Current Graduate Students

Vilde Aaslid

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Vilde joined the Critical and Comparative Studies program in 2006. She completed both her B.A. and her M.A. in music history at the University of Washington in Seattle, where she wrote a thesis on text/music relationships in jazz-poetry collaborations. Her primary interests continue to center on jazz, but she also hopes to research Norwegian-American folk music revival. Vilde is a Jefferson Fellow and has just started a two-year term as co-chair of the Society for American Music's Student Forum. As a violinist, Vilde enjoys playing in a variety of styles including classical, jazz, western-swing, traditional Norwegian, and most recently baroque. When not studying or making music, Vilde enjoys gardening, eating delicious food, and marveling at the Charlottesville weather.

J. William Adkins

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Web: Joe Adkins' Website

Hello, I'm a composer/guitar player who sometimes draws and writes stuff. When I'm not composing or guitar playing or drawing or writing stuff, I teach guitar, music theory and songwriting. I can often be found singing honktonk songs in seedy establishments around Charlottesville. Coming up this winter I will be the musical director for a play about the life of Hank Williams, Sr. and I'm currently working on a piece designed to be played in one of the UVA gardens (the gardens are lovely, by the way if you haven't seen them).

feel free to email me if you are interested in any of these things - joe

Scott Barton

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Lee Bidgood

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I'm a PhD candidate in Critical and Comparative Studies in Music at UVA. Since joining the program in 2003, I have worked on topics such as African-American string bands, violin repertory from early modern central Europe, the musical and social history of the banjo, blackness in Verdian opera, the communal voice of sung worship, sacred-secular crossings in gospel performance, and the performance of "authenticity" and "race" in American music. During the 2007-8 school year I will be in and around Prague researching and writing my dissertation, which has the working title "Performing Americanness, Locating Identity: An Ethnography of Bluegrass Music in the Czech Republic". When not reading, typing, or off in the "field," I add my voice to those singing as the body of Christ at Charlottesville Mennonite Church, and play around in various string bands...the UVA viol consort and baroque orchestra, old-time / bluegrass jams, and the like. Please email me if you have any questions about the CCS program or any of these other topics.

Michael Bishop

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Julia Cook

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David Cosper

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David Cosper is a Ph.D. candidate in Critical & Comparative Studies. His dissertation is an exploration of post-structuralist narrative theory as a means of theorizing musical performance. It incorporates analysis of the music of Evgeny Kissin, Jaki Byard, and Björk, among others. Outside of teaching and writing, David also freelances as a bassist and producer.

Sarah Culpeper

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Sarah Culpeper is in the Critical and Comparative Studies program, working on a dissertation about American female pop vocalists of the 1950s including Doris Day, Peggy Lee and Patti Page. To this project Sarah brings her interests in vocalists across popular music genres, the popular music industry, gender and sexuality in popular music, and prestige values in twentieth century American music.

Before joining the McIntire Department of Music, Sarah completed a Master's in Musicology at McGill University in Montreal, where she studied with David Brackett, Lloyd Whitesell and Steven Huebner. During her time in Montreal, she also served as Assistant to the Artistic Director for two international contemporary art music festivals: MusiMars in 2004 and Montreal Nouvelles Musiques in 2005.

Sarah has worked as a teaching assistant for courses including History of Western Art Music; Rock ‘n’ Roll and its Roots; History of Jazz; Roots Music in America; and Jewish Musical Traditions. She has presented papers at IASPM-US, Feminist Theory and Music 9, and at the AMS Capital Chapter.

Jeffrey Decker

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Erik Deluca

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Web: erikdeluca.com

Erik DeLuca is an interdisciplinary artist that's specifically fond of natural sound phenomena (e.g. magnifying the unbelievable sound language of Japanese Koi, better known as gold fish.) He writes and performs improvisitory electroacoustic music, improvises, teaches, and is an aspiring community art builder. He was awarded a Masters in Music from Florida International University where he studied with Paula Matthusen and Kristine Burns. He recently attended residencies with Alvin Lucier, David Dunn, George Lewis, and Natasha Barrett. In 2009, a few of his pieces were programmed for Art Basel Miami, Wet Sounds (an underwater sound art gallery touring the UK,) SEAMUS in Fort Wayne, and ICMC in Montreal, QC, among others. Erik was recently awarded a grant from the city of Miami to produce The Deep Seascape: The Sonic Sea, a composition exploring Miami's underwater sound environment. Erik has an ever-developing aesthetic that he wants to push beyond boundaries that he cannot yet see or hear, but looks forward to exploring.

Stephanie Doktor

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Stephanie is in the Critical and Comparative Studies program. She recently graduated from The University of Georgia with an MA in Musicology and a Graduate Certificate in Women’s Studies. During her time at UGA she presented at twelve conferences at the local, national, and international level, and wrote her thesis, “Covering the Tracks: Exploring Cross-Gender Cover Songs of The Rolling Stones’ “Satisfaction.”

Currently, Stephanie is interested in Icelandic music and culture. On a broader scale, she is interested in epistemological boundaries and bridging the gap between academic scholarship/knowledge and that of popular culture.

Kirstin Ek

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Kirstin Ek is a third year Ph.D. student in critical and comparative studies, and as of right now, her main research interests are issues of vocal identity, American folk music of the first half of the twentieth century, as well as R&B and rock 'n' roll of the 1950's. Born and raised in New York, Kirstin graduated from Cornell University in 2004 with a B.A. in music. She also completed a M.A. in music education from New York University in 2006, where her thesis focused on issues of authenticity in multicultural music education. In her free time, Kirstin enjoys singing, cheering for the New York Yankees, playing catch with her family dog, Harley, and taking full advantage of TiVo.

Megan England

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Website: sound.oneemptyspace.net

Megan England is a multimedia artist and researcher living in Charlottesville, Virginia. Though her primary background is in music composition and sound technology, her works span many mediums and conceptual foundations. Her research interests include everything from virtual worlds to outdoor mobile a/v performance to body modification and identity. She also occasionally fancies herself a comics scholar, delving into the temporal and spatial issues of sequential art by creators such as Brian Wood, Alan Moore, and Warren Ellis.

Megan is currently a graduate student in the Composition and Computer Technologies program at the University of Virginia. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Digital Arts from Stetson University in DeLand, Florida, where she spent four years eating incredible Thai food and learning to love strange sounds. She has presented and performed at several U.S. festivals and conferences, and was recently in residence at Atlantic Center for the Arts under master artist Carole Kim. In her "free" time, she enjoys sci-fi novels and media, video games, and
other myriad facets of geekdom. And vegetable gardening. Just to throw you off.

Emily Gale

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Maria Guarino

Maria entered the PhD program in Critical and Comparative Studies in 2007 after completing an MA in ethnomusicology at Tufts University (which followed her Bachelor's in Music Education from the University of Vermont). Her Master's thesis, "Life and Prayer in Common: The Music of Community at Weston Priory," has become the foundation and inspiration for a dissertation project focused on music in contemporary monastic life. She looks particularly at the ways in which musical performance allows Benedictine monks to negotiate, live, and otherwise construct their identity as monastics in the modern world. Her work is grounded in reflexive ethnography and she is ever searching for new ways to push the boundaries of traditional ethnomusicological approaches to the study of music in religious life. Her current academic interests are entirely consumed by Christian mysticism, ethnographic theory and method, performance studies, liturgical music, Gregorian chant, liturgical reform movements, and contemporary monasticism. When she has time to ponder secondary interests, she gravitates toward children's music, enculturation and cultural transmission, West African music, and Sufism. In those rare moments when she is not reading or writing, she works on maintaining her skills as a flutist.

Aurie Hsu

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Wendy Hsu

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Web: Wendy Hsu's Website

Hello. I'm a student in the Critical and Comparative Studies Program. I have a background in Music, Religious Studies, and East Asian Studies. My research interests are Asian American identities and contemporary popular music and culture. Theoretically, I'm informed primarily by critical scholarship on technology, transnationalism, and identity intersectionality of race/ethnicity, gender/sexuality, and class. Methodologically, I'm drawn to critical ethnography and close (text) readings. My dissertation project is a multi-sited ethnography on the social and musical lives of Asian American musicians in indie rock. I've published articles on Yoko Ono, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, and Bollywood film music. Beside reading and writing, I perform in improvised noise trio Pinko Communoids and organize local experimental music events as a HzCollective member.

Matt Jones

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Hi. I'm Matt Jones, a student in the Critical & Comparative Studies program here at UVA. Though my primary interests are popular music, the voice, gender/sexuality/queer theory, and music video, my first year in the department afforded opportunities to explore an array of topics ranging from music & trauma, performance studies, disability studies, opera, jazz, and ecomusicology.

Before coming to UVA, I completed a Master’s in Musicology/Ethnomusicology at The University of Georgia, including my MA thesis project, “Such Beautiful Poses:” Articulations of Queer Masculinity in the Music of Rufus Wainwright. I’ve presented at several conferences, including SEM, IASPM, and FTM 10.

