Header Image

Alumni

Breadcrumb
Aram Ethan Adajian
Aram Ethan Adajian is a multimedia composer based in Los Angeles. He holds two BA degrees: one in Music from The University of California at Santa Cruz, and a second in Film Scoring from The Berklee College of Music. In 2011, he earned a Master’s Degree in Composition from the California State University at Northridge. As part of Matter Music, he composed and arranged music for several projects in film and television. With his mentor David Cope, he studied generative algorithmic composition techniques and is currently exploring the limits of artificial intelligence as it applies to multimedia expression. He plays piano, and endeavors to develop a strong aptitude for improvisation in several styles while honing his skills as an acoustical engineer. The spirit of his projects embraces the concept of inclusion, of breaking boundaries between artist and the audience. This is key to the success of new music in an increasingly interactive society.
Supeena Insee Adler

Supeena Insee Adler is a performer and ethnomusicologist living in San Diego, California. She performs and teaches classical Thai music on traditional stringed instruments. Her areas of interest are mediums, healing rituals and music in Northeast Thailand and Southern Laos, literature in Thai traditional music performance, and Okinawa minyo.

She received a B.F.A. in Thai Classical Music from Mahasarakham University and completed coursework towards an M.A. in Musicology at the College of Music, Mahidol University. She completed an M.A. in Southeast Asian Studies: Text, Ritual, and Performance (SEATRiP) at UCR in 2010, with a thesis titled A Theater of the Spirits: Ritual Performance and Community in Northeast Thailand, under the direction of Professor Deborah Wong. In the spring of 2014, she received a Ph.D. in music (ethnomusicology) at UCR under Dr. Wong. Her dissertation was titled Music for the Few: Nationalism and Thai Royal Authority.

Kathryn Alexander
Kathryn Alexander received her Ph.D. in ethnomusicology from UC Riverside in 2014. Her dissertation, entitled “Crafting Cultural Belonging: Normative Embodiment in Cape Breton’s Scottish Traditional Music and Dance,” explores constructions of gendered and ethnic whiteness within Scottish Cape Breton’s expressive culture, and the role of tourism in shaping the island’s contemporary culture. Her master's thesis, completed at UC Riverside in 2011, investigated the recreation of Los Angeles' late 1970s punk scene as an online archive in the early 2010s. Her current work situates queer country music and dance culture as a site for the negotiation of regionally-specific nexus of gendered, sexualized, and ethnicized identities. She is an Assistant Professor with the Honors College Interdisciplinary Faculty at the University of Arizona, where she teaches ethnomusicological-based courses in the arts and humanities.
Jacqueline Avila
Dr. Jacqueline Avila is an Assistant Professor in musicology at the University of Tennessee. She holds an M.A. and Ph.D. in music from the University of California, Riverside and a B.A. in music with a dual emphasis in French horn performance and music education from the University of California, Los Angeles.  Her research interests include Mexican modernism, nationalism, and cinema and media studies. She was a recipient of the UC MEXUS Dissertation Research Grant and the American Musicological Society’s Howard Meyer Brown Fellowship and has presented her research at several conferences in the United States and Mexico. She is currently writing a book manuscript tentatively titled CineSonidos: Cinematic Music in Early Mexican Film, which is an examination of the meaning and cultural representation in Mexican film music.
Hannah Balcomb

Hannah Balcomb received her Ph.D. in ethnomusicology in 2018 with the dissertation “Confronting / Reinscribing the Argentine White Narrative: Identity Construction and the Reclaiming of Indigeneity Through Autochthonous and Folkloric Music,” which examines racial and ethnic constructs of Indigeneity in Argentina and the ways that displaced groups, and those in solidarity with these groups, use popular and folkloric music to define their social status and contest a homogenous national imaginary. Hannah received her M.A. in ethnomusicology from UCR. Her thesis compared the ways that immigrant versus diasporic groups in Los Angeles used Son Jarocho music to foster community and social action.  She received her B.A. in Latin American Studies from The Evergreen State College. Hannah is the recipient of numerous awards including a Fulbright IIE Grant, as well as a Graduate Research Mentorship Program Award, a Teacher of the Year Award, and numerous Gluck scholarships from UCR.  She has presented her research in local, national, and international conferences including those of the Society for Ethnomusicology and the International Council for Traditional Music in Shanghai, Kazakhstan, and Ireland.

Hannah has taught classes on popular and world music at UCR as an Associate Instructor. In 2011 and 2013, she interned with the Smithsonian Institution Center for Folklife Cultural Heritage.

