Blake Taylor

PhD Candidate, Music Theory & History

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Graduate Certificate, College Instruction, University of Connecticut

M.M., Music Theory, University of Louisville

B.M., Tuba Performance, University of Kentucky

 

Graduate Certificate, College Instruction, University of Connecticut

M.M., Music Theory, University of Louisville
B.M., Tuba Performance, University of Kentucky

Blake Taylor is a Ph.D. student and graduate teaching assistant in music theory and music history at the University of Connecticut. His research focuses on the music of Paul Hindemith, 20th-century neoclassicism, and philosophy, with peripheral interests in popular music studies, music theory pedagogy, and postsecondary curriculum design. Blake has presented his research on Paul Hindemith nationally and internationally, most recently at the 86th Annual Meeting of the American Musicological Society, which included his presentation “Uncovering Susanna: Lukács, Lacan, and Phallic Essence in Weimar Opera.”

At UConn, Blake has taught or assisted in courses including music fundamentals, harmony, and American popular music. He received the Graduate Certificate in College Instruction from UConn’s Neag School of Education in 2020. Prior to his appointment at UConn, Blake was a graduate teaching assistant at the University of Louisville, where he studied music theory with Rebecca Jemian and Mark J. Yeary. As a music theorist and musicologist, Blake has participated in workshops and round tables with Gary Karpinski, David Huron, Walter Everett, Deborah Stein, L. Poundie Burstein, and Janet Schmalfeldt. 

As a tuba player, Blake studied with Skip Gray and served as principal tubist in the University of Kentucky Wind Symphony, substitute tubist in the faculty brass quintet, and principal tubist and assistant director of the University of Kentucky Tuba-Euphonium Ensemble. Blake has performed with the free improvisation ensemble FreeK as well as groups including the Charter Oak Brass Band, Brass Band of Louisville, Lexington Brass Band, Bluegrass Opera, and the Victory Brass Quintet. Most summers, Blake enjoys returning to his hometown of Danville, Kentucky for the Great American Brass Band Festival, where he performs with the Advocate Brass Band and plays tuba on a mule-drawn wagon, which is the highlight of his performing career.

As a composer, Blake has studied with Kenneth Fuchs and Steve Rouse. His original compositions and arrangements for tuba, euphonium and small ensembles have been premiered at numerous graduate and undergraduate recitals.

Blake also maintains a position at UConn Library, where he works as an electronic resource specialist and metadata procedures assistant. He is a member of the Pi Kappa Lambda musical honor society, the Society for Music Theory, the American Musicological Society, the American Library Association and the Association of College and Research Libraries. He is also an alumnus of the Kentucky Governor’s School for the Arts.

Blake lives in Norwich, Connecticut with his wife Emma and their two rascally cats, Alfie and Mo. In his spare time, Blake enjoys volunteering with the Norwich Historical Society, studying languages, and vegetarian cooking.