For More Information
Graduate Program Chair in Composition and Theory, Yu-Hui Chang
Graduate Program Chair in Musicology, Eric Chafe
Joint MA Advisor in Music & Women's and Gender Studies, Allan R. Keiler (Fall); Eric Chafe (spring)
For more information about admissions, financial aid, and student services, please visit the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.
Current Graduate Students
Travis Alford, Composition and Theory (Ph.D.)
B.M. Theory and Composition, East Carolina University; M.M. Composition, New England Conservatory of Music.
Recent performances of works: kakophonia for brass quintet, June in Buffalo Festival 2009; Transitions for flute, trumpet, and piano, ACA Summer Music Festival, Symphony Space, NY (June 2009); Breathing Room premiered at the 2009 Composers Conference, Wellesley University.
Instrument: trumpet
Website: http://www.travisalford.com
Mark Berger, Composition and Theory (Ph.D.)
B.M. Violin Performance, Boston University; M.M. Composition, Boston University.
Dissertation title: analytical work on Franz Schreker's Chamber Symphony; and an original composition entitled: "Upon a Wheel of Cloud" for viola, cello, and bass.
Recent performances of works: by Dinosaur Annex, Worcester Chamber Music Society, and Music at Eden's Edge.
Activities: Founding member and composer in residence with the Worcester Chamber Music Society; frequent performances as violinist and violist with Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Emmanuel Music, Opera Boston, and Boston Lyric Opera; adjunct faculty at Clark University, Atlantic Union College, University of Massachusetts, Lowell and Middlesex Community College. Winner of the League of Composers/ISCM composers competition for 2009.
James Borchers, Composition and Theory (Ph.D.)
B.M. Performance (percussion) University of Nebraska at Omaha; M.A. Performance (percussion), Queens College, City University of New York; M.A. Composition, Queens College, City University of New York.
Recent performances: (see website).
Instruments; percussion, some piano, guitar.
Nicole Brellenthin, Musicology (M.F.A.)
BM Instrumental Performance, University of Wisconsin - Eau Claire
Current Academic Interests: 19th century music, Victorian parlor songs, progression of ideological musical thought throughout the 19th-20th centuries. Instrument: Tenor Trombone
B.M. Piano Performance, Kyungwon University in South Korea; Graduate Diploma, South Netherlands Royal Conservatorium; Master candidate, University of Cincinnati.
Academic interests: Aesthetic changes of the German musical ideology; Renaissance vocal polyphony; piano literature of the Classical and Romantic eras. Master thesis: Lasso's and Utendal's Penitential Psalm Cycles: Musical-Rhetorical Expression of the Renaissance Modes.
Activities: Guest pianist at Bildhoven musical series in Netherlands, Lucca opera festival in Italy, and Covington Art Club.
Victoria Cheah, Composition and Theory (Ph.D)
B.A. (Music) Macaulay Honors College at CUNY Hunter College
Performances include: PRISM saxophone quartet, Ensemble Cairn, Attacca Quartet, Michel Galante and members of Argento Chamber Ensemble, attendees of SICPP, Hunter College Opera Studio, Hunter College Chamber Singers and Hunter College Symphony
Instruments: voice, piano
Yohanan Chendler, Composition and Theory (Ph.D.)
B.M. Composition and Theory, Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance.
Recent performances: String Quartet No. 2, a commission from the Caramoor Festival performed by the Ariel Quartet on July 30 in the Caramoor Festival, New York, and August 4, 2009, at the Yellow Barn Festival, Vermont; Piano Trio written for the Aspen Festival New Music Ensemble performed Aug 20, 2009 at the Aspen Music Festival.
Instrument: violin.
Richard Chowenhill, Composition and Theory (M.F.A.)
B.A. Composition, Classical Guitar Performance, University of California, Davis
Recent Works: Original scores for the Davis Shakespeare Ensemble’s productions of The Sonnet Project—an original one act opera based on the sonnets of William Shakespeare, and Twelfth Night; electronic scoring and sound design for Abridged; electronic scoring and additional songs for A Midsummer Night’s Dream; three pieces for Speed the Plow, UC Irvine Drama Department; Mood Swing, a three-movement piece commissioned by gallery 1855.
Instrument: guitar
Stacy Dimapelis, Music and Women's and Gender Studies (Joint M.A.)
B.A. Psychology (Honors) and Musical Arts, Hamline University.
Current academic interests: 19th and 20th century music; studies and analysis on race, gender and class; gender stereotyping and musical instrument preferences; women conductors and their prevalence in the professional orchestras. Undergraduate Honors thesis (Psychology): Pitch as a Factor in Gendered Musical Instrument Preferences.
David Dominique, Composition and Theory (Ph.D.)
B.A. NYU; M.M. California State University, Northridge.
Recent performances and projects: "Tongues Bloody Tongues" (July 22, 23 & 24 2010), an experimental opera commissioned by the New Original Works series at REDCAT, Los Angeles."Ordos 100" (June, 2010), an installation for 5.1 surround sound and 2-channel video, presented at New England Conservatory's Summer Institute for Contemporary Performance Practice.
Instrument: Trombone
Maxwell Dulaney, Composition and Theory (Ph.D.)
B.M. Composition, University of Alabama.
Thesis title: Nono's late works with a focus on the compositional method of Fragmente - Stille, an Diotima and Omaggio a Kurtag; and an original composition entitled Concerto for Harmonica and Ensemble.
2010 recipient of Mellon Dissertation Research Grant
Instrument: harmonica.
Jacques Dupuis, Musicology (M.F.A.)
BA Music Theory and Italian Studies, University of Notre Dame
Academic interests: Late 19th century orchestral music; music of Chopin; American music; Undergraduate thesis: Chopin's Mallorcan Preludes, A comparative and contextual analysis of Chopin's Op. 28 Nos. 2, 4, 10, 21
Instrument: trumpet
Nathaniel Eschler, Composition and Theory (Ph.D.)
B.A. Guitar Performance/Composition, College of Charleston; M.M. Theory/Composition, University of Utah.
Dissertation title: The Fundamentals of Elliott Carter's 3rd String Quartet; and an original composition entitled: Machinations for Chamber Orchestra.
Instrument: guitar.
Joanna Fuchs, Musicology (Ph.D.)
B.A. Music History with a minor in History, Youngstown State University.
Academic interests: The American years of Béla Bartók and the examination of redemption in his Concerto for Orchestra. Secondary interests include percussion literature and Hungarian nationalistic music of the 19th and 20th centuries.
Papers: presented papers twice at the Quest Conference at Youngstown State University and Bartók's Orbit: The Sphere and Influence of his Works; guest lecturer at the University of Florida presenting on the first door and the significant use of the tritone in "Duke Bluebeard's Castle".
Instruments: percussion.
Jessica Fulkerson, Musicology (Ph.D.)
B.M. Flute Performance and Music Theory, M.M. Music Theory, Texas Christian University
Academic Interests: Modulo 7 Set Theory, Schenkerian Analysis, Textural Analysis, 20th-century Flute Music
Instrument: flute
Christian Gentry, Composition and Theory (Ph.D.)
B.M. University of Utah; M.M. University of Louisville.
Activities: written music for a variety of instrumentation and genres including, orchestra, choir, art song, chamber music, film, theater and electroacoustic music. Current projects include Flux Flummoxed (commissioned by the Barlow Endowment for Music Composition at Brigham Young University) for Jihye Chang (piano) and Benjamin Sung (violin), clouds and sparks for the Lydian String Quartet, and Listen closely (for stereo digital playback) for the 2009 Brandeis Electro-Acoustic Music Studio (BEAMS) Half-Marathon concert.
Performances: works have been played and/or recorded by Canyonlands New Music Ensemble, Arsenal Trio, Emily Hindrichs (soprano), East Coast Contemporary Ensemble, Juventas! and White Rabbit. Recent performances: skewampity_widget by VERGE Ensemble at June in Buffalo 2009 and A Piece for Several Instruments (or a futile attempt to explain the magical powers of nothingness) performed at Wellesley Composers Conference 2009.
Instrument: piano.
Website: http://christiangentry.com
Gil Harel, Musicology (Ph.D.)
B.A. Brandeis University; M.A. Musicology, Brandeis University.
Academic interests: Wagner's Ring, the cantatas of J.S. Bach, with a special focus on tonal allegory in Bach's recitatives. Ancillary interests include Israeli Mizrachit music, with a focus on the music of Zohar Argov.
Recent performances: recital performances of Peter Maxwell Davies's Eight Songs for a Mad King, Schubert's Die schöne Müllerin, Schumann's Dichterliebe. Future recital of Schubert's Winterreisse (December 2009).
Instruments: voice, piano.
Hermann Hudde, Musicology (M.A.)
Bachelor Degree in International Affairs at the Universidad Central de Venezuela; Künstlirisches Reifeprüfung Musik-Diplom at Musikhochschule Detmold/Münster in Germany; M.M with a Concentration in Music-in-Education at New England Conservatory of Music in Boston.
