Antares (Tara) Boyle is a music scholar, music theory teacher, and flutist. Her research focuses on modernist, experimental, and improvised music of the twentieth and twenty- first centuries. Tara has published or presented on musicians including European post- serial composers Salvatore Sciarrino and Harrison Birtwistle, Canadian minimalists Ann Southam and Linda Catlin Smith, and American jazz pioneers Wayne Shorter and Craig Taborn. Her writing is published or forthcoming in the journals Music Theory Spectrum, Journal of Music Theory, Music Theory Online, and Perspectives of New Music, as well as the edited volume Analytical Essays on Music by Women Composers. Her scholarship has been awarded the Society for Music Theory’s Emerging Scholar Award (2023), the SMT Jazz Interest Group’s Award for Excellence in Jazz Scholarship (2022), and the Society for Music Theory’s SMT-40 Dissertation Fellowship (2018). She is a co-editor of Contemporary Music Review, associate editor for Analytical Approaches to World Music, and is on the editorial boards for Music Theory Online and Indiana Theory Review.
A dedicated and passionate music theory instructor, Tara loves both being in the classroom and thinking about curriculum from outside of it. She strives for all her classes to recognize and celebrate the diverse needs, interests, and contributions of modern music students. Tara has presented on theory pedagogy topics at the Pedagogy Into Practice conference and was an architect of curriculum redesign projects at Portland State and the University of British Columbia. At PSU, she enjoys coordinating the theory and musicianship courses, teaching all levels of music theory, and working one-on-one with music theory majors.
Tara earned a PhD in music theory from the University of British Columbia in 2018 and has also served on the theory faculty of the University of Northern Colorado. Before turning her attention to music theory, she earned a Master’s degree in flute performance from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, won prizes in the Sydney Flute Festival Competition and the Gisborne International Music Competition, and spent several years working as a freelance flutist in Los Angeles. She enjoys performing new music, especially as part of a duo with her husband, pianist Rory Cowal. In her free time, she enjoys reading novels, hiking, and hanging out with her dog, Lucy.