Graduate Students
A complete listing of current graduate students and their interests
Ethnomusicology
Dillon Bustin – evolutionary origins of music, modernization and musical antimodernism, African American song, Native American storytelling
Paul Chaikin – opera, aesthetic theory
Paul grew up in New Jersey before setting off for college in Grinnell, Iowa. He is now in the midst of his dissertation, an ethnographic study of opera in contemporary Berlin. His other interests include dramaturgy, cultural policy and critical theory.
Bradley Hanson – American Vernacular Music; the Appalachian South; the Cumberland Plateau; Community Radio; Contemporary Roots Music; Applied Ethnomusicology
Bradley is a graduate student in ethnomusicology. His current interests center on American vernacular musics, especially those of the Appalachian South and, more specifically, the Cumberland Plateau. He is part of an ongoing project of the Tennessee state parks to collect, archive, and present music and folklore from along the 300-mile Cumberland Trail. Originally from Sioux City, IA, he previously studied voice and musicology at the University of South Dakota and the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Before coming to Brown he lived in Knoxville, TN and worked as a freelance writer.
Erica Haskell – Music of South Eastern Europe, politics of music, applied ethnomusicology, cultural policy in post-war Bosnia-Herzegovina
Erica is originally from Northern California where she received her BA from Mills College. She is a Ph.D. candidate at Brown University in ethnomusicology. She has worked at the Library of Congress American Folklife Center, the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage and for the Department of State teaching in Bosnian medresas. She is the co-editor of a book called Shared Musics and Minority Identities: International Council for Traditional Music - Music and Minorities 2004 Volume published by the Institute for Ethnology and Folklore Research, with Naila Ceribasic. In addition, she founded a music-recording project in three Hungarian refugee camps. This project was the subject of articles about refugee music in the Utne Reader and ai magazine (Art International). She is also co-producer of the critically American folk music album Starlight on the Rails: U. Utah Phillips released on AK Press and Daemon Records. She is a co-founder of Trade Root Music (www.traderootmusic.com) a music label that specializes in helping roots-based musicians and non-profit arts organizations to promote and distribute their music products and content. This fall semester she will be co-teaching World Music Cultures (Africa, America, Europe, Oceania) at Brown. Last spring she was be a Wheaton College Faculty Fellow teaching a course titled The Politics of Music, and is in residence at Tougaloo College (Jackson, MS) as a Brown-Tougaloo Faculty Fellow in the fall of 2009.
Julie Hunter – Music of West Africa, Ghanaian politics and culture, gender and music, postcolonial theory, ethnography, performance studies, music of the African diaspora, applied music projects.
Julie is a Ph.D. candidate in ethnomusicology at Brown. She grew up in Vermont where she pursued interests in music, Russian, art, and ice hockey. Following her fieldwork on musical youth communities in Accra, Ghana, Julie wrote a senior thesis based on her research and received a B.M. with High Honors in Music Literature and History at Vanderbilt University. She completed an A.M. in Ethnomusicology from Brown in 2002 and later served as student representative on the Society for Ethnomusicology Council. She is finishing her dissertation on Ewe music. In her project, she explores how Ewe women have innovated local musical practices, ignoring, for example, a local custom proscribing women's drumming. At Brown, Julie worked with Martin Kwaku Kwaakye Obeng's Ghanaian Drumming and Dancing Ensemble for several years, and helped to organize an African music festival in 2008. She also worked as an associate in Brown's Writing Center. She recently edited a digital collection of James Koetting's African field recordings in collaboration with the music library (http://dl.lib.brown.edu/koetting/index.html). The collection highlights Kasena music from northern Ghana and Accra. Last year, Julie started teaching African music at Boston College, in addition to co-teaching a World Music course with graduate students at Brown. She is currently teaching part-time at Boston College.