Academic interests: Latin American classical music
Instrument: Classical Guitar
Website: www.hermannhudde.net
Derek Jacoby, Composition and Theory (Ph.D.)
B.A. Music (Trumpet and Composition), California State University, East Bay (formerly Hayward);
M.M. Composition, New England Conservatory of Music.
Dissertation: analytical work on Lee Hyla's Second Piano Concerto; and an original composition for violin, viola, cello, flute, clarinet, piano, percussion.
Recent performances of works: performances by Composers, Inc. (SF), Boston Musica Viva, Antares (NYC), San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, Tanglewood Music Center Fellows.
Activities: Music Theory Faculty, Phillips Academy - Andover; Faculty, Hayward-La Honda Summer
Music Camp; past teaching at Boston Conservatory, MIT, and New England Conservatory of Music.
Website: www.derekjacoby.com.
Arianne Johnson, Music and Womens’s & Gender Studies (Joint M.A.)
B.A. Music (Honors) University of New Mexico
Academic Interests: music in Italian convents, Renaissance polyphony, modal theory and counterpoint, analysis, the music of Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, Olivier Messiaen, Female jazz/blues singers, American music
Papers: "Caterina Assandra: the Musical Maturation of a Nun in Early Modern Milan"; presented at the Pacific Northwest Graduate Students of Music Conference at the Univ. of Washington (Seattle) February 19th and 20th, 2011.
Instruments: piano, organ, harpsichord, voice
Emily Koh, Composition and Theory (Ph.D.)
B.M. Composition and Double Bass Performance, National University of Singapore; M.M. Composition, Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University; M.M. Music Theory Pedagogy, Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University.
Recent performances of works: trans-[migra].nation for octet, Asian Composers League Festival and Conference (November 2011), Prix d'Ete Prize Ceremony (April 2011); for solo violin, set piece in National Piano and Violin Competition (December 2011); in retro|re-intro:spect for chamber sinfonietta, Composers Conference at Wellesley College (August 2011); There is a Painted Bus for childrens' choir, Singapore Lyric Opera Childrens' Choir (commission) (June 2011); [circum]-perceptio for quintet, June in Buffalo (June 2010)
Instruments: Double Bass, Electric Bass, Piano
Website: http://www.emilykoh.net
B.M. University of Miami; M.A. Composition, Brandeis University.
Recent activities: compositions include Gagliarda written in collaboration with Composers in Red Sneakers and Italian composers consortium Dal Suono Sommers,
Recent performances: Performances of Gagliarda in Quincy, MA. (March, 2009) and in Rome, Italy (May 2009). Also, performed Aeromancer (for bassoon and electronics) at Spark Festival (Feb. 2009, Minneapolis), New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival (March 2009) and at SEAMUS National Conference (April 2009, Indiana).
Website: www.petervanzandtlane.com
Alexander Lane, Musicology (Ph.D.)
B.M. organ performance, Westminster Choir College.
Academic interests: Schenkerian analysis; the role of interval cycles in the harmonic languages of Ives and Berg; the music of Arthur Honegger; the role of registrally fixed 12-note collections in the music of Elliott Carter; the 20th-century revival of Medieval and Renaissance polyphonic techniques (e.g., isorhythm, hocket, prolation canon, etc.), especially as manifested in the music of the Second Viennese School and in the works of such contemporary British composers as Peter Maxwell Davies and Harrison Birtwistle; Adorno's writings on music
Instrument: organ, piano
Activities: currently serves as organist at the Congregational Church of Weston
Seunghee Lee, Composition and Theory (Ph.D.)
B.M. Music Theory, Ewha Womans University; M.M. Composition, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Academic interests: music of woman composers, especially Kaija Saariaho and Augusta Read Thomas.
Activities: Active as a concert pianist
Instrument: piano.
Brian Levy, Musicology (Ph.D.)
B.M. Jazz Performance, William Paterson University; M.M. Jazz Performance, Manhattan School of Music;
D.M.A. Jazz Performance/Jazz Studies with minor in Music Theory, New England Conservatory of Music.
(Thesis: Freedom versus Form: Poly-rhythmic Interactions in the Music of John Coltrane’s “Classic Quartet”),
Publications: “Polyrhythmic Superimposition in Jazz: An Overview of Elvin Jones’s and Jazz Artists’ Use of Hemiola and Implied Meters Before 1965,” Sonus Theory Journal Fall, 2006 .