Though I am still in the coursework stage of the PhD, my current research projects include a continuing exploration of musical responses to the Holocaust, the connections between race/class/sex/gender/age, genre, and voice, Joni Mitchell, and I am particularly interested in issues concerning the aging voices of women singer-songwriters. When I'm not swamped with reading, I play the guitar, explore Charlottesville's thrift and vintage shops, and try to keep my cat, Joan, as content as possible.

Steven Kemper

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Web: Steven Kemper's Website

Steven Kemper is a Ph.D. student in Composition and Computer Technologies. Originally from Baltimore, Steven received a BA in music from Bowdoin College and a master's of music in composition from Bowling Green State University. Steven composes both acoustic and electronic music and has written for a variety of performing forces.
Along with fellow graduate students Troy Rogers and Scott Barton, Steven is a co-founder of Expressive Machines Musical Instruments (EMMI www.expressivemachines.com), a collective that designs, builds, and composes for robotic musical instruments. Other research interests include the exploration of music and mythology, and music for interactive dance.

Jason Kirby

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Jason Kirby is a Ph.D. student in the Critical & Comparative program at UVa. His research interests include genre in popular music, American "roots" music, sound and music in cinema, and the relationship of popular music to regional identity. He is beginning work on a dissertation examining the identity politics at work when a new pop music genre, such as "alternative country" music, is first codified by musicians, fans, journalists, and other culture industry workers. Jason has presented his work at national and international conferences, including IASPM's biennial meetings in 2007 and 2009, and the International Country Music Conference in 2007 and 2008. He earned a master's degree (2006) in American Culture Studies from Bowling Green State University in Ohio, and bachelor's degrees (2002) in sociology and literature from the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Elizabeth Lindau

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Elizabeth Lindau is a Ph.D. candidate in the CCS program.  Her dissertation explores intersections between rock music and the avant-garde, specifically in the work of the Velvet Underground, Yoko Ono, Brian Eno, and Sonic Youth. She has presented at numerous conferences, including IASPM-US, Feminist Theory in Music 9, the South Central Graduate Music Consortium, and most recently at SAM in Denver, Colorado. As a graduate instructor in the Music Department, she taught courses on the History of Rock, Music in the 20th Century, and Music Theory this past year.  Liz holds Bachelor’s degrees in Piano Performance and Piano Pedagogy from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and is active as a keyboard performer and teacher in Charlottesville. She performs on harpsichord with the UVa Baroque Orchestra, and will serve as pianist for the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church for fall 2009. An avid collector of books and vinyl records, Liz enjoys scouring garage sales, used bookstores, and library sales in hopes of encountering original Blue Notes, first pressings of Elvis albums, and the elusive first edition of García-Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude.

Loren Ludwig

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Loren Ludwig performs, teaches, writes about, and composes music. He is currently a Phd. candidate in the University of Virginia's Critical and Comparative Studies in Music program, where he is at work on a dissertation about the social and ritual dimensions of amateur chamber music: '"Equal to All Alike": A Cultural History of the Viol Consort in England, c.1550-1675'. He has presented papers at the AMS, SAM, and IASPM annual conferences and is a recipient of both a Fulbright and a Mellon fellowship. He is a founding member of the new wave viol consort "quaver" and performs music of the last six centuries on acoustic and electric viols. He is on the faculty of the Amherst Early Music Festival and Workshop, the Viola da Gamba Society of America's annual Conclave, and numerous other festivals and workshops. A bit of his music can be heard at myspace.com.

Sarah O'Halloran

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Sarah O’Halloran is from Tralee in Ireland. In 2004 she graduated from University College Cork with a BA in Music and English, and two years later she completed an MPhil in Musicology focusing on issues of sexual and national identity in Gerald Barry’s operas. In 2007 she finished an MA in Sonic Arts at Queens University Belfast. Before joining the CCT programme Sarah was based in Cork where she lectured in music part-time at UCC, and was co-director of the Quiet Music Festival, which brought Alvin Lucier and Pauline Oliveros to Ireland for the first time. Sarah's work includes concert music, improvisation, installations, and sculptures. Her music has been performed at festivals including Gaudeamus (Netherlands), Sonorities (UK), and Ostrava Days (Czech Republic).

Kevin Parks

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Website: people.virginia.edu/~kpp9c/

Kevin Parks originally hails from New York. He is a graduate of the Conservatory of Music at Brooklyn College, CUNY and received his M.A. degree from Dartmouth College. He is currently pursuing his Ph.D. in Composition and Music Technologies at The University of Virginia. After working briefly at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy. NY, Kevin moved to Seoul, Korea for many years. There, he taught computer music at the Seoul Institute of the Arts and collaborated with the Sadari Movement Research Group. Some areas of interest include: computer music and computer music performance, musique concrète, tuning and timbre, American experimental music, popular musics, and Korean musics, and improvisation. If you would like to know more about Kevin, take him to lunch, or give him large sums of money, he can be reached at the above e-mail address.