Gary Barnett 
Gary Barnett completed his doctoral studies in historical musicology in the spring of 2012 after an extended research trip to Lisbon, Portugal where he received a scholarship with the LUSO/Gulbenkian Foundation to study the compositions of Carlos Seixas (1704-1742).  His dissertation was entitled Three Manifestations of Carlos Seixas (1704-1742): A Study of Historiographical Biography, Reception, and Interpretation. As a student at UCR, he performed as both soloist and continuoist with the Musicum Collegium, as well as performances with the Chamber Singers and Choral Society.  Gary has also enjoyed posting Youtube videos with his carillon and organ teacher, David Christensen (UCR Carillonneur), in the UC Belltower.  He is now a full-time lecturer in music theory at UCR and continues to perform nationally and internationally.
Bernard Gordillo Brockmann
Dr. Bernard Gordillo Brockmann, a native of Nicaragua, is a Scholar-in-Residence at the University of California Institute for Mexico and the United States (UC MEXUS). He holds a Ph.D. in music from the University of California, Riverside, and degrees in performance from Indiana University, Bloomington; the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London; and Centenary College of Louisiana. His dissertation, Luis A. Delgadillo and the Cultural Occupation of Nicaragua under U.S.-American Intervention examines five critical responses to the United States intervention in Nicaragua (1909–33) through the writings and music of Nicaraguan composer Luis Abraham Delgadillo (1884–1961). His research interests include music and politics in Latin America, nationalism, exoticism, and transnational popular devotion. He is a recipient of the Ingolf Dahl Memorial Award and a Fulbright Fellowship. He is also a professional harpsichordist and has appeared in recent seasons with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the French Canadian chamber orchestra Les Violons du Roy, and the Los Angeles Baroque Orchestra “Musica Angelica.”
Joshua Brown
Joshua Brown holds a B.A. in history, with a minor in music, from UC Santa Barbara, and an M.A. in ethnomusicology from UCR. In 2003, Josh lived in Seville, Spain, and began his ongoing study of flamenco guitar at the University of Pablo de Olavide. He conducted research in Seville during the 2011-12 academic year, supported by a Fulbright IIE fellowship. This work addresses how Andalusian histories, landscapes, and performance spaces relate to musical and social practices within flamenco communities. Also, the Morón style of flamenco serves as a central case study through which Josh evaluates stylistic and performative elements within the context of tradition. For his M.A. thesis, he explored how popular music, American folk ideology, and leftist politics converged and intensified at a key folk institution in Los Angeles known as the Ash Grove. Other research interests include the politics of identity and race, cultural memory, social movements, political activism, and the bearing of historical conceptions and constructions on the discipline of ethnomusicology.
Matthew Buchan
Matthew Buchan holds a Master's and Ph.D. from the University of California, Riverside. His research areas include the Celtic Twilight, Rutland Boughton and British Modernism, Gabriel Fauré and the music of the French fin de scièle, as well as German Romanticism from Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach to Schumann. His dissertation will be an investigation of the influence of the Celtic Twilight on British music of the last century.
Christiaan Clark
Christiaan Clark is currently working on his Master’s in Digital Composition. He obtained his Bachelor of Music at the University of Delaware in both Music Composition and Guitar Performance, as well as a minor in Jazz Studies. Currently pursuing his childhood dream to work on music composition and sound design for video games, he is continually enamored by the ever-expanding possibilities for sound in new hardware and software. His love for video games inspires the aesthetic for his music -- the perfect melding of intelligible and sensible beauty. His work as a composer has often branched away from work with video games, as he had the pleasure to compose incidental music for the 2014 Delaware Shakespeare Festival production of Hamlet. More recently, he arranged and engraved for Delaware-based duo 6ixwire’s world music concert in March 2016. Christiaan plans to use his years at UCR to enhance his knowledge of tools for music creation and manipulation on the computer. Recordings of his music can be found at the following link: https://soundcloud.com/christiaan-clark
Audrey Coleman-Macheret

Toronto-born Audrey Coleman-Macheret has just completed her Masters of Arts in Ethnomusicology. Her thesis, Coplas of the Quebrada: Experiencing Culture in Northwestern Argentina deals with a genre of sung poetry that combines Hispanic and indigenous elements. Particularly interested in issues of ethnicity, identity, and agency among marginalized groups in the Americas, she has conducted research on the Guelaguetza celebration in Oaxaca; Hawaiian identity enacted in hula halau in the Southern California Hawaiian diaspora; musical expression in the contemporary workplace; Québecois identity that emerged in the French Canadian folk music revival of the 1960s and 1970s; and the klezmer revival of the late twentieth century.

Audrey has produced radio programs for National Public Radio, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and other media outlets and received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the MacArthur Foundation, the California Council for the Humanities, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Leilani Dade

Leilani Dade is a Ph.D. candidate in historical musicology at the University of California Riverside. Originally from Roanoke, Virginia, Leilani received her bachelor’s degree in music and French at Hollins University, where she graduated magna cum laude with a specialization in classical guitar and a certificate in arts management. While at Hollins, she also studied guitar and music theory at l’Ecole Normale de Musique in Paris, France as part of the Hollins Abroad Paris program (2011-12).

Leilani received her M.A. from the University of California Riverside in 2017 with a master’s thesis titled Alejandro Caturla and Alejo Carpentier’s La Manita en el Suelo:A Creative (Re)Staging. Her thesis examines nationalism, surrealism, and folklore in Caturla’s unpublished puppet opera, La Manita en el Suelo, and offers a fresh analysis of primary documents with the intent to revive the work through live storytelling and stop-motion animation. She received the Chancellor’s Distinguished Fellowship in 2014 and is a returning recipient of the GLUCK Fellowship of the Arts (2014-18) for which she developed two artist-in-residency programs: Cadence and Bolero: A Musical Journey through Space, and Drama and Drums: A Five-Week Music Program in Opera and Folklore based in part on her thesis research.

In 2018, Leilani received the Manolito Pinazo Memorial Award for advanced research in Spanish music. Her dissertation research focuses on French and Spanish nationalism in Spanish composer Joaquin Turina’s stage works. In 2018, she published an article on Turina’s works for guitar titled “Joaquín Turina: Spanish Nationalism and Guitar in The Early 20th Century” in Soundboard Scholar. Leilani is an active classical guitarist and regularly attends the Celedonio Romero Guitar Institute at Oklahoma City University where she takes lessons and leads guitar history lectures. She has worked extensively on the Romero family archive which resides at the Tomás Rivera Library at UCR.

Email: ldade001@ucr.edu

Tori Dalzell

Tori Dalzell completed her Ph.D. in ethnomusicology, with research interests in Nepal, South Asian Christianities, interculturalism, and minority music. Her MA thesis examined the emergence of evangelical Nepali Christian identity through the use of the shared hymn collection entitled Khristiya Bhajan. She recently finished field research for her PhD dissertation, which focuses on how the Dangaura Tharu—one of the larger ethnic groups in southwestern Nepal—use their musical performances to engage in local discourse on ethnic identity as well as navigate modernity, development, and cultural change.

She is the recipient of a Fulbright IIE grant (2012-2013), Gluck fellowship (2009-2010, 2010-2011), and has served as co-chair for the Student Concerns Committee for the Southern California and Hawaii chapter of SEM (2009-2010). Before coming to UCR, she received her B.A. in Music and English from Hollins University in 2008. She de-stresses through baking, going on long walks or hikes, and reading young adult fiction.

Andrea Decker

Andrea Decker is currently pursuing an M.A. in ethnomusicology at UC Riverside. Her research interests include Indonesian popular music, vocalization as identity, gendered musical expression, and Mormon music worldwide. Andrea holds a B.M. in vocal performance and a B.S. in political science from Utah State University, where she graduated as Caine College of the Arts Valedictorian. Her honors thesis addressed Satie's setting of Plato's dialogues for his chamber piece Socrate.