Performances: Performed professionally for more than fifteen years. Highlights include:International Jazz Festival in Serbia with Charles McPherson, Jr. and Mikan Zlatkovich; “Birdland” in New York City with George Gruntz Big Band featuring John Schofield, Adam Nausbaum, and David Liebman
Instrument: tenor saxophone.
Mu-Xuan Lin, Composition and Theory (Ph.D.)
B.M. Composition, New England Conservatory.
Recent performance: "A room of French windows and limestone sculptures" (for soprano, solo dancer, recorder, viola, double bass, piano, and video), Leonard Bernstein Festival of the Arts, Brandeis, 2009.
Recent project: "Little Blue Dot", a commissioned collaboration with Urbanity Dance Project in Boston and choreographer Betsi Graves Akerstein -- an experiment of integral, cross-generating, music-dance composition.
Instruments: voice, piano; occasional organ, harpsichord, and recorder.
Georgia Luikens, Musicology (Ph.D.)
BMus (Hons I) and BA English Literature, University of New South Wales, Australia.
Academic interests: include Copland, Boulanger, Bernstein, musical theatre, US political music for orchestra in the 1940s, intersections of music and literature and reforming primary and secondary music education.
Activities: chamber music, orchestra, Sydneian Bach Choir.
Instrument: violin.
Paula Musegades, Musicology (Ph.D.)
B.S. Music Education, Minnesota State University, Moorhead, 2007; M.A. Musicology, Brandeis, University.
Academic interests: Film music and film studies, particularly of the golden age; American music of the late 19th and 20th centuries; World music, with a primary focus on Africa and the Middle East.
Papers: "I Don't Think We're in the Nineteenth Century Anymore: Copland's Establishment of Atmosphere in Golden Age Hollywood Films." PCA/ACA National Conference, Boston, April 2012. Book review published in Quarterly Review of Film and Video 29.2.
Instrument: trumpet.
Florie Namir, Composition and Theory (Ph.D.)
B.M. The Rubin Academy of Music, Tel-Aviv University; M.M. Composition and Theory, Rice University.
Performances: include Woodland Symphony Orchestra, the Shepherd School of Music Symphony Orchestra, Luoghi Immaginari Ensemble, Quartetto Mansi (Villanuccia Experimental Group) and NotaRiotous Ensemble, and were broadcasted on Kol-Hashalom Radio and on ktru.org Radio.
Activities: Received award from the Paul Hindemith Institute, Frankfurt for her piece Dialogue for Two Pianos, in which she had integrated unused sketches by Paul Hindemith; participated in the International Summer Academy of Music (ISAM) in Michelstadt, Germany, were she won the J. Dorfman International Composition Competition; studied with Azio Corghi at the Academia Musicale Chigiana in Siena, Italy, summer, 2008; invited by Prometheus Ensemble with deSingel to participate in International Composition Workshop in Antwerp, Belgium, 2009.
Julia O'Toole, Musicology (MFA)
BFA in Vocal Performance, Boston University
Recent Performances: Music Director and Founder of Calliope (Boston's Collaborative Choral/Orchestral Ensemble - see website) www.calliopemusic.org; Music Director, Concert Choir of Northeastern CT
Academic Interests: Performance practice of choral/orchestral repertoire, voice to instrument relationship in joint ensembles, opera, adult voice instruction
Elizabeth Perten, Musicology (Ph.D.); Joint MA in Music & Women's and Gender Studies.
B.A. Barnard College, Columbia University.
Academic interests: 19th century piano music, music criticism, women in music, historiography, modern music patronage, and the 19th century composer's role as music critic and its subsequent effect on music history.
Papers: “Gender of Critic Meets Gender of Composer: The Case of Amy Beach, ” at the Women’s and Gender Studies Student Conference, Brandeis University, May 2009; “Gender of Critic Meets Gender of Composer: The Case of Amy Beach,” at the Conference on 19th Century Music, University of Kansas, July, 2009. Contributed the "Marian Anderson" entry to the Encyclopedia of Women and American Popular Culture, to be published in 2011. Book review published in the March 2011 edition of Notes: Quarterly Journal of the Music Library Association.
Instruments: piano, harpsichord, percussion.
Stephen Radcliffe, Musicology (Ph.D.)
B.M. Clarinet Performance, New England Conservatory of Music; M.M. Conducting, University of Michigan; M.F.A. Musicology, Brandeis University.
Dissertation title: "The Lyric Impulse: Spatial, Temporal and Psychological Displacement in Early Verdi Scenas and Recitatives."
Academic interests: 18th, 19th, and 20th century music, opera studies.
Performances: Music Director: Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestras, Music Director: Marrowstone Music Festival, Former Assistant Conductor: Boston Lyric Opera.
