Vice-President of the Society for Ethnomusicology, as a member of the Board of the Society for Asian Music, as editor of Asian Music, the Journal of the Society for Asian Music, and as Chair of the Ethnomusicology Committee of the American Institute of Indian Studies. He also has served a total of ten years as Division Head of Musicology/Ethnomusicology.
Slawek’s publications have addressed various issues regarding the musical traditions of South Asia. A senior disciple of the late Pandit Ravi Shankar, he is an accomplished performer on the Indian sitar. Professor Slawek’s course offerings ranged from undergraduate courses on Asian musical traditions and issues in popular music to graduate seminars addressing the history of and current issues in ethnomusicology. In addition, Professor Slawek directed the Indian Classical Music Ensemble and the Javanese Gamelan Ensemble and offered individual instruction on the musical instruments of those traditions. Over the past four decades, Professor Slawek has added to the diversity of musicians presented by the Butler School by organizing numerous residencies and concerts that have featured visiting artists from the Middle East, Eastern Europe, Africa, Pakistan and India.