Appointment
I am currently Professor of Library and Instructional Services and Reference Librarian at Ferris State University. I serve as the subject specialist in the areas of art, music, philosophy, and religion. Working in conjunction with the humanities faculty, my collection development and liaison responsibilities include the review of scholarly journals and the acquisition of materials pertinent to the current undergraduate and graduate curricula; the creation and management of electronic and print subject bibliographies; and furnishing annotations for authoritative electronic and print resources relevant to various humanities-related subjects. I provide specialized reference and research assistance in the disciplines of medieval and renaissance musicology and music theory locally and globally.
Areas of Interest and Specialization
I am an academic librarian and musicologist by profession. My areas of interest are music bibliography and reference; medieval and renaissance notation systems; twelfth and thirteenth century conductus, organa, and motet studies (St. Martial, Santiago de Compostela, and Notre Dame repertories); fourteenth century mass (Barcelona, Sorbonne, Toulouse, Tournai) and mass section studies; fifteenth century Franco-Flemish mass and motet studies; sixteenth and eighteenth century counterpoint (primarily Palestrina and Bach); and ricercar, canon, and fugue studies (Gedalge, Goetschius, Jeppesen, Prout, and Norden). Special emphases include the music of Johannes Ockeghem, William Byrd, Johann Sebastian Bach, the Beatles, and Charles Hardin ('Buddy') Holley.
Education
Ph.D. Michigan State University, 2001 (Musicology) (Dale Bonge). Degree awarded on 14 December 2001. "Cadence, Linear Procedures, and Pitch Structure in the Works of Johannes Ockeghem" (Ph.D. diss.; 2 vols., 562 pp.).
M.A. University of New Hampshire, 1992 (Music) (Peter Urquhart). Degree awarded on 23 May 1992. "Cadence and Structure in the Masses of Johannes Ockeghem" (M.A. thesis, 125 leaves).
M.S. Simmons College, 1988 (Library Science) (A. J. Anderson). Degree awarded on 17 October 1988.
B.M. University of Lowell, 1982 (Music History and Literature) (John Ogasapian and Robert White). Degree awarded cum laude on 29 May 1982. "The Notation of Ockeghem's Requiem" (B.M. thesis, 24 leaves).
A.A. Cape Cod Community College, 1978 (Liberal Arts) (Robert Kidd). Degree awarded on 4 June 1978.
Johannes Ockeghem Home Page
http://library.ferris.edu/scott/ockeghem.html
The Johannes Ockeghem Home Page was created in 1996. The page is devoted to one of the fifteenth century's most innovative and enigmatic composers, Johannes Ockeghem (c.1410-1497). It is my intent to collate and organize as much information as is possible on the composer, in the hope that it will aid researchers, scholars, and general audiences alike in a greater understanding of and appreciation for the music of this contrapuntist. Much of the bibliographic data included on the Johannes Ockeghem Home Page as well as a substantial amount of research-related information contained in my revised doctoral dissertation is currently being updated and substantially augmented in order to be submitted for publication in monographic form. The monograph includes information on hundreds of items not yet included on that page. These will be added gradually to the Johannes Ockeghem Home Page once the monograph has been published.
Please do not hesitate to Email me at atwells@ferris.edu should you wish to obtain citations or other relevant information for any item related to Johannes Ockeghem which you do not find on the Johannes Ockeghem Home Page, or if you wish to obtain more complete information for any item you do find there. (The typical turnaround time for responding to most requests is 24 hours.) I have a substantial number of items (abstracts, articles, bibliographic and biographical resources, dissertations, editions, facsimiles, iconographical resources, information regarding library sigla, links to theoretical treatises, manuscripts, MIDI files, monographs, MusiXTex source files, performance practice resources, PostScript graphic images, prints, released and unreleased recordings, scores, theoretical writings, theses, unpublished sources and transcriptions, etc.) as well as a substantial number of additional primary, secondary, and peripheral resources that are currently awaiting classification and bibliographic verification before being added to the Johannes Ockeghem Home Page. I would be more than willing to disseminate, where appropriate, to scholars and students upon request. If unable to disseminate directly, I will make every effort to deliver relevant library and other agency holdings information and/or point users in the direction of a particular scholar or loaning institution.
Publications and Scholarship
Publications in the arenas of librarianship and musicology have appeared in Ad Parnassum: A Journal of Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Instrumental Music; Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries; Fontes Artis Musicae; Music Reference Services Quarterly; and Notes: Quarterly Journal of the Music Library Association. I have also written Prefaces for editions (Grieg and Beethoven) published by Musikproduktion Jürgen Höflich (München). I correspond frequently with distinguished national and international scholars, am an abstractor for Répertoire International de Littérature Musicale (RILM) and reviewer for Routledge Reference Press, and am completing my first monograph on Ockeghem. I share general and specialized reference desk and consultation services, and maintain and contribute to scholarly Web pages, including Die Goldberg-Stiftung, emanating from Berlin, Germany.
Vita