Jared Redmond, Composition and Theory (Ph.D.)
B.A. Music, University of California, Berkeley.
Academic interests: Music performance, the Ars Antiqua and Ars Nova, early Baroque keyboard music, Expressionism, East Asian instrumental genres and aesthetics (Pipa, Qin), the music of Machaut, Byrd, Szymanowski, Scriabin, Roslavets, Berg.
Instrument: piano.
Website: www.jaredredmond.com
Rebecca Sacks, Composition and Theory (M.F.A.)
B.A. Music (summa cum laude), Tufts University
Recent Performances: Tufts University Chorale and Tufts' West African Percussion Ensemble (under Andrew Clark), Tufts Chamber Singers, Boston-based Mockingbird Trio, Ithaca College Choral Competition and Festival.
Instrument: piano
Joel Schwindt, Musicology (Ph.D.)
B.M. Vocal Performance, Wichita State University, 2003; M.M. Choral Conducting, University of Arizona.
Academic interests: Baroque music, focusing on the influence of 17th-century Italian sacred dramas on French sacred dramas of the same period (particularly the music of Marc-Antoine Charpentier).
Papers: "Marc-Antoine Charpentier's Integration and Balance of French and Italian Styles in Two Christmas Dramas." Choral Journal 49, 2 (August 2008): 44-59; "Marc-Antoine Charpentier: A Stranger In His Own Land" given at the annual meeting of the Rocky Mountain Chapter of the American Musicological Society (Logan, Utah: March 2008); Charpentier, Marc-Antoine; edition and commentary by Joel Schwindt: In nativitatem D[omi]ni canticum (H. 416). Bärenreiter-Verlag. Kassel, Germany (Forthcoming 2009-10).
Instruments: voice, conducting.
Website: www.JoelandSaraSchwindt.com/Joel_Schwindt
Laura Shechter, Musicology (Ph.D.)
A.B. Music and Certificate in Musical Performance ('cello), Princeton University; M.M. 'Cello Performance, Longy School of Music; M.F.A. Musicology, Brandeis University.
Working title of dissertation: "When No One's Watching: Dance Topics in the Orchestral Music of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky."
Instrument: cello.
Derek R. Strykowski, Musicology (Ph.D.)
B.A. Music, Brandeis University.
Academic Interests: The relationship between a mode of artistry (classicism, maximalism) and the evolution of a musical style. Concepts of musical craftsmanship, functionality, and constraint. The composer in society. Orchestral music of the 18th–20th centuries. The music of Great Britain, from folk traditions to the Anglican cathedral repertory.
Website: www.dstrykowski.com
Tina Tallon, Composition and Theory (M.F.A)
B.S., Biological Engineering and Music, MIT
Academic interests: role of potential and kinetic energy as models for pitch organization in twentieth century music, computational and quantitative methods of musicological inquiry and algorithmic composition
Activities: curriculum development, MIT Music Department; research assistant, music21; intern, Dinosaur Annex Music Ensemble
Instruments: voice, violin
Website: http://web.mit.edu/ttallon/www/
Reba Wissner, Musicology (Ph.D.)
B.A. Music, Italian, Hunter College of the City University of New York; M.F.A. Musicology, Brandeis University.
Dissertation title: "Of Gods, Myths, and Mortals: Francesco Cavalli's L'Elena (1659).
Academic interests: Seventeenth century Venetian opera, Music and Politics, Music and Immigration
Papers: "Sleep Perchance to Sing: The Suspension of Disbelief in the Prologue to Francesco Cavalli’s Gli Amori d’Apollo e di Dafne (1640)," Music on Stage International Conference, Kent, England, October, 2008; "Italian Immigrant Identity in American Sceneggiata Performances," Neapolitan Postcards: The Canzone Napoletana as Transnational Subject Conference, New York, March, 2009; “The Face That Launched a Hundred Arias: Helen of Troy and the Reversal of a Reputation in Seventeenth-Century Venetian Opera," Coreopsis 1.2 (October 2009); “Longing for Italy, Adapting to America: American Sceneggiata Performances as a Mirror of the Italian Immigrant Experience,” Mid-Atlantic Popular American Culture Association annual meeting, November, 2009.
Instruments: voice, trumpet.
Michele Zaccagnini, Composition and Theory (Ph.D.)
Diploma Conservatorio S.Cecilia, Rome, B.A. Universityà degli Studi "La Sapienza" Rome.
Recent performances: Dinosaur Annex, Academia Chigiana Ensemble, Oregon Bach Festival Composer Ensemble.