Welcome
Marc Hannaford is an improvising pianist, electronic musician, and composer. He is also an academic who write about performance, improvisation, identity, politics, and music theory, primarily in relation to twentieth- and twenty-first-century American music.
About Marc Hannaford
I am a scholar and improvising pianist living in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I studied and taught at Columbia University in New York City, where I also performed with various fantastic musicians and ensembles. Before that I lived in Melbourne, Australia, cultivating solo and trio projects, working with a multi-generational, ad-hoc collection of improvisers and jazz musicians, recording many albums, and touring extensively.
As a pianist, I have performed and/or recorded with Tim Berne, Ingrid Laubrock, Marion Hayden, Tom Rainey, Anna Webber, Tony Malaby, Simon Barker, Nasheet Waits, and William Parker. I performed at venues like The Stone, Cornelia St. Cafe, Roulette Intermedium, and National Sawdust in New York City; the Sydney Opera House, Bennetts Lane, and Melbourne Recital Center; and Kerrytown Concert House and the Blue Llama in Ann Arbor. I have also led workshops on improvisation and/or composition at the University of Melbourne, University of Sydney, Columbia University, Mt Holyoke College, and the University of Michigan. Jason Moran described me as someone who has “taken full control of the music histories that interest him: from Messaien to Earl Hines . . . with a new sound that only comes from within him.”
As a scholar, I primarily write about and teach on music theory, improvisation, performance, and identity politics. I focus on music from the twentieth- and twenty-first-century American music. I am writing a book that explores music theory in Black American music, connecting these theories of musical structure to creative practice, racial and gender politics, and institutional power. This book is under advanced contract at the University of Chicago Press. Other publications appear in journals such as Theory & Practice, Music Theory Spectrum, Music Theory Online, and The Journal of the Society for American Music.
I received an Emerging Scholar Publication Award from the Society for Music Theory for my 2021 article, “Fugitive Music Theory and George Russell’s Theory of Tonality,” and a 2024 Henry Russel Award the University of Michigan, the University’s highest award for faculty members at their early to mid-career stages.
This website collates most of my work, so please enjoy looking around and feel free to get in touch with any questions or requests.
Intellectual Inquiry & Creative Practice
I teach in the department of Music Theory at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor. I teach undergraduate and graduate classes, often related to jazz, improvisation, analysis, and contemporary music.
I primarily perform in and around Ann Arbor and Detroit, New York City, and Australia.
