Overview
Ann Kosakowski McNamee (Southbridge, Massachusetts, May 21, 1953) is a music theorist, singer-songwriter and musical theater composer/lyricist based in San Francisco, California and a retired Professor Emerita of music at Swarthmore College notable for her contribution to music theory; her song writing; and her musical performances with the bands the Flying Other Brothers and Moonalice known for their cutting edge technology, particularly in the area of social media, as well as their performances at festivals such as Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, Nateva, Summer Camp Music Festival, Oregon Country Fair, Gathering of the Vibes; and with her band Ann Atomic during the 2010 revival of Lilith Fair. She composed the majority of the songs on the Moonalice album that was part of T Bone Burnett’s nomination for Producer of the Year at the 2009 Grammys.
Contribution to music theory
She is the author of highly cited academic work in music theory, specifically on bitonality, mode and interval in the music of Karol Szymanowski, the role of the piano introduction in Franz Schubert's Lieder, and the octave expansion and sonata form of Grażyna Bacewicz's Second Piano Sonata.
She has been cited by Allen Forte, co-winner of the 1997 Wallace Berry Distinguished Book Award of the Society for Music Theory for her significant contribution to his 1995 book, "The American Popular Ballad of the Golden Era, 1924–1950: A Study in Musical Design.". Dave Headlam, winner of the 1997 Deems Taylor award in the Symphonic Books category of the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP), cited her for her contribution on interval cycles in Karol Szymanowski's works, in his 1996 book "The Music of Alban Berg". Kristine H. Burns in her 2002 book, "Women and Music in America Since 1900: An Encyclopedia [Two Volumes]" cited her for her work on the music of Franz Schubert and Karol Szymanowski. She has also been cited in reviews of music in the 2004 edition of "New Historical Anthology of Music by Women" edited by James R. Briscoe.
From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).