Allison Robbins

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Allison is a PhD student in Critical and Comparative Studies in Music. She received her undergraduate degree from Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, where she majored in music and minored in Asian Studies. At the University of Virginia, she has taught classes on the American musical, music of the Western canon, and basic keyboard skills and served as a teaching assistant for History of Jazz and American Roots Music. She has presented papers at the annual conferences of Society for American Music, the International Association for the Study of Popular Music, and the Society for Ethnomusicology. Allison is currently writing a dissertation on American film musicals of the 1930s. In her spare time, she enjoys walking her dog and playing piano.

Troy Rogers

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Troy Rogers is a composer/sound artist/instrument designer whose output includes music for soloists, chamber ensembles, orchestra, dance, theater, digital media, and homemade music robots. While completing his master's degree in Intermedia Music Technology at the University of Oregon, he spent time as a composer/researcher at Simon Fraser University's Sonic Research Studio exploring acoustic ecology and soundscape composition, and more recently at the University of Oregon Department of Computer and Information Sciences' Cognitive Modeling and Eye Tracking Laboratory creating audio/visual art controlled by eye movements. He is currently a Ph.D. student at the University of Virginia, pursuing a degree in Composition and Computing Technologies.

Nick Rubin

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Nick Rubin is a PhD candidate in Critical and Comparative Studies of Music. He grew up in Winston-Salem, and attended the University of Pennsylania (BA 1991) and the University of Vermont (MA 1995) before coming to UVA. Nick's work takes place at the intersection of popular music, ethnography, and media studies, and his dissertation work with Fred Maus centers on college rock radio. As a graduate instructor, Nick has taught the History of Rock & Roll, and the introduction to music theory. Nick has also served as a TA for the department's survey courses on Western classical music and Jazz. In 2003, Nick received the Music Department's Outstanding Graduate Student Teaching Award. Nick serves on the UVA Committee for radio station WTJU. As DJ Poubelle, he shares hosting duties for "Radio Freedonia," which you can hear Wednesday nights at 11 pm. In his spare time, Nick likes to hang with friends and spend time outside. Nick enjoys making and hearing good music, and making and eating good food. He is a Libra.

Lanier Sammons

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Lanier entered the program in Composition and Computer Technologies in 2007. His compositional foci include audience interactivity, improvisation, the intersection of popular and classical musics, and the exploration of non-standard venues. Lanier comes to UVA from Macon, Georgia by way of New York, where he received his B.A. from Columbia University. In New York, he studied guitar with Arthur Kampela, wrote for Sequenza21.com, and played in a few bands. He also worked for Bang on a Can/Cantaloupe Music, the Sequitur Ensemble, and the Columbia Music Library. When not musicking, Lanier enjoys following and playing baseball and soccer (both real and fantasy), reading psychology and neuroscience blogs, and spending time with his wife, Clara, and their dog, Molly.

Liza Sapir

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Liza Sapir is a CCS student and a Charlottesville native returnee. She attended Oberlin College (BA in ethnomusicology, 2000) and Western Carolina University (MS in counseling, 2007). Liza’s primary musical fixation is bluegrass. She is also interested in the broader categories of Appalachian music and country music. Previous research focused on rhythm in Ghana, West Africa and in African-American Pentecostal churches. Liza has worked as an equine therapist and horse trainer for many years. She prefers Australian shepherds and canyon country.

Yuri Spitsyn

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Peter Swendsen

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Web: swendsen.net

Peter V. Swendsen was recently appointed Assistant Professor in the Technology in Music and Related Arts program at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, where he will begin teaching in the fall of '07. Swendsen spent 2006-07 working on a soundscape composition project while in residence as a Fulbright Fellow at the NoTAM Computer Music Studios in Oslo, Norway. His dissertation project at UVA is a large-scale composition for electroacoustic music, interactive dance, and extended/prepared piano. Swendsen's music has been called "highly skillful" by the San Francisco Bay Guardian and "marvelous" by the San Francisco Chronicle. He received his MFA from the Mills College Center for Contemporary Music and his BM from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. His music has been heard throughout the United States and recently in Canada, Italy, Slovakia, Spain, Portugal, France, Germany, Norway, India, Korea, Chile, Argentina, and as part of a CD release called "Resonance: Steel Pan in the 21st Century." Swendsen has studied composition with Gary Nelson, Richard Povall, Kristine Burns, Gail Wight, Maggi Payne, Fred Frith, Pauline Oliveros, Matthew Burtner and Judith Shatin, and is currently creating and performing with electroacoustic music, extended instrumental techniques, interactive environments, dance, installation, and video. He also serves as Assistant Editor for Journal SEAMUS. Swendsen is the co-artistic director of Prospect Dance Group and works extensively in collaboration with choreographers.