Francesca Inglese – Race, gender and sound in early 20th century American popular music; vaudeville; early recording industry; technology and music listening practices; musical traditions of South India; music education
Originally from Western Massachusetts, Francesca received a B.A. in Music Composition from Vassar College and a M.A. in Ethnomusicology from the University of Toronto. She is a violinist and violin teacher and has lived in Scotland, India and Iceland where she has studied and played Baroque, Jazz and Carnatic music. Most recently she has written on musical exchange between Jewish and African American women in vaudeville and the ethnic and racial caricature performances of Sophie Tucker.
Katy E. Leonard – Bluegrass, American Vernacular Music, Internet Community, Ethnomusicology in Music Education, Music and Politics, Virtual Ethnography
Katy is a former classical flutist from Kennesaw, Georgia. Prior to her academic study of ethnomusicology, she completed the Bachelor of Music at Birmingham-Southern College in Flute Performance following pre-college study at Interlochen Arts Academy. Katy completed her Master of Arts through the Irish World Music Centre at the University of Limerick, Ireland focusing on the idea of home in relation to Irish bluegrass music. She is a former staff member of the International Bluegrass Music Association and coordinator of the annual World of Bluegrass event. Currently a music professor and the Director of Interim and Contract Learning at Birmingham-Southern College in Alabama, Katy is completing her dissertation on Virtual Bluegrass Community.
Liam McGranahan – Popular music, technology, copyright and intellectual property, Central America and the Caribbean, Garifuna music, creolization, race and identity, haute cuisine
Hailing from Portland, Oregon. Standing 6 feet tall and weighing in at 177 pounds. With a wingspan of 5 feet 9 inches. Full-time ethnomusicologist and part-time pugilist, Liam "The Cat Nap" McGranahan.
Daniel Piper – Music of the Caribbean and Brazil, religious experience, dance and performance theory
Dan is a 5th-year graduate student in ethnomusicology. He completed his B.A. at Wesleyan University where he studied composition and before coming to Brown, he worked as an arts administrator and musician in Philadelphia, Seattle, and Boston. In his dissertation research, Dan is studying Dominican palos and salves music within communal devotional events, including fiestas de santo, Las 21 Divisiones (Dominican Vodu), pilgramages, processionals, and funeral rites. This current work emphasizes musical and social interaction, as well as modernization and innovation within traditional Afro-Dominican music. When not consumed with his dissertation, job or playing music, you can find Dan indulging in two other passions - good microbrews and dancing.
Nicholas Reeder – African percussion, Brazilian music and culture, Documentary film, Jazz performance (guitar), Music cognition, Poetics, Songs, Sound for multimedia/video
Nick came back to Brown (where he was an undergrad, majoring in History/American Literature and a varsity lacrosse player and coach) after working as a freelance recording engineer/producer in San Francisco and Nashville for 7 years.
James Ruchala – American folk music, Appalachian music and dance, Middle Eastern music, Mexico
James is working on a dissertation on the old time music community of Surry County, North Carolina. He also performs this music on banjo, fiddle and guitar.
Shayn Smulyan – Yiddish song, music and language, performative speech (especially translation), American microcultural musics, D/diaspora, revivalism
Shayn came to Brown in 2005, after a year building hiking trails and two years in an egalitarian intentional community. Prior to that she did her BA at Smith College in anthropology and music. Her current research is on the performative and communicative strategies of Yiddish singers. Shayn is an active sacred harp singer and a dabbler on various stringed and percussion instruments. She does political and cultural work in the queer and Jewish-Secularist communities (sometimes both at once), and spends too much time reading their blogs.
Benjamin Teitelbaum – Musics of Scandinavia and Scandinavian America, music cognition, music theory, music and ideology, musics of the Caspian region.
Benjamin entered Brown's ethnomusicology program after earning a B.M. in nyckelharpa from Bethany College, with auxiliary studies at the Royal Conservatory of Music, Stockholm and the Eric Sahlström Institute in Sweden. His current research deals with music theory and multiculturalism in Sweden, ethnic classification in rural Kansas, and the music of the Mountain Jews in northern Azerbaijan. He lives in Warwick, RI with his wife Kajsa and dog Levi.
