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

Presently, I am focused on a large multi-media project called Strange Tales from Appalachia (as told by Meemaw and Pawpaw and Them), for which I am writing text, creating/animating images, and composing music. The tales are based on stories I heard as a kid growing up in West Virginia but have been re-composed under the influence of Pu Songling, Kenji Miyazawa, and Breece Pancake. I describe the music for this project as "George Crumb meets George Jones".

Scott Barton

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Web: www.scottbarton.info

Scott Barton is a composer, guitarist and recordist currently pursuing his Ph.D. in the Composition and Computer Technologies program at the University of Virginia.  His current interests include: rhythmic complexity, auditory and temporal perception, musical robots, audio engineering and rock music.  He is currently working on a dissertation that explores the cognitive and contextual inputs to musical discontinuity perception.  He co-founded Expressive Machines Musical Instruments (EMMI), a collective focused on designing and building robotic musical instruments - www.expressivemachines.com, with Troy Rogers and Steven Kemper.  He studied music and philosophy at Colgate University and received his Master of Music in Composition from the Brooklyn College Conservatory of Music.  Important influence upon Scott's music and thought have come by way of Jonathan Schlackman, Jordan Berk, Dexter Morrill, Tania Leon, Rory Stuart, Amnon Wolman, Judith Shatin, Matthew Burtner and Ted Coffey.

Michael Bishop

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Amy Coddington

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Julia Cook

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Julia is a fourth year PhD student in the Critical and Comparative Studies program. Her research focuses on music in Norse Neo-Pagan communities. She has conducted fieldwork within Neo-Pagan communities in both Germany and the United States, thanks in part to a grant from the Center for German Studies at UVA, and her dissertation will draw on extensive research in both countries. Julia has also conducted research on fantasy and science fiction fandom, and is generally interested in performances of the past or future, including historical recreations. She has presented her work at annual meetings of the Society for Ethnomusicology (2008) and the Mid-Atlantic Chapter of the Society for Ethnomusicology (2009).

Julia is also interested in audio archives and librarianship, and in the summer of 2010 she was a Junior Fellow at the Library of Congress' National Audio Visual Conservation Center in Culpeper, VA.

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.

Peter D'Elia

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Kevin Davis

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Kevin W. Davis is a composer, improviser, and cellist. Originally from Appalachian Tennessee, he has at various times been based out of Memphis, Chicago, New York, and Istanbul, where he has played in and composed for a large variety of musical situations across a wide spectrum of contemporary music. He has recorded and performed in the United States, Europe, and the Middle East. He has degrees in music composition from the University of Memphis (B. Music) and the Centre for Advanced Musical Studies (MIAM) in Istanbul, Turkey (MA). He is currently pursuing a PhD in Composition and Computer Technologies at the University of Virginia.

After many years of focusing his artistic practice on improvisation, Kevin has recently become re-engaged with more traditional forms of composition. His recent creative work deals with mediating the sometimes-problematic relationship between composition and improvisation by bringing differing types of structure into confrontation with the unstable properties present in motion, gesture, and sound.

Jeffrey Decker

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Erik DeLuca

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Web: erikdeluca.com

I like the natural resonances and rhythms of our Earth.

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Kirstin Ek

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Kirstin Ek is 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.

Emily Gale

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Maria Guarino

Maria is an ethnomusicologist and PhD candidate in the CCS program. Her dissertation is an ethnographic study of Weston Priory, a Benedictine monastic community in central Vermont. Her work examines musical-liturgical performance, communal religious ethos, and mystical spirituality. She has presented her work at regional and national conferences including the annual meetings of the American Academy of Religion (2009), the Society for Ethnomusicology (2008, 2011), the Mid-Atlantic Chapter of the Society for Ethnomusicology (2009), the Northeast Chapter of the Society for Ethnomusicology (2007), and the Duke-UVA Colloquium (2010). She received the James T. Koetting Prize and the Hewitt Panteleoni Prize for the papers she presented at the regional SEM chapter meetings in 2007 and 2009. She is the recipient of a Wenner-Gren Dissertation Fieldwork Grant, Buckner W. Clay Graduate Summer Reserach Grant, and the American Benedictine Academy Monastic Studies Grant.

Aurie Hsu

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Web: http://people.virginia.edu/~ayh3d

Aurie Hsu is a composer, pianist, and belly dancer.  She composes acoustic, electroacoustic, and interactive music, performs her own compositions for prepared/extended piano, and collaborates with musicians, choreographers, and musical robots.  She is a Ph.D. candidate in the Composition and Computer Technologies program and holds degrees in piano performance from Oberlin Conservatory (BM), Mills College (MFA), and in electronic music/recording media from Mills College (MFA).  Research interests include musical gesture, performance practice in contemporary music, Middle Eastern music and dance, and human-computer interaction.  She dances with Fire in the Belly Dance Co, the only professional modern-tribal belly dance company in central Virginia, and is director of the World and Experimental Arts Group (WeArts), an organization that promotes cultural and experimental arts in Charlottesville, Virginia.  

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 working 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 EMP Pop Conference in 2010. 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.

Courtney Kleftis

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Courtney is a first year PhD student in the Critical and Comparative Studies in Music program. She is a 2010 graduate of Lawrence University (Wisconsin) with a Bachelor of Music degree in Choral/General Music Education. She completed a semester of student teaching in both elementary and high school settings. Her interests in musicology center around questions of identity and performance, specifically how gender identity is negotiated through performance, in both a historical and present context. As an undergraduate she designed an independent study which culminated in an hour-long lecture-recital in which she explored issues of gender politics, power, and the agency of the performer. She is fascinated by the life and work of 17th-century Venetian singer-composer Barbara Strozzi, most notably her ambiguous relationship with the otherwise exclusively male intellectual academy L’Accademia degli Unisoni, which was  founded by her father. Through her musical and intellectual interactions with this male-dominated “academy,” Strozzi took part in debates about many heated-topics of the early modern world, including the role of women in society. Over the next few years Courtney plans to explore the ever-expanding field of musicology in order to discover new interests that may or may not be related to Strozzi, or 17th-century music. When she is not in the midst of a research project, Courtney enjoys watching foreign and artsy films, frequenting local coffee shops, singing (opera and musical theater), attempting to learn how to cook with the help of Food Network, and obsessively collecting bufandas (Spanish word for scarves).

Elizabeth Lindau

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Elizabeth Lindau is a PhD candidate in the CCS program. Her dissertation, “Art is Dead. Long Live Rock!” explores intersections between rock music and avant-gardism, specifically in the work of the Velvet Underground, Yoko Ono, Brian Eno, and Sonic Youth. She has presented at numerous conferences, including meetings of the SAM, IASPM-US, the South Central Graduate Music Consortium, Feminist Theory in Music 9, and most recently at UVA’s Graduate English Student Association Conference. As a graduate instructor in the Music Department, she offered courses on Avant-garde Music, the History of Rock, Music in the 20^th Century, and Music Theory. In 2010, she received a Graduate TA award for her work with undergraduate students. 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. Last year, she performed in a UVA New Music Ensemble concert featuring the music of visiting composer Christian Wolff. She has played harpsichord in the UVA Baroque Orchestra since 2005. In her spare time, Liz enjoys curating her ever-expanding collection of vinyl and 78 rpm records.

Jean Khalil Maroun

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Jean Khalil Maroun is in the Critical and Comparative Studies program at UVa. He is a native of Mexico City where he graduated with a degree in Ethnomusicology from the National School of Music. For his Bachelor's degree he wrote a dissertation about music and virtual media entitled 'The Underground: Has It Died? The Transformation Process of Musical Communication Models by the Mass Media.' He has presented papers at the 14th Biennial International of the IASPM (Mexico 2007) and the 54th Annual Meeting of the SEM (Mexico 2009). He also plays electric guitar and composes music for short films.

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Gretchen is a first-year PhD student in the Critical and Comparative Studies program. Originally from Illinois, she has pursued her academic career throughout the Mid-Atlantic. She earned her joint B.A. in music and psychology from Gettysburg College in 2009, and recently graduated with an M.A. in jazz history and research from Rutgers University. Her primary interests include jazz and American popular music, having written her thesis on the hierarchical tensions between art and entertainment through the lens of Harry Connick Jr.’s music. Other research interests include Latin-American influences in American popular music, as well as the therapeutic possibilities of jazz improvisation. As a pianist, vocalist, and saxophonist, she enjoys playing many different styles of music, and greatly enjoys collaborative performances. In her spare time she enjoys swimming, biking, dining at delicious restaurants, travelling, and above all—teaching.

Sarah O'Halloran

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Sarah O’Halloran comes from Ireland, and is currently a doctoral student in the Composition and Computer Technology program. Sarah’s research and compositional practice are currently centered on relationships between music, drama, and storytelling. Recent pieces have explored themes including Irish maritime folklore, the boundary between real and imagined sensation, and the whimsy and darkness of children’s stories. Her music has been performed at international festivals including MATA (New York), the International Computer Music Festival (New York), Gaudeamus (Netherlands), Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (UK), and Ostrava Days (Czech Republic). Her work has been played by ensembles including VERGE, Ensemble MAE, SEM Ensemble, orkest de ereprijs and the New York Miniaturist Ensemble. She has presented her research at conferences held by the International Alliance of Women in Music, the Society for Musicology in Ireland, the Royal Musical Association, and the International Musicological Society. Sarah is also active as a producer of musical events. She has commissioned work from, and organized workshops and concerts by artists including Alvin Lucier, Pauline Oliveros, David Toop and Bang on a Can All-Stars.

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.

Chris Peck

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Chris Peck is a composer whose dancing has been described as "awkwardly beautiful" by The New York Times.  He holds degrees from Dartmouth College and the University of Michigan.  http://www.intermittentmusic.com/

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.

Lanier Sammons

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Lanier Sammons is a composer and guitarist who is currently pursuing his Ph.D. in Composition and Computer Technologies at the University of Virginia. His dissertation will discuss and examine audience-interactive pieces intended for performance within the concert hall. Other research interests include the relationship between play and composition, new music for the guitar, and intersection and overlap between ‘popular’ music and ‘art’ music. As a composer, Lanier’s music explores these themes and often incorporates improvisation, extended techniques, and the pairing of electronic and acoustic sound. As a performer, Lanier explores multiple genres on both electric and classical guitar. He is currently a member Dzian!, purveyors of Southeast Asian surf and garage rock, and he has played extensively with the University of Virginia New Music Ensemble.

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.

Braxton Sherouse

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I follow a do-it-yourself approach to computer music composition, where I integrate tool development (often programming) and usage (listening, imagining, and tweaking). I delight in reinventing the wheel; my avoidance of sleek commercial software facilitates drawing musical distinctions that are otherwise masked.

Beau Sievers

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Beau Sievers is a composer, improviser, and music cognition researcher. His music is about learning, memory, and working together.

Yuri Spitsyn

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Victor Szabo

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Victor is a Ph.D. student in the Critical and Comparative Studies program. His research focuses on theoretical issues of subjectivity, identity, value and community surrounding contemporary popular and 20th-century art music. He delivered a paper on the abject performativity of Xiu Xiu at IASPM-US 2009, and has since been developing research into early minimalism in the United States, aesthetic and cultural theories coming out of the Frankfurt School, queer phenomenologies of listening and affect, and negotiations of indie and mainstream pop tastes.

Victor grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, and attended 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, indie rock, noise, late-19th- and 20th-century classical, and homemade mix CD's (ideally containing all of the above). In his spare-ish time, you'll likely find him hunting down new microbrews, pilfering the local thrift stores' outerwear selections, or spinning electronic music on WTJU Charlottesville.

Peter Tschirhart

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Peter Tschirhart is a Ph.D. student in the Critical and Comparative Studies of Music program at the University of Virginia. His dissertation examines visual representations of sound in the environment―sound maps―as they are found in graphical music notation, acoustical studies of the city, and in urban-utopian thought. Peter is especially interested in building an interdisciplinary bridge between the fields of architecture, acoustic ecology, and music, and to that end, enjoys collaborating or talking with people from any discipline who concern themselves with sound and spatial production. 

A trained harpsichordist and organist―and proud owner of a Grimaldi harpsichord (David Jencks, Op. 11)―Peter brings his knowledge and enthusiasm for traditional music to the study of less-traditional ways to organize sound.

Paul Turowski

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Paul Turowski is a composer and performer from Baltimore, Maryland. He is currently a PhD student in Composition and Computer Technologies and a Graduate Teaching Assistant at the University of Virginia. Previously, he studied composition at Towson University and completed his masters in Intermedia Music Technology at the University of Oregon. He enjoys making music and intermedia art that involve human/computer interaction. His current research interests include cognitive science (specifically the areas of memory and artificial intelligence), computer science, network and mobile technologies, and game design.

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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.