Monica Roundy

Working in the middle of notational, generic, linguistic, iconographic, and codicological traces, Monica Roundy’s current research project pursues the places—physical, cultural, hermeneutic—of music written in non-liturgical sources of English provenance in the thirteenth century. The fragmentary and scattered manuscripts invite recuperative thought and imaginative re-membering with an ear toward realization in scholarship and performance; these entwined pursuits in turn nourish broader…

Nicole Reisnour

Nicole Reisnour is a PhD candidate in ethnomusicology with a minor concentration in socio-cultural anthropology. Her dissertation, Sounding the Immaterial: Ethics, Mediation, and the Politics of Religion in Post-Authoritarian Bali, explores the efforts of contemporary Balinese Hindus to live ethically amidst competing ideals of devout Hindu selfhood. Focusing on the mediatory practices that bind Balinese Hindus to invisible beings, and on state-sponsored efforts to reconfigure the ethical…

Carlos Ramirez

Carlos Roberto Ramírez is a Cornell University Graduate School Dean’s Scholar and a PhD. candidate in Musicology in the Department of Music. Originally from Puerto Rico, Carlos earned a Bachelor of Music (summa cum laude), and Master of Music in Music History and Historical Keyboard performance at the Boyer College of Music and Dance (Philadelphia, PA). There, Carlos studied harpsichord with Joyce Lindorff and was advised in musicology by Stephen A. Willier. He was a Temple University President…

Mackenzie Pierce

My dissertation, “Life and Death for Music: A Polish Generation’s Journey across War and Reconstruction, 1926–53,” is a cultural history of the Second World War as seen through the eyes of the Polish and Polish-Jewish musicians who were uprooted by it. I ask how the politics of friendships—the shifting relationships and alliances among the leaders of this musical community—can help reveal the long-range impacts of trauma on post-conflict musical cultures. Committed to broad-based…

Sergio Ospina-Romero

Anthropologist, musician, MA in History, and currently PhD candidate in Musicology at Cornell University. His publications and research activities are mainly focused on Popular Music in Latin America in the early twentieth century, in relation to sound recording industries, mechanical reproduction, nationalism, transnationalism, cultural identities, and music consumption. His first book, Dolor que canta. La vida y la música de Luis A. Calvo en la sociedad colombiana de comienzos del siglo XX, …

Benjamin Norton

Ben is a first-year graduate student in the musicology program, with research interests that examine the intersections of music, neoliberalism, and critical theory, often in the context of contemporary jazz. Before arriving at Cornell, Ben received a first-class BA degree in Jazz and Popular Music at the University of Hull, and his MMus at Royal Holloway, University of London, where he received a distinction.
Recent projects have explored Pat Metheny’s Orchestrion Project as an emergent…

David Miller

David H. Miller is a musicologist and performing musician. He is a Ph.D. candidate in musicology at Cornell University, where he also serves as a Graduate Resident Fellow in Hans Bethe House. Before coming to Cornell, David completed a degree in music at Harvard University and worked in Boston as a performer of Baroque double bass, viola da gamba, and violone. He is currently completing a dissertation on the reception of Anton Webern’s music in the United States from the 1920s to the present,…

Juan Carlos Melendez-Torres

Juan Carlos is a second-year PhD student in the Musicology program, specializing in ethnomusicology.  His current research interests include sound studies and carceral studies, with past and continued interests in intellectual property law, cultural industries, hip hop, and African studies.  He has presented work at the annual meetings of the Society for Ethnomusicology, African Studies Association, and International Association for the Study of Popular Music.
Before coming to Cornell, he…

Jillian Marshall

Jill is a PhD candidate in musicology, with a focus on ethnomusicology. Her primary research is on music in Japan, particularly the relationship between music and society as demonstrated through J-pop, Buddhist festival music, and underground music. Jill’s study of Mandarin Chinese at the University of Chicago piqued an interest in East Asian history and, upon graduating with a BA in East Asian Languages and Civilizations in 2009, she worked as a middle school teacher in a Japanese fishing…

Becky Lu

Becky Lu began piano studies at the age of 3 and has since performed at such venues as Jordan Hall, the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, and Salle Pleyel to critical acclaim from the New York Times and Wall Street Journal. Born in Guangzhou, China, Becky made her debut on national Chinese television at the age of 6, and four years later, made her New York City debut under the auspices of the Si-Yo Music Society. Active as both a soloist and chamber musician, she has concertized with regional…

Erica Levenson

Erica Levenson is a Ph.D. candidate in Musicology at Cornell University. She earned a B.A. with highest honors in Music and English Literature from the University of California, Berkeley. Erica’s research focuses on the international circulation of popular theatrical music during the eighteenth century. Her dissertation, “Traveling Tunes: French Comic Opera and Theatre in London, 1714-1745” explores the theatrical and operatic exchanges between France and England that accompanied the flow of…