Triin Vallaste – post-Soviet Eurasia, poetics and politics of hip-hop in Europe,Russian-language popular music, political and cultural rights
Triin is a PhD student in ethnomusicology. Before coming to Brown, she received a BA and MA in musicology from the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre in her native Estonia. Triin is a classically trained pianist and choral singer and has a number of Estonian scholarly publications and translations. Triin is interested in the interrelationship of popular music, identity, and politics, especially in Russian-speaking communities outside of Russia and in European hip-hop scenes.
Brent Wetters – 20th Century European, Darmstadt, Bruno Maderna, Luigi Nono, critical theory, poetics
Brent is a composer, performer and critic of new and experimental music--not necessarily in that order. Prior to enrolling at Brown, he collected three degrees in composition from University of Michigan, the Royal Conservatory in Ghent, Belgium, and Wesleyan University. Some of his primary composition teachers have been: Andrew Mead, Alvin Lucier, Ron Kuivila, Anthony Braxton, Godfried-Willem Raes, Joachim Brackx, and Richard Barrett. He founded Ensemble Medusa in Belgium together with Jonathon Kirk and Thomas Smetryns. As an ethnomusicologist, Brent is studying the music of post-War Europe, in particular the group of composers that gathered for the Darmstadt Summer Courses.
Aleysia Whitmore – dance and embodiment, social dance, transnational movements of salsa and music of the Caribbean
Aleysia is a second year PhD student who has been researching the transnational movements and practices of salsa music and dance. She is especially interested in the ways in which various conceptions of race and gender come together on dance floors in which diverse groups of people participate. Aleysia completed her Bachelors of Music at the University of Toronto where she enjoyed playing the oboe in a Serbian Orchestra and learning how to dance. She has sung in children's and adult choirs for many years and has been fortunate to explore choral traditions in travels to South Africa and France.
David Wood – Appalachian Music, acculturation, American popular music, micromusics, music cognition, psychology of music, revivals
Dave is coming to Brown's ethnomusicology program with an M.A. in Appalachian Studies (emphasis on Appalachian music) from Appalachian State University and a B.A. in music from the College of William & Mary. Dave has formal instruction on trombone and piano, but also plays bass, guitar, fiddle, dulcimer, mandolin, and percussion. He also has experience with recording, live sound engineering, and computer music programming. A native of Virginia, Dave was exposed to Appalachian music while at William & Mary and wrote his master's thesis on the shifting ambassadorship of old-time music in western North Carolina. While at Brown, Dave will to continue exploring the links between traditional music making and acculturation in other parts of the world.
Computer Music and Multimedia
Freida Abtan–
Jordan Bartee – identity, memory, time, and post-data culture
Jordan is an electronic composer and multimedia sound artist who cut his teeth in the TIMARA program at Oberlin College before relocating to the Los Angeles area to pursue a Masters Degree in Experimental Sound Practice at the California Institute of the Arts. An interest in subverting commercial sound production led him into the field of custom software and circuit bent hardware. Working primarily with artificial intelligence systems and re-wired video game consoles, Jordan produces audio-visual pieces for both live performance and recording. This fall, Jordan will begin pursuing his Ph.D. in Brown's MEME program.