While attending Utah State University, she received a Critical Language Scholarship to study Indonesian, and later served as an alumni ambassador for that program. Andrea has received the Milton R. Merrill Scholarship and UCR Chancellor’s Distinguished Fellowship (2014-2017). She continues to perform as a solo singer and as a member of the UCR Chamber Singers. When not reading, writing, or making music, Andrea enjoys exercising, knitting, and killing houseplants. Email: andrea.decker@email.ucr.edu

Roxy DePue
Roxy DePue is a Ph.D. candidate in Musicology at The University of California, Riverside. A popular music scholar, his research focuses on progressive rock guitar, guitar technology, and pedagogy.   Roxy, a native of Cleveland, Ohio earned his BM in Performance from The University of Akron, and his MM in Musicology from the University of Memphis. Roxy has appeared as a panel discussant at The University of Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, and Arkansas State University. As an educator, Mr. DePue served as an Education Programs Manager at The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame & Museum, Adjunct Music Professor for Kent State University Regional Campuses, and taught summer music programs for Camp Jam, LLC. Roxy is the recipient of a 2019 NAMM GenNext Internship, and a 2018 NAMM President’s Innovation Award. He serves as a Gluck Fellow, a UCR Graduate Mentor, and a Group Fitness Instructor leading indoor cycling classes at the UCR Student Recreation Center. Email: rdepu001@ucr.edu
Christian Dubeau
Christian Dubeau Christian Dubeau is an L.A.-based composer and pianist whose compositions have been described as "transcendently beautiful" (The Highlander Newspaper) and "majestic" (Sequenza21). His music has been heard at festivals such as SPLICE (2016), and at distinguished concert series such as UnSUNG (2016) and has been played by members of the Grammy-nominated L.A. Percussion Quartet, the What's Next Ensemble, the Panic Duo, pianist Gary Barnett, and by several other renowned musicians and ensembles. He is the recipient of three Gluck Fellowships for the Arts. Recent commissions include a guitar concerto for the Orchestra Society of Philadelphia. As a pianist, he frequently performs his own music in public as well as that of other contemporary composers. He played keyboards with a rock band called Hauk for many years, recording six studio albums, and touring throughout the U.S.A. Christian’s music is heavily inspired by the natural world and current environmental issues. His music ranges from a large array of vocal music, acoustic and electro-acoustic works for chamber ensemble, purely electronic works, works for solo instruments and works for orchestra. He has also written film music and dance music. Christian also teaches piano, composition, and theory to private students, and teaches group keyboard classes in local elementary schools. He is currently the Co-Director of Sound and Fury Concerts, an L.A.-based new music concert series. Examples of his music can be heard on his website: www.christiandubeau.com Email: sphtkr24@yahoo.com
Jesse Freedman

Jesse Freedman is a Ph.D. student in ethnomusicology. His research interests include material anthropology and object studies as well as ethnographic approaches to archival research. Jesse holds a B.M. and M.M. in classical guitar performance from Guilford College and the University of Southern California respectively. Before coming to Riverside, Jesse was living in New York where he was working as a musician and teacher at the Westminster Conservatory of Music in Princeton, NJ.

Aaron Fruchtman

Aaron Fruchtman is a musicologist and composer. He is on the music history faculties at California State University, Long Beach and California Lutheran University. Fruchtman earned his doctorate in musicology from the University of California, Riverside. He also holds degrees in music composition from UC Riverside (M.M.) and the Berklee College of Music (B.M.), as well as an Advanced Studies Certificate in Music for Motion Pictures and Television from the University of Southern California. His dissertation examines film scores of Jewish-themed films and their composers’ social and cultural world in the Golden Age of Hollywood.

Fruchtman has presented his scholarship in papers at numerous conferences including the national meeting of the American Musicological Society, Society for American Music, NYU’s Music and the Moving Image, and Youngstown State University’s Jewish Music and Identity. His essay titled, “Sounding the Shofar in Hollywood Film Scores” is included in the book Qol Tamid: The Shofar in Ritual, History, and Culture published by Claremont School of Theology Press (2017).

