Obituaries and Commendations

OBITUARY 1

Naomi Cumming (1960 - 1999)

Members and readers will be saddened by the news of the sudden death of musicologist Naomi Cumming in January this year. Naomi had recently been appointed to the position of Senior Lecturer in the School of Music at University of Queensland after completing a Queen Elizabeth II Research Fellowship at the University of Melbourne. She published extensively in the areas of musical theory, semiotics, reception theory and philosophy in the international arena. In 1998 she received the Outstanding Publication Award from the Society of Music Theory, for her article ‘The Subjectivities of “Erbarme Dich”’ in Music Analysis, volume 16/1 1997. Naomi had recently had her book manuscript The Sonic Self accepted for publication by Indiana University Press and this will be published in late 1999. Naomi had plans to co-write a work on contemporary Australian composition. An article ‘Encountering “Mangrove”: an Essay in Signification’ in Australasian Music Research 1, 1996 provides an analysis of signification in this work by Peter Sculthorpe. Her work has and will continue to influence musicologists, nationally and internationally. She is survived by her devoted husband Anthony.

Georgina Binns
Music and Multimedia Librarian
Music Library and Multimedia Services
Humanities and Social Sciences Library
Monash University
Wellington Road
Clayton Victoria
AUSTRALIA 3168

E-mail: georgina.binns@lib.monash.edu.au
Phone: 61 3 9905 3236
Fax: 61 3 9905 9142

OBITUARY 2

...I have been asked to write a notice about Naomi for the ASA (aesthetics society) newsletter. I was wondering if it would be possible to obtain her c.v. (resume), or something like that. I know she won a publication award recently (I can look that up independently, actually). Any sort of biographical information you can send me would be of great help. But only if it's not an inconvenience to you--if it's not ready to hand, or you're too busy, then that's okay.

You can reply if you like by email, or if you want to send something by regular mail, my address is Mail Code 1816, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027 USA.

Thank you, and, again, my sincerest condolences.

Mark DeBellis

Naomi Cumming Remembered

With sadness we report that Naomi Cumming died unexpectedly of a stroke on January 6, 1999, in Brisbane, Australia. She had just begun a new position as Senior Lecturer in Music at the University of Queensland.

Dr. Cumming's contributions to musical aesthetics were original and profound, philosophically sharp and musically sensitive, incorporating ideas from a wide range of philosophical and critical traditions. Much of her work dealt with issues of musical signification, and in recent years she developed a specialization in the semiotic theory of Peirce. She was also entirely at home in contemporary philosophy of mind and psychology. Those of us who were at Columbia when Naomi visited as a Fulbright Fellow recall well the intellectual life she breathed into the music department, in many hours of wonderful, stimulating conversation; and her warmth, humor, and joy in all things musical and philosophical.

In December 1998, Dr. Cumming received the Society for Music Theory's Outstanding Publication Award for her article ‘The Subjectivities of “Erbarme Dich”’, which appeared in Music Analysis (1997). This study of the aria from Bach's St. Matthew Passion was praised as “one of the most comprehensive accounts of how we interpret and, at times, identify with implied subjectivities in both vocal and instrumental music”. Dr. Cumming also published widely on such topics as musical metaphor, the theories of Leonard Meyer, the music of Steve Reich, and bodily aspects of personal identity in musical performance; she wrote also on grief, and was interested in music therapy. She participated in numerous conferences, including a session on postmodernism and absolutist aesthetics at the ASA meeting in Bloomington in November 1998. Shortly before her death she completed her first book, The Sonic Self, which is scheduled for publication in Spring 2000 by Indiana University Press.

Dr. Cumming was born in London in 1960. She trained as a violinist and received her Ph.D. in music theory at the University of Melbourne in 1987. She continued on to post-doctoral work at the University of Adelaide, was awarded a Rothmans Foundation Post-Doctoral Fellowship in 1990-92, and held a Fulbright Fellowship at Columbia University in 1992-93. In 1994 she took up a Queen Elizabeth II Research Fellowship in the Faculty of Music at the University of Melbourne, and transferred to the Department of Philosophy in November 1996. She had arrived in Brisbane only a few days earlier, accompanied by her husband Anthony, to begin her new position when she suffered a sudden stroke. She died at the age of thirty-eight. A Requiem Mass was held on January 15 in Dandenong, near Melbourne.

To all who knew Naomi, her luminous intelligence and generosity were an inspiration. We are impoverished by her untimely passing. She set an example for us all, and will be sadly missed.

Mark DeBellis

Some e-mails recognising Naomi

Naomi Cumming (1960-1999)
Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1999 00:57:34 GMT
From: Jose Luiz Martinez
Reply-To: musignif@pucsp.br
To: Multiple recipients of list MUSIGNIF

Dear friends,

I have had the news that Naomi Cumming passed way recently, but - following a request of David Lidov - I postponed informing the list. However, I think it is time to let MUSIGNIF know about this sad happening.

I met Naomi in a congress on musical semiotics in Imatra, in 1996. She was a brilliant scholar, working with Peircean semiotics. As much as I know, she focused on the question of listening and subjectivity. Naomi was due to take up a position at the University of Queensland, Australia. I had invited her to subscribe to MUSIGNIF and, in her reply, she wrote that she was very interested, but wanted to wait some more time, as to have her e-mail address set in Queensland.

It would be very good to have a list of some of her publications. Maybe David Lidov, a great friend of Naomi, might give us some indications.

Anyway, I regret that Naomi left the community of music semioticians so early. Her work was indeed very good and it promised a beautiful flowering if she had had the opportunity.

My condolences to all of Naomi's friends.

Regards,
Martinez

This e-mail contains the citation for the Society for Music Theory best article for the year (1998).

Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1999 01:59:47 GMT
From: "David Lidov"

I appreciate the discretion of Jose Luis in allowing a couple of days for Naomi's closest friends to recieve personal communications before distributing information in a form that could have come as even a ruder shock if that is possible.

I will try to respond soon to his request for a list of her publications. I do think I have the information on file somewhere--not on this computer! Meanwhile, let me respond in part by mentioning two that are recent, as best I can from memory. (The earlier work is not explicitly semiotic.) Music Analysis published the article which won the Society for Music Theory citation as best article of the year. Here is their citation--I don't have to do it from memory:

The Outstanding Publication Award was given to Naomi Cumming for ‘The Subjectivities of “Erbarme Dich”’(Music Analysi 16).

‘The Subjectivities of “Erbarme Dich”’ is a groundbreaking article on subjectivity and its consequence for our understanding of expressive meaning in music. Drawing on current approaches to 'voice,' gesture, and agency in music, Cumming integrates semiotic, aesthetic, Schenkerian, and theological insights into the various subjectivities projected by Bach's celebrated Passion aria. Profound in its philosophical investigations, and wide-ranging in its analytical claims, the article presents one of the most comprehensive accounts of how we interpret and, at times, indentify with implied subjectivities in both vocal and instrumental music."

I believe her article on Steve Reich's "Trains" is in the current Perspectives of New Music.

Her book on the musical subject was accepted for publication by Indiana Univ. Press, and I hope it will still be possible for them to publish it.

The short report which I received attributed her death last Tuesday in Brisbane to a stroke. Naomi was an enchanting and inspiring young friend who leaves us a legacy of musical scholarship exceptional for its emotional precision and spiritual seriousness.

David Lidov