Peter Bussigel – Video Art, Sound Installation, Audio-Visual Performance
Peter Bussigel is a composer and video artist who creates concert works, experimental films, and audio-visual installations. He has written for orchestras, computers, film, tape, buckets, puppets, chamber groups, voices, videos, robots, dancers, bands, theater, galleries, cell phones, parades, children, pie tins, improvisers, inventors, headphones, and toys. He often works in collaboration with performers and his works have been presented throughout the United States. Peter has degrees from the University of Michigan (B.M., Composition) and New York University (M.A., Composition and Video Art). He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Brown University's MEME program. http://www.compositographer.com
Robert Griffin Byron–Digital transmedia through kinetic movement, installation, audiovision, real-time 3D animation
Robbie is a multimedia artist working with sound, painting, sculpture, cast glass, textiles, and video to create interactive installations and audiovisual art that explores the relationship between the organic and the synthetic, often through the construction of fantasy worlds and cyborg technologies. Drawing inspiration from natural forms, from molecular mechanisms to the five elements of traditional philosophy, he attempts to understand through his art the hidden structures of manifest nature. His work is nevertheless highly “synthetic,” using physical computing, supersaturated color, electroacoustic music, abstract geometry, synthetic fabrics, and non-narrative visual media. Aesthetically, he is drawn to the Buddhist idea of a continuity between humanity and nature. He attempts to achieve that continuity in his own work by giving real agency to constructed objects. Almost all of his work is interactive, so that the various elements of a piece literally talk to each other and with him to co-create the finished piece. In this way, he tries to animate the artificial and to digitize his own kinetic movement and conscious intention, thus exploding the traditional mind-body, or nature-artifice, binary of Western philosophy. Robbie earned his B.Mus. from the Western Australia Academy of Performing Arts. In 2000, he received a Peggy Glanville-Hicks Composer’s Fellowship-in-Residence. He earned my M.M. in Computer Music Composition from Indiana University while on a Fulbright Fellowship in 2006. At Indiana, he won the 2005 Dean’s Prize for Electroacoustic Composition. Since 2006, he has been a Ph.D. student in Brown’s MEME program. His chamber music and orchestral works have been heard all across Australasia and the United States. To date, he has received four commissions. In 1997, the Western Australia Ballet commissioned the score for the full-length ballet Orlando. In 1998, Future Films commissioned a soundtrack for an art film by Glen Eaves called Structures. The score won the Australian Screen Music Award in 1999. Also in 1999, the Australian Ballet commissioned the full-length ballet Mirror Mirror. In 2002, the Ensemble Arcangelo commissioned the chamber work Kaleidoscope, with support from ArtsWA. In addition to these commissions, his Piano Sonata No. 2 (Cobalt) premiered by Michael Kieran Harvey in 1999 at the Calloway Auditorium, U.W.A. His most recent dance work, Enlightenment, premiered in Bloomington, Indiana, at the Black Box Theater in 2004. His work The Moon Methinks Looks with a Watery Eye won second place in the Australian National Harp Composition Competition in 2004. His most recent work, Swarm, for Perriott Ensemble and Interactive electronics, was premiered by the Boston-based group Dinosaur Annex in 2007. Further information can be found at robbiebyron.com
S. Lyn Goeringer –Environment specific multimedia gesture composition, performance and installation
Lyn came to Brown in 2006 with an interdisciplinary arts background in music composition, gestural performance, film, sound and installation art. Her research focus at this time is in the use of Location as instrument, the distillation and orchestration of the essential components of space, sound, and light in a performative context through the use of given architectural and physical phenomenon. She received her MFA from Bard College in 2005, and has performed and presented works throughout the United States.
Bevin Kelley – Audio-Visual Performance, Interactive Sound Installation, Multimedia Composition
Bevin (Blevin Blectum) is an electronic musician / multimedia composer. Her performances are loosely narrative, incorporating live interactive electronic sound, manipulated field recordings, film, action and costume. She holds degrees in English, Violin Performance, Electronic Music and Recording Media, and Veterinary Nursing. She has released four solo albums. Bevin performs in the duo Blectum From Blechdom, and was in the audio/visual band Sagan. Her MFA thesis was a series of pieces based on Philip K. Dick's short story 'The Preserving Machine', in which sheet music is transformed into creatures and back again. She entered MEME in Fall 2009.