Patrick Gibson
Patrick Gibson is a composer, electric guitarist, and educator. He received his PhD Digital Composition from UCR in 2019. He also holds an M.M. in Music Composition from Cal State Long Beach, an M.Ed. from National University, and a B.A. in Music Theory and Voice from Loyola Marymount University. He performs his original songs with his band, Kirk Out, and conducts and composes concert music for the Martians Chamber Group. He is General Music Teacher and Choir Director for Cubberley, Fremont, and Henry Schools in the Long Beach Unified School District. His compositions include: Watercolor and Blue Sky, premiered by the Orchestra Society of Philadelphia on September 15, 2017, and read by the UCR Orchestra, June 5, 2018; his revised and re-orchestrated version of Watercolor and Blue Sky for Concert Band, which will be read by the UCR Concert Band in the Fall Quarter of 2018; ¡Vale! Panegyric for Spain, which was premiered by Gerardo López at Sound and Fury Presents: Gerard López and Jennifer Wright, June 2, 2018; Three Études for Electric Guitar and Electronics, premiered at the EARS Lab Tenth Anniversary Celebration and Concert on June 8, 2018. His works have been performed by members of the California E.A.R. Unit, flutist Sarah Carrier, the Robin Cox Trio, HUB New Music Ensemble, Transient Canvas, the Argus Quartet, the Eclipse Quartet, the Friction Quartet, LAPQ, ensemble Fret, the Martians Chamber Group, pianist Dr. Soo Lee Biancalana, pianist Dr. Christian Dubeau, and harpist Gracie Sprout.
Jason Francesco Heath
Jason Francesco Heath is a Los Angeles-based composer. His music has been heard at such diverse venues as Pacifica radio’s Global Village, Sacred Mondays on KXLU 88.9, People Inside Electronics (P.I.E.), Hear Now, What's Next Ensemble at Boston Court; Villa Aurora; CNMAT, The Center for New Music, San Francisco Classical Voice's Music from Other Minds, the Barbara and Art Culver Center of the Arts, Pepperdine University, Los Angeles' Grand Performances, andMicrofest. His Rain Ceremony for viola and live electronics has been declared “an extraordinary piece,” by KPFK’s John Schneider. Jason concentrates on concert music with digital media and instrumental ensembles. His music has been recorded and released by Microfest Records.
Jaclyn Howerton
Jaclyn Howerton received her PhD in Musicology in 2019, with the dissertation “’Doing His Bit’: Ralph Vaughan Williams’s Music for British Wartime Propaganda Films.” Some of her recent awards include the Gluck Fellowship for the Arts, the Ernest Propes Endowed Graduate Fellowship, the Humanities Graduate Studies Research Fellowship, and the Graduate Dean’s Dissertation Research Grant, the Chancellor’s Distinguished Fellowship, and the Anthony Ginter Award (all at the University of California, Riverside), in addition to the 2016-17 AMS Harold Powers World Travel Fund Grant. She has presented her research at various conferences in the US and England. A native of Los Angeles, she received her Bachelor of Arts in Music from the University of California, Davis in 2010 and her Master of Music in Oboe Performance at California State University, Northridge in 2012. Her honors senior thesis, entitled “Ralph Vaughan Williams: Music from War” was published in the university’s undergraduate research journal, Explorations, and was an in-depth analysis on the influence of the world wars on the symphonies of Vaughan Williams. In addition, Howerton also received the UC Davis Departmental Faculty Award in Music Performance for oboe. For her Master’s in Music, Howerton received a Graduate Equity Fellowship for musicological research and completed a detailed thesis on Instrument history of the oboe in collaboration with a Master’s Recital in 2012. Her current research interests focus on British film music and its use as propaganda during the Second World War with a particular interest in the music of Ralph Vaughan Williams. In addition to her musicological research, Howerton is a freelance oboist and English hornist in the greater Los Angeles area.
Rachel Howerton
Rachel Howerton received her Ph.D. in musicology in 2019 with the dissertation “Reshaping British Concert Life: Tracking the Performance History of Hector Berlioz’s La Damnation de Faust in Nineteenth-Century Britain.” Her research and teaching areas focus on the transnational reception history of Romantic-era composers in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Britain, with a particular emphasis on the reception of Hector Berlioz’s music in Britain and France at the end of the long nineteenth century. In addition, she also has strong secondary interests in the reception of videogame music and fandoms as well as in the influence that critics and media have in shaping public opinion and historical narrative. Rachel has presented her scholarship at numerous conferences in the US and England. In addition to her research, Rachel taught undergraduate courses for both the Music and Media and Cultural Studies Departments at UCR. Rachel holds degrees in music from the University of Southern California, Thornton School of Music (M.M. in horn performance) and the University of California, Davis (B.A.), where she was also awarded the Departmental Citation in Music. Some of her recent awards include: the American Musicological Society M. Elizabeth C. Bartlet Travel Grant, the UC Riverside Humanities Graduate Student Research Grant, the Ernest Propes Endowed Graduate Fellowship, and the UC Riverside Dean’s Distinguished Fellowship Award. In addition to her academic pursuits, Rachel is also a freelance musician that performs regularly in numerous ensembles throughout the Greater Los Angeles area.
Hermann Hudde
Hermann Hudde is a candidate in musicology at the University of California, Riverside, and a classical guitar performer. Hermann has published articles and reviews in Sociedad Venezolana de Musicología, Revista Musical Chilena, Soundboard, Revista de Musicología, Tempo, Nineteenth Century Music Review, Latin American Music Review and Harvard Review of Latin America. Hermann is a recipient of diverse awards and fellowships including Gluck Fellowship, Dean’s Distinguished Fellowships “Outstanding Research and Proposal Project, Otto Mayer Serra Award in Musicology, the Latin GRAMMY Cultural Foundation Research Grant (2016), Gluck Fellowship, Dean’s Distinguished Fellowship. Hermann Hudde has read musicological papers at the Universidad Católica Andrés Bello, UC Irvine, Wheaton College, and Tufts University, and  his experience as a college music instructor includes teaching his course Latin American Classical Traditions, (onsite and online) at the New England Conservatory School of Continuing Education. His research interests focus on the interdisciplinary connections between Music and Cultural Studies. For more information, please visit: http://ucriverside.academia.edu/HermannHudde and www.hermannhudde.com
Eric Johns

Eric Johns is a Ph.D. candidate in musicology at the University of California, Riverside under the guidance of Dr. Walter Aaron Clark. He completed his Master’s degree at the same university with a thesis on Joaquín Nin-Culmell’s opera La Celestina. His current work explores the historiographic construction of narratives in tango histories and their marginalization of the guitar in those histories. Eric has been the recipient of the Dean’s Distinguished Fellowship (2014), the Manolito Pinazo Award (2016), the Anythony Ginter Award (2016), the Outstanding TA Award (2017), and a four-time recipient of the Gluck Fellowship of the Arts.

Email: ejohn014@ucr.edu

Nana Kaneko

Nana Kaneko received her Ph.D. in ethnomusicology in 2017. Her dissertation, entitled "Performing Recovery: Music and Disaster Relief in Post-3.11 Japan," examines the role of music in recovery efforts following the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear fallout that struck Northeast Japan on March 11, 2011. It was supported by a University of California’s President’s Dissertation-Year Fellowship (2016-2017), Japan Foundation Doctoral Fellowship (2015-2016), and UCR Graduate Research Mentorship Program award (2014-2015). She is also the recipient of the 2017 Ki Mantle Hood Prize for the best paper presented by a graduate student at the annual meeting of the SEM Southern California Chapter. Her M.A. thesis, "Performing as One: Translating Pedagogy, Rhythm, and Social Relations in Diasporic Japanese Minyo" (2013), was also completed at UC Riverside and explores how her teacher's pedagogical methods are both maintained and changed to cater to a diasporic student body. Her B.A., magna cum laude (2010), in music with minors in Japanese and cinema studies, is from New York University.

Nana is currently a Mellon/ACLS Public Fellow at the Smithsonian Cultural Rescue Initiative (SCRI) as Program Manager for Cultural Disaster Analysis. She works to help protect and preserve cultural heritage threatened by natural disasters or human violence in the U.S. and abroad.

David Kendall
David Kendall completed the Ph.D. in Musicology at UCR in 2010 and his continuing research interests include colonial liturgical music of the Philippines, organology, and 19th-century wind instrument performance practices.  Formerly a lecturer at UCR, David is now a full-time, tenure-track assistant professor of music at La Sierra University.  Additionally, he is a brass instructor at Loma Linda Academy, serves as Music Minister at Immanuel Lutheran Church, is Musical Director of the Armory Band (a 19th-century brass band playing period instruments), and serves on the Board of Directors of the Period Piano Center and Museum and Makibahagi (a Filipino arts and culture organization).  David lives in Riverside with his wife, Shiela, and two daughters, Carmina and Mikaëla.
Jungwon Kim
Jungwon Kim received her Ph.D. in ethnomusicology in 2017 with the dissertation “K- Popping: Korean Women, K-Pop, and Fandom.” Jungwon majored in violin performance and musicology with a dance theory minor for her bachelor’s degrees and holds two M.A.s in gender studies and ethnomusicology. Her research interests span K-pop (Korean popular music), western classical music in the non-western world, and gender issues in various musical practices. Since 2011, she has actively presented her K-pop-related papers at multiple conferences, including Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM), the Southern California and Hawai’i Chapter of Society for Ethnomusicology (SEMSCHC), International Association for Study of Popular Music (IASPM), Korean Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM – Korea), East-West Center International Graduate Student Conference on the Asian Pacific Region, World Congress of Korean Studies, Inter-Asia Popular Music Studies Conference, Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Society Conference, International Convention of Asia Scholars, and Association for Asian Studies-in-Asia (AAS-in-Asia). Her paper on K-pop girl groups’ visualization and sexualization is included in the bibliography of K-POP: Roots and Blossoming of Korean Popular Music published by the Arts Council Korea in 2012.
Corey Michael Blake Lascano
Corey Michael Blake Lascano received his Ph.D. in ethnomusicology in 2019 with the dissertation “Diaspora and Belonging in Panama: Cultural Performance and National Identity for Panamanians of Chinese Descent.” His research interests include musical expressions of identity in diasporic Central American populations and the effects of tourism on rural Appalachian musical identities. Beginning in 2012, Corey spent a year interning with Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, working with ethnomusicologists, folklorists, and experts in the recording music industry. There, he was commissioned to curate a music playlist for the second inauguration of President Barack Obama. In 2015, he graduated with his M.M. from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, where he completed his Master’s thesis, entitled “Sounding Identity: Music and Technoculture in the Chinese Diaspora of Panama.” Corey also holds a B.M. degree in voice education from James Madison University with a minor in anthropology. In March 2017, Corey was awarded a Fulbright U.S. Student Fellowship for his 2017-2018 dissertation fieldwork in Panama City, Panama.
Christine Lee

Christine Lee is a Ph.D. student at UC Riverside focusing on digital music composition. She composes music for different media including visual media and dance. Her composing styles range from small acoustic pieces to large hybrid orchestral music. She often uses ambient sound through an electronic medium.

She started out playing keyboard for a rock band called "Wiretap In My Ear" at various venues when she was in Korea. It was during this time where she found an interest in exploring different types of sound, which led her to study music (Intermedia Music Technology) at the University of Oregon. While continuing her studies, the relationship between visual media and music sparked her interest in traditional classical writing as well as electronic and contemporary writing.

She has recently completed her certificate program in Film Scoring at UCLA Extension. She continues to expand her musical skills, experience, and knowledge at UC Riverside.

Alvaro Lopez
Alvaro Lopez is an electronic musician, composer and sound designer, BM in Composition and Production, and MA in Music Technology. He is currently a PhD candidate in Digital Composition at UCR focused on artificial intelligence for music analysis, generation and composition. Lately, as sound designer and music composer for the game Recollect from UCR Brain Game Center, his work is part of an on-going research project in memory and cognition. He has worked as mix engineer, sound designer and sound track composer for movies, short films and documentaries, alternating with instruction in digital audio for media in Colombian universities. His audiovisual interactive pieces featuring custom-design wireless UI have been part of the New Music Festival in Akron, OH, (2010-2012) playing 1960s analog synthesizers, and UCR is Composing (2015-2017) using gyroscopes and body motion, among others. His experimental audiovisual montages have been presented in several international festivals such as the UCR Film Festival 2016, Extrabismos, La Diáspora, Festival de Cine y Video de San Juan de Pasto, at Barcelona, Lima, Berlin, Bogota, Manizales and Tunja, among others in the last ten years. Email: all0sound@icloud.com
Jessica Margarita Gutierrez Masini

Jessica Margarita Gutierrez Masini is a Ph.D. student in Ethnomusicology at the University of California, Riverside (UCR) with interdisciplinary research interests in feminist and decolonizing methodologies, music of the Americas, and music and identities. She is fascinated by how Native American peoples not only maintain but celebrate and create traditions through music and dance. Jessica has recently completed her M.A. at UCR with an engaged ethnomusicological project titled “Native American Indigeneity through Danza in University of California Powwows: A Decolonized Approach.” She has presented highlights from this research locally at the Southern California and Hawaii Chapter for the Society of Ethnomusicology 2018 Conference, and internationally at the 2018 Graduate Student Music Conference in Toronto, Canada. In 2015, Jessica was the first music major to earn the Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Research, and in 2016, was presented with a Native American Community Honoring for her contribution to the 44th UCD Powwow and Native American Culture Days. She currently serves as President of the Music Graduate Student Association at UCR and as Student Representative for the Southern California and Hawaii Chapter for the Society of Ethnomusicology. Jessica’s ultimate goal is to better connect the knowledge practices she learns in academia to the communities she works for and with.

Evyn Barb Mingo

Evyn Barb Mingo is pursuing a Ph.D. degree in musicology at the University of California, Riverside.  He completed the Bachelor of Music in 2014, Magna Cum Laude, and, in 2016, the Master of Fine Arts in Music degree in cello performance at the University of California, Irvine.  The Phi Beta Kappa holder studied with the cellist Dr. Maggie Parkins.  His current research interests include the music of early twentieth-century British composers, particularly that of Frank Bridge.  He is further exploring the extent to which European nationalism influenced British musical aesthetics between the fin de siècle and WWII while examining the concept of “Englishness” in music by British composers.  When not musically engaged, he paints and also writes poetry.

Barb Mingo is a recipient of the Chancellor’s Distinguished Fellowship at the University of California, Riverside.

Gelareh Naseri

Gelareh Naseri completed a Ph.D. in Composition at the University of California Riverside Music Department. She writes music for solo instruments and different types of ensembles including wind ensemble and symphony orchestra. Naseri’s music is performed or read by various ensembles including the Friction Quartet, the What’s Next Ensemble, and the Synchromy. She is interested in composing music for all sorts of media, including soundtracks for games and movies. She is also compelled by compositions that implement digital technology to enhance the music. Prior to coming to UCR Music Department, Gelareh Naseri earned a master's degree in Music Composition from the University of Art, and a bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering from Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran.

Through her experiences in pursuing her academic goals, Naseri was awarded two Gluck Fellowships in the Arts and has continued to develop new approaches to teaching music and music composition.

Matthew Neil
Matthew Neil received his Ph.D. in ethnomusicology in 2018 with the dissertation “Locating Jazz in 21st Century American Society.” He graduated with a bachelor of music degree in jazz composition from Temple University in Philadelphia, where he was also an active performer on electric bass in the city's jazz scene. His research focuses on American jazz in the 21st century, with a particular emphasis on the university institutionalization of jazz. His conference presentations include a paper presentation at the Guelph Jazz Festival Colloquium, the leading international symposium on improvisation. His other research interests include music and technology, Latin American music, and music and globalization.
Melinda O'Brien
Melinda O'Brien completed an MA in ethnomusicology at UC Riverside in 2009, with a thesis project titled, “Music Listening and the American Dream in a Mexican American Community,” advised by Jonathan Ritter.  Melinda is currently an ACLS/Mellon Dissertation Completion Fellow for 2015-16 in the Department of Musicology at UCLA. Her dissertation, "Music and Moral Repair in Early Modern France,” explores musical settings of moral poetry in France from 1556-1652. Melinda has undertaken training in print culture and paleography at the École Nationale des Chartes in Paris as the Newberry Library Exchange Fellow for 2014-15, and she is currently affiliated with the Centre d’Études Supérieures de la Renaissance in Tours, France, as she completes her dissertation abroad. Melinda’s secondary research interests, which began during her MA work in ethnomusicology at UCR, are located in sound studies, tone and timbre in popular music, and Chicano/a music production.
Alessio Olivieri

Alessio Olivieri, Italian classical guitarist and musicologist, is a PhD student in Musicology at the University of California Riverside, and he is recipient of the Dean’s Distinguished Fellowship. He received a MM in Classical Guitar Performance from the Manhattan School of Music, as well as a MM in Music Technology/Publishing, a BM in Musicology, and a Diploma in Classical Guitar, all from the Cesare Pollini Conservatory in Padova (Italy). His most influential teachers have been Angelo Gilardino, Giulio Tampalini, Mark Delpriora, David Leisner, and Giovanni Grano.

As a musicologist, he researched the Italian lute music of the 16th Century (thesis on the M.S. 223 of the library of the Accademia Filarmonica in Verona), and the Italian chamber romances of the 19th century —with the book Le romanze da salotto di Michele Bellucci. Le edizioni a stampa e i manoscritti autografi (2010). His graduate thesis, titled Il Tenebrismo: la chitarra della noche oscura da Manuel de Falla ad Angelo Gilardino, introduced the concept of “tenebrism” as a new poetic in the 20th century guitar repertoire. Alessio performed throughout Italy, USA, Australia, and New Zealand, as soloist and in chamber music groups —especially with his wife, the Italian soprano Elisa Ramon, as Operaperta Duo. He recorded two CDs (as Operaperta Duo, and as member of the former Manhattan Guitar Quartet).

As an educator, Alessio served as Guitar Instructor at the Edinboro University of Pennsylvania (2014-16), and as guitar and music teacher, in high schools and middle schools in Italy. Website: www.alessioolivieri.com Email: alessio.olivieri@email.ucr.edu

Dhiren Panikker
Dhiren Panikker received his Ph.D. in ethnomusicology in 2019. His dissertation "'Sound Come-Unity': Post-9/11 Brown and the Politics of Intercultural Improvisation," examines brownness, improvisation, and the politics of community building in contemporary jazz and creative music. Dhiren also holds an MFA in Integrated Composition, Improvisation, and Technology from UC Irvine (2010), and a BM in Jazz Studies from CSU Fullerton (2008). He is the recipient of numerous awards including the Dissertation Year Fellowship, Gluck Fellowship, Dean’s Distinguished Fellowship, and Medici Foundation Scholarship. Dhiren has presented his research at various national and international conferences including the Society for Ethnomusicology, International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation, and International Association for the Study of Popular Music. An active pianist and composer, Dhiren performs at prominent jazz venues throughout Los Angeles and with his own group, Trio Sangha. Outside of performance, Dhiren teaches private music lessons in piano, theory, and composition, and conducts master classes and workshops throughout Southern California.
Daniel Castro Pantoja
Daniel Castro Pantoja received his Ph.D. in musicology in 2018. His dissertation, titled “Antagonism, Europhilia, and Identity: Guillermo Uribe Holguín and the Politics of National Music in Early Twentieth-Century Colombia” examines the role(s) of antagonism and anti-nationalism in Colombian national music narratives, through the life, work, and historiography of Colombian composer Guillermo Uribe Holguín. To complete his research on Uribe Holguín, he received a year-long fellowship granted by the Colombian Ministry of Culture. Other research interests include music and decoloniality, music and populism, music semiotics, and indigenismo. Daniel, a native of Colombia, has published in Trans-Revista Transcultural de Música and in Latin American Research Review. He has also written for the Smithsonian Folkways Festival blog. During the 2015-2016 academic year, he served as an Associate Editor for the journal Ethnomusicology Review, curating and editing Crossing Borders, a column that focuses on trans-disciplinary music research. He has also been a Smithsonian graduate fellow, participating in the Latino Museum Studies Program (LMSP) during the summer of 2015. He also taught in the graduate music program at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá, Colombia. Daniel is currently working on a book project that examines the role of antagonism, Europhilia, and anti-nationalism in early twentieth-century Colombia.
Jennifer Parker

Jennifer (no.e) Parker, is an electronic musician, Dj, improviser, and gamelan player holding a Ph.D. in Digital Music Composition (UCR), an MFA in Digital Art/New Media (UCSC), and a B.S. in Textiles & Apparel Design (Cornell University).

no.e's work explores pathways emerging from intersections between visual art, sound, music, data, science, and technology. Re-contextualizing phenomena usually taken for granted, Parker exposes new and mutated realities for her audiences—creating multimodal experiences of materials and places.