Victor Szabo

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Victor is a second-year Ph.D student in the Critical and Comparative Studies program. His most recent research engages phenomenology, psychoanalysis, ideology theory and media studies in order to explore the cultural politics of music criticism, performance and listening practices. He is especially interested in issues surrounding subjectivity and taste in contemporary indie and mainstream pop circles. Most recently, Victor delivered an analytical paper about the experimental pop band Xiu Xiu at the IASPM-US conference in San Diego.

Victor grew up in Cleveland, Ohio and attended college at The University of Michigan, where he received Bachelor's degrees in both Music Theory and Philosophy. When not gorging on techno and pop, Victor also enjoys listening to ambient, hip-hop, alt-country, noise, late 19th- and early 20th- century classical, and homemade mix CD's (ideally containing all of the above). In his spare-ish time, you'll likely find him waxing poetic about his favorite microbrews or rummaging furiously through his neighborhood thrift store outerwear selection.

Peter Traub

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Web: Peter Traub's Website

Peter Traub is a composer/installationist/net artist currently completing his dissertation in the Composition and Computer Technologies Ph.D. program at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. He received his Master’s in Electro-Acoustic Music from Dartmouth College in 1999, and has composed numerous works of electronic music and several internet-based and physical sound installations.

After Dartmouth, Peter lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for five years, moonlighting as a visiting researcher/composer at the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA) at Stanford University while he worked at internet startups. He is currently working on his dissertation – a series of performances and installations (and a large paper) exploring sound in physical and imaginary space. In his spare time Peter also contributes interviews to the http://www.turbulence.org/networked_music_review/. He currently lives in Charlottesville with his wife and two-year-old son.

 

Peter Tschirhart

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Peter Tschirhart arrived at the Critical & Comparative Studies program from Rice University, where he received his bachelor's degree in music history. His current research explores late twentieth century critical theory, especially the writings of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. He is particularly interested in "postmodern" theories of movement, assemblage, and emergence, and the way these theories can radically re-direct our understanding of musical "form," and music's relationship with the surrounding intellectual/philosophical milieu. Peter also (and often) ponders the implicit and explicit impact of technology on music making, and the way music can function as cultural propaganda. Not surprisingly, he also always searches for ways to critique and/or challenge the role of the mass media. An avid chamber musician, Peter is a trained harpsichordist and organist. His teachers have included Dr. Linton Powell and Dr. Matthew Dirst. He may often be found practicing the music of Bach on his Grimaldi harpsichord. Peter loves to haggle about current issues, ponder surrealist artwork, drink (black) coffee, visit bookstores and contemporary art museums. His favorite single acivity: haggling about current issues over a cup of black coffee in a contemporary art museum's bookstore, surrounded by surrealist art.

Jay Zolle

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Jay is a first year PhD student in the CCS program after having graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 2009.  His academic interests include analysis of rock music, the utility of music theory as a discipline, music and identity development, and the construction of rock music sets.  He wrote his Senior Thesis about Led Zeppelin, analyzing the band's use of blues chord progressions, contrapuntal harmonization, and modulation through their first four albums to make broader claims about the band's evolving relationship with rock-normative harmonic language.  He has also written about R.E.M. and sexual identity as well as Leftover Salmon and the apolitical function of the festival.  He listens mostly to punk rock and ska-punk (Rancid, Bouncing Souls, The Suicide Machines) but also has a fondness for moe., Presidents of the United States of America, Talking Heads, Phish, and R.E.M.  Outside of music, he enjoys hiking and mountains like a good Coloradan.

Jonathan Zorn

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Jonathan Zorn is a composer/sound artist/performer from Middletown, CT. He likes to make sounds using his voice, double bass, accordion, modular synthesizer, and computer. His compositions involve systems of interaction that exceed the control of any single participant, creating surprises for performers, audience, and composer. Jonathan holds a B.A. in philosophy, and an M.A. in music composition from Wesleyan University. He has studied with Alvin Lucier, Anthony Braxton, Ron Kuivila, and Jon Barlow. Jonathan maintains several ongoing collaborative projects with artists and performers around the country including Rachel Thompson, David Kendall, Andrew Lafkas, Bryan Eubanks, and Katherine Young. Listen to mp3s of past projects.