http://blevin.LSR1.com
(Bevin_Kelley@brown.edu)
Brian Knoth – cross-sensory dynamics and technology mediated human-environment interaction
Brian is a media artist, musician, and interactive systems designer specializing in experimental sound art, electronic music, moving image and new interfaces. His work explores cross-sensory dynamics and technology mediated human-environment interaction. This work is realized in several formats including audiovisual composition, live performance, installation art, and physical rehabilitation. His composed and engineered/produced music is distributed widely through digital outlets such as iTunes, eMusic, CDBaby, Bandcamp, and BeatPick. He also continues to provide sound design and score material for award winning independent films. He has collaborated on several award-winning projects and has presented/performed at numerous festivals/conferences/galleries/venues including The Middle East (Cambridge, MA), The Paradise Rock Club (Boston), The Lion's Den (NYC), Nectar's (Burlington, VT), Boston Cyberarts, The Visual Music Marathon (Northeastern University), Art Interactive (Cambridge, MA), the NWEAMO festival (Apple Store, SOHO, NYC), The Pixilerations Digital Media Arts Festival (Providence, RI), The David Winton Bell Gallery (interactive tech for Magaly Ponce), The International Computer Music Conference '07 (Copenhagen Denmark), AS220 (Providence, RI), Firehouse 13 Gallery (Providence, RI), The Extensible Electric Guitar Festival (Clark University, Worcester, MA), Axiom Gallery (Jamaica Plain, MA), Machines with Magnets (Pawtucket, RI), and Grant Recital Hall (Brown University).
Kevin Patton – Gestural sonification and visualization, performance system design, Improvisation.
Kevin is a composer, guitarist, and experimental sound performer interested in exploring the increasingly nebulous borderlands between humans and machines in performance. The integration of interactive electronic music and machine improvisation into traditional performance contexts is at the center of his practice. Kevin often performs his own work in both instrumental improvisation and interactive chamber music and has performed in Europe, Japan, and throughout North America. Kevin holds a Master of Music degree in jazz studies and composition from the University of North Texas and a Master of Arts Degree from Brown University. He is currently pursuing a PhD in electronic music and multimedia composition at Brown University. http://kevinpatton.lajunkielovegun.com
Jacob Richman – multimedia composition
Jacob Richman is a multimedia composer whose work explorers the relationship between sight and sound in live performance. His pieces mix live-processed moving images (film and video), music, and sound to create interactive, multimedia settings in which performers can interact. He has played jazz bass and classical trombone since his youth, and graduated with a joint BA in music composition and film/video from Harvard University. He later received his MA in Media Arts from the University of Michigan, was a Lecturer in Video at the School of Art and Design at the University of Michigan, and has been awed by the opportunity he has had to learn from his many talented students. He is currently a PhD student in Multimedia & Electronic Music Experiments at Brown University. Jacob’s use of mixed-media is always in an attempt to express a certain subject or experience to which he is deeply drawn, which at this point they have included such disparate things as a favorite poem, an old lullaby, Sardinian folk singing, and a herd of elk. He is fascinated by what he sees in his subjects as the interconnectedness of things: people with places, sounds with textures, humans with animals, plants and the natural world. He feels that exploring the relationships between sounds and images in performance is an effective way to both investigate and convey these greater inherent connections that surround us. http://www.jacob-richman.com/
Matthew Peters Warne – Gesture, sensors systems, responsive media installation, latent performance phenomena
Matthew is a doctoral candidate in the Multimedia and Electronic Music Experiments program at Brown University where he uses custom digital musical instruments in the live performance of soundscape recordings. His dissertation examines how compositional methods can contribute to our knowledge of a place and draws on fieldwork to create new musical works in understanding Angola’s situation as a post-war, resource-rich, developing nation in a globalizing world. He holds an MS in Digital Media from the Georgia Institute of Technology and a BA from Grinnell College with majors in music and economics.