In 2017, the Qianyang Bamboo Museum (Fujian, China) commissioned Parker to build an Interactive Bamboo Sound Garden, and Parker's doctoral project, Composing [De]Composition was a top-ranked abstract by Leonardo Journal, This research also appears in the proceedings of the 2015 International Conference of Audio DisplayAcoustic Space Journal (16), and was the subject of a keynote talk at the 2016 International Art & Technology ConferenceC[D]C sonifies compost temperature into immersive soundscapes, electronic and acoustic music, with exhibitions at the UCR Sweeney Gallery, the Riverside Art Museum, and the National Museum of Brasilia.

no.e received five Gluck Fellowships for the Arts, giving 60 interactive workshops on “Developing Sonic Awareness/Music is Everywhere!” and “Connecting Composting, Science, Music, and Sound”. She received a 2012 Culver Arts Research Laboratory Residency with choreographer Crystal Sepulveda for their project, Performance as Process.

Parker studied at the Indonesian National Conservatory of Art, Yogyakarta, Java on an Indonesian government Darmasiswa grant (2003-2005), influencing Parker's Digital Art/New Media MFA to focus on live non-idiomatic electro-gamelan improvisation.

Other exhibitions include Danish Museum of Modern ArtUC Riverside Culver Arts CenterSan Jose Institute of Contemporary ArtSurabaya International Video FestivalYogyakarta International Media Art Festival, and STUBNITZ Kunst-Raum-Schiff.

Alyson Payne
Alyson Payne completed her doctoral studies in 2012, with a dissertation entitled, “The 1964 Festival of Music of the Americas and Spain:  A Critical Examination of Ibero-American Musical Relations in the Context of Cold War Politics,” advised by Dr. Leonora Saavedra.  She received her master's degree from Bowling Green State University, under the direction of Dr. Carol A. Hess.  Her interests include music and politics during the twentieth century as well as music and nationalism.
Colin Pearson

Colin Pearson is a curator at the Musical Instrument Museum (MIM) in Phoenix for the Asia, Oceania, and Middle East collections and galleries. He has been instrumental in shaping the museum’s collection and curating special exhibitions since he began as an assistant to the curators in 2009. Pearson particularly enjoys sharing the beauty and diversity of the world’s music with the thousands of members of the public who visit MIM every year. He has also overseen MIM’s digitization of the University of Washington’s Robert Garfias film archive, a multi-year project that has preserved this treasure trove of great historical performances for the future.

Pearson completed his MA in Ethnomusicology at UCR in 2006, specializing in the music of Southeast Asia, and in immigrant communities. His thesis research involved an in-depth ethnographic study of how members of the Cambodian diaspora community in Long Beach, California negotiated, established, and portrayed their identities as immigrants through traditional music and dance. During his studies at UCR, Pearson received a Gluck Fellowship to discuss and demonstrate string instruments of Southeast Asia in local elementary school classrooms. Pearson credits the open and interdisciplinary environment of UCR’s ethnomusicology program for giving him the skills and training needed to navigate the delicate balance between academic rigor and public accessibility that is so important to museum work.

Paula Propst
Paula Propst received her Ph.D. in ethnomusicology in 2017 with the dissertation “Sonic Feminism: Intentionality, Empathy, and Emotions at Rock and Roll Camps.” Her dissertation explores intersectional approaches to music education and popular music performance, focusing on the growing presence of camps devoted to popular rock music instruction for young girls and current interests in feminism and gender equality in popular culture. Paula received an M.M., with a focus in musicology, from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (2012). She completed a master’s thesis that examined Knoxville punk, where musicians maintain a community centered on performances and social relationships. Paula also holds a B.M., with a focus in K-12 music education and a minor in anthropology, from Appalachian State University (2006, magna cum laude). As a part of her bachelor’s honors program, Paula completed an undergraduate honors thesis that surveyed socio-musical aspects of contemporary hardcore punk and metal music. Paula has performed primarily classical music – having studied clarinet since she was 13. At Appalachian State, Paula received course credit for being a touring musician with the Steely Pan Steel Band and the Appalachian State Gospel Choir. During her time at UCR, she has found a great love for performing Andean music, bluegrass, gamelan, and tabla. Paula’s current research has also led to an unyielding interest to become proficient in electric bass guitar and drum kit.
Anthony Rasmussen

Anthony Rasmussen received his Ph.D. in ethnomusicology in 2017. His dissertation, titled “Resistance Resounds: Hearing Power in Mexico City,” concerns sound studies in contemporary Mexico and explores the dialectic relationship between social actors, cultural formations, and acoustic environments. Anthony has conducted research on the Persian Diaspora in Southern California and has studied Persian classical music with Hossein Omoumi and Kourosh Taghavi. He holds an MFA in Integrated Composition, Improvisation, and Technology from UC Irvine and has composed for film, a range of traditional and non-traditional ensembles, and has collaborated with members of the Eclipse String Quartet, Silk Road Ensemble, and the John Fogerty Band. Currently, Anthony is a singer/songwriter for the experimental pop group, The Fantastic Toes.

Anthony has received the UCR Humanities Graduate Student Research Grant (2014-2015), the UCR Chancellor’s Distinguished Fellowship (2012-2015), and is the first recipient of the Manolito Romero Memorial Award – granted in support of Iberian/Latin American dissertation research (2014-2015).

Eileen Regullano

Eileen Regullano is received her M.A. in ethnomusicology at UC Riverside. Her research addresses Asian Americans and new media, exploring the relationship between minority (in)visibility and mainstream popular culture through her research. Her research also examines issues of identity politics, transnationalism, and postcolonialism.

Eileen received her Bachelors of Music from Chapman University, where she graduated magna cum laude with emphases in both piano performance and keyboard collaborative arts, as well as a minor in anthropology. While at Chapman, she earned the Edgar Sholund scholarship for excellence in music performance. In addition, she was awarded a Chapman University Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship for her research on Japanese Americans and Japantowns.

Eileen continues to perform both as a solo and collaborative pianist, in addition to participating in the UCR Rondalla Ensemble. She currently serves as Co-Web Editor for the Southern California-Hawai’i Chapter of the Society of Ethnomusicology with fellow UCR graduate student Elizabeth Wood.

Jacob Rekedal
Jacob Rekedal is a faculty member at the Instituto de Música of the Universidad Alberto Hurtado in Santiago, Chile. He holds a Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology from the University of California, Riverside, plus master’s degrees in ethnomusicology (UCR) and education (Union Graduate College). He has conducted fieldwork in Chile since 2009, with support from the UC Pacific Rim Research Program, Fulbright, and the Chilean government. His research and performance interests include bluegrass and roots music from North America, as well as traditional and contemporary Mapuche music, and Chilean popular and folkloric genres. Since 2015, Rekedal has served as the Chile Liaison Officer to the International Council for Traditional Music.
Erica Siegel

Erica Siegel completed her Ph.D. in Musicology at the University of California, Riverside in 2016 with a dissertation examining the early career and reception of composer Elizabeth Maconchy. She holds a B.A. from New York University, and an M.A. in Musicology from the University of California, Riverside. Her research focuses on twentieth-century music in Britain, particularly in relation to aspects of modernism, nationalism, and gender.

In 2014-15, Siegel was a Mellon Dissertation Research Fellow at the Institute of Historical Research at the University of London. She has delivered papers at meetings of the American Musicological Society (2014) and North American British Music Studies Association (NABMSA 2012, 2014). The paper she delivered at the 2012 NABMSA conference was awarded the Nicholas Temperley Student Paper Prize. An expansion of this paper, entitled, “‘I’m not making this up, you know!’: The Success of Two of Vaughan Williams’s Students in America,” was published in The Musical Quarterly. Siegel is currently working on a biography of Maconchy, which is under contract with The Boydell Press.

Russell P. Skelchy

Russell P. Skelchy is an ERC Research Fellow leading the “Sounds of Occupation” stream in the Cultures of Occupation in Twentieth-Century Asia (COTCA) project at the University of Nottingham.  He received the Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology and MA in Southeast Asian Studies at the University of California, Riverside with a dissertation on keroncong, an Indonesian folk/popular music, and specifically a life history of Waldjinah, keroncong’s most renowned vocalist.  It examined how this genre has provided a narrative of modernization in postindependence Indonesia and explored how Waldjinah, as an artist, has helped to bind and shape the modern nation by giving tangible form to the abstract idea of national culture.

Skelchy’s research interests include multiracial studies, popular music (sub)cultures, sound studies, decolonization, and gender studies.  He is a recipient of a Fulbright US Scholar grant (2017-2018), Fulbright Institute for International Education Fellowship (2011-2012), and the University of California Pacific Rim Research Program Fellowship (2011-2012).  Skelchy has published in the Journal of Popular Music Studies, Asian Music, the Journal of World Popular Music and has contributed a chapter to the edited volume, Vamping the Stage: Female Voices of Asian Modernities (University of Hawai’i Press, 2017).

Email: Russell.Skelchy@nottingham.ac.uk

Kevin Sliwoski
Kevin Sliwoski received his Ph.D. in ethnomusicology in 2019 with the dissertation “Sounds of Subic Bay: The U.S. Navy in the Philippines, 1950-1971.” He is interested in global jazz traditions, sound studies, and the U.S. Military. Kevin holds Master's degrees in U.S. History and Musicology from the University of Oxford. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Music from the Hartt School at the University of Hartford. He is a trombonist and has also studied Tagalog through the SEASSI program at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Elizabeth Stela

Elizabeth Stela is a Ph.D. candidate in ethnomusicology and UCR. Her research interests include the music of Japan and the Japanese diaspora, music in intentional communities, and human dreams of space exploration and settlement. Her dissertation research explores music and belonging in two intentional communities in Brazil whose members identify as Japanese or embrace perceived Japanese values.

Elizabeth received an MA in Oral History from Columbia University. She has participated in a variety of music and dance ensembles including Grupo Vak (Sao Paulo), Yuubi Japanese Dance Company (Sao Paulo), the Viva Brazil Dance Company (New York), and the Martha Graham Ensemble (Graham II) (New York). She is currently studying the Japanese language in Kansai, Japan through a grant from the Japan Foundation.

Desmond Stevens
Desmond Stevens received his BA degrees in Music Education and Sociology from UCLA in 2009. He also holds an MA in Musicology from UC Riverside (2011). During his time at Riverside, he focused his studies on the music of nineteenth and twentieth-century Latin American classical and popular music. His thesis investigated the music of Argentine composer Astor Piazzolla and the Argentine expectations of national musical identity. Since receiving his master's degree he worked as a music teacher in public middle and high schools in the LA and Orange Counties. Currently, he is working as the instrumental music teacher at Rancho Alamitos High School in Garden Grove where he is fusing traditional high school instrumental instruction (strings, winds, and percussion) with a specifically tailored curriculum incorporating elements of Western music history, World music history, and Ethnomusicology which reflects the diverse demographics of his school's student body.
Robert Wahl
Robert Wahl recently finished his Ph.D. in musicology at UC Riverside. Robert earned a Bachelor of Music from San Diego State University with emphasis on classical guitar and a Masters of Arts in Musicology from California State University, Long Beach with a thesis on the music of Paraguayan guitarist Agustín Barrios Mangoré. His current research explores the influence and significance of Spanish music and musicians in the United States. Emphasis will be placed on the years during Francisco Franco’s rule and the Cold War following the reestablishment of diplomatic ties between the U.S. and Spain in 1953. In his free time, Robert enjoys playing guitar with friends and family as well as performing in the community with the Gluck Fellows Program of the Arts.
Nattapol Wisuttipat

Born in Bangkok, Thailand, Nattapol Wisuttipat received his B.Ed. (Thai Music Education) from Srinakharinwirot University, Thailand; MA in ethnomusicology at Kent State University; and is now pursuing a doctoral degree in ethnomusicology at the University of California, Riverside. Wisuttipat specializes in Southeast Asian music, especially piphat, Thai classical music; and is also interested in luk thung, Thai popular music. Besides the commitment to his area of interest, Wisuttipat has also participated in several non-Western music ensembles including Javanese gamelan, Trinidadian steel drum, and that of African Ewe cultural group. He is experienced in conducting workshops on various genres of Thai music to interested audiences internationally.

Elizabeth Wood
Elizabeth Wood is received her M.A. at UCR in ethnomusicology. Her research interests include American popular music, specifically jam band culture, and taiko. Liz holds a B.M. in Music Industry from James Madison University in Virginia and is an active percussionist. While at JMU, she completed an internship at Smithsonian Folkways, an experience that confirmed her interest in pursuing ethnomusicology. She currently holds the position of Co-Web Editor, with fellow UCR grad student Eileen Regullano, for the Southern California-Hawaii Chapter of the Society of Ethnomusicology. When she’s not reading or practicing, you can find Liz at Starbucks, hiking, or hanging out around town with her friends.