Dietmar Friesenegger

Anaar Desai-Stephens

Anaar Desai-Stephens is a Ph.D. candidate in Ethnomusicology at Cornell University. Her research focuses on the intersection between music, media, and subjectivity in contemporary India with an emphasis on reality music television shows. She is currently writing her dissertation, based on sixteen months of fieldwork in Mumbai, with the support of the Howard Mayer Brown Fellowship from the American Musicological Society. Anaar is also an active musician, studying Hindustani vocal music and…

Michael Small

Michael Small was born in Birkenhead, Cheshire in 1988. He went to Birkenhead School where his interest in music first began. As a member of the Birkenhead School Chapel Choir, he performed treble solos in Venice, Normandy and during Cathedral residency weeks at York Minster, and Salisbury Cathedral. He also performed and recorded Leonard Bernstein’s “Chichester Psalms” with the RLPO and Gerard Schwarz in 2002, which was commercially released on Naxos in 2006. Michael has studied at RNCM with…

Barry Sharp

The music of Barry Sharp deals with sonic energy that lives at the edge of careful subtlety and vicious intensity. Described as reaching “incredible levels of volume and violence” and “bold and blistering” (Rising:  Contemporary Music at UI), his compositions draw upon multiple layers of participation and perception in music-making between the performer, the listener, and the composer.
Performances of Barry’s compositions have taken place in the U.S., Argentina, Colombia, Brazil, and Thailand…

Charles Peck

Charles Peck (b.1988) is an American composer whose work has been called “daring” (Philadelphia Inquirer), “vivid” (UArts Edge magazine), and “spell-binding” (Rappahannock News). His music has recently been selected for the Minnesota Orchestra’s Composer Institute and the Albany Symphony’s Composer to Center Stage program and has been performed by the Kaleidoscope Chamber Orchestra, Symphony in C, the New York Youth Symphony, the JACK Quartet, Sandbox Percussion, ensemble mise-en, the Locrian…

Loren Loiacono

Loren Loiacono (b. 1989), a native of Stony Brook, New York, is currently pursuing her Doctorate in composition at Cornell University, where she is a student of Steven Stucky. She previously received her M.M. and B.A. from Yale University, where her teachers included Martin Bresnick, David Lang, Ezra Laderman, Christopher Theofanidis, Kathryn Alexander, and Michael Klingbeil. While studying at Yale, she was the recipient of the 2012 Woods Chandler Memorial Prize and the 2009 Abraham Beekman Cox…

Tonia Ko

The music of Tonia Ko has been described by critics as “expansive, meditative,” (Chicago Classical Review) and containing “an uncertain piquancy” (San Francisco Repeat Performances). Born in Hong Kong in 1988 and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii, her work strives to capture the poetics and emotions behind small visual details of everyday life. Ensembles that have performed her music include New Morse Code, orkest de ereprijs, Flux Quartet, ensemble mise-en, IU New Music Ensemble, Buffalo Philharmonic…

Corey Keating

Corey Keating recently received his M.M. in music composition from Bowling Green State University in Ohio, where he taught music theory and aural skills.  He has studied composition with Chris Dietz, Kevin Ernste, Pablo Furman, Mikel Kuehn, Roberto Sierra, Marilyn Shrude, and Steve Stucky.  His music has been performed by Sō Percussion the UC Stanislaus Chamber Choir, the SJSU Concert Choir, members of the San Jose Chamber Orchestra, ensemble39, horn player Mike Walker and pianist Qing Jiang,…

Peter Fahey

Peter Fahey is an Irish composer. His music has been performed by ensembles such as the American Composers Orchestra conducted by Robert Spano, the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, Continuum, Ensemble Musiques Nouvelles, Ensemble Recherche, the iO Quartet, the Players Chamber Ensemble, the PM Ensemble, the Royal Northern College of Music Symphony Orchestra, and the Talea Ensemble; soloists have included Tony Arnold, Philip Higham, and Chi-Chen Wu. He has been awarded the American Composers…

Louis Chiapetta

Can Bilir

Niccolo Athens

Composer Niccolo Athens (b. 1988) recently completed his bachelor of music in composition at Juilliard, where he studied with Samuel Adler. In 2010, he began the DMA program in composition at Cornell University.  He is the recipient of two BMI student composer awards (2006 and 2009).  In 2007 he was the winner in the emerging artist category of the American Art Song Competition for Composers.  Niccolo attended the Aspen Music Festival in 2008, where he studied with George Tsontakis.  During the…

Roger Moseley

Roger Moseley’s recent research focuses on intersections between keyboard music, digital games, and the diverse ways both can be played. In 2017, his first book,Keys to Play: Music as a Ludic Medium from Apollo toNintendