J. Michael Allsen
Associate Professor, UW-Whitewater Department of Music
       last update: 5/22/08

                 photo by Katrin Talbot
J. Michael Allsen joined the faculty of the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater in 1996.  Previous professional positions include teaching at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and an administrative job with the Madison Symphony Orchestra. Past and present teaching duties at Whitewater include World of the Arts, Cultural Music of the Americas, Music History I, Music History II, Survey of African American Music, Survey of Latin American Music, and Survey of World Musics. Allsen also directs the UWW Trombone Choir.  In 1998 and 2005, he received the UWW College of Arts and Communication Excellence Award in Teaching, and in 2004, he received the College's Excellence Award in Research.  He was awarded a sabbatical in Spring 2006 to work on a critical edition for A-R Editions.  In July 2006 he became the Chair of Whitewater's Music Department.

Allsen's research interests are primarily in the field of late medieval music.  Beginning with his dissertation research, he has worked intensively with the isorhythmic motet, among the most important polyphonic genres of the 14th and early 15th centuries.  In studying the motet repertoire, he has focussed in particular upon the issues of musical style, intertextuality, genre, and compositional process.  Allsen has also worked on biographical problems, particularly in connection with the preeminent composer of the early 15th century, Guillaume Du Fay, and and his contemporaries Gilles Binchois, Arnold and Hugo de Lantins, and Johannes Brassart. Allsen has strong secondary interests in the fields of 17th-century instrumental music, the music of the Moravian Church, and in local (Madison, WI) music history.

Allsen has written program notes for the Madison Symphony Orchestra since 1984.  He has also written commissioned notes for the Whitewater Symphony Orchestra, Pioneer Valley Symphony (Greenfield, MA), Brockton (MA) Symphony Orchestra, Illinois Symphony Orchestra,  Vancouver (WA) Symphony Orchestra,  Longview (TX) Symphony Orchestra, Phoenix Symphony Orchestra, Beloit Janesville Symphony Orchestra, the Aspen Music Festival, and the Madison Early Music Festival.  His program notes have been published by orchestras and choruses across the United States, and in Canada, England, Scotland, Japan, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Israel, and Zimbabwe.  During the 2000-2001 season he was commissioned by the MSO to write a series of short historical articles celebrating the orchestra's 75th anniversary: extended versions of these articles appear on this site.  He has also written feature articles on local music history for the Wisconsin State Journal.

Allsen is a professional trombonist, and has been associated with Madison Symphony Orchestra since 1983—he has been the orchestra's bass trombonist since 1990.  He has also performed with the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, and many other ensembles in southern Wisconsin, including the Madison Jazz Orchestra, the Jazz Players Big Band, and the Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra.   Allsen was the co-founder of the Glenwood Moravian Trombone Choir, an amateur/community group in Madison that that he directed for nearly a quarter century (1983-2007) leading the group in nearly 500 performances.  In July 2006, he served as Trombone Choir Director at the Moravian Music Festival in Columbus, OH.  Allsen has been associated with the Madison Early Music Festival since 2001, serving as a featured artist (sackbut) in 2001 and as guest historian since then.

Education includes:

Ph.D. in Musicology - University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1992
     dissertation:  Style and Intertextuality in the Isorhythmic Motet 1400 -1440
     advisor:  Prof. Lawrence M. Earp
     minor area:  Applied Music (trombone)

M.M. in Musicology - University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1984

B.S. in Music Education - University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, 1982
 

list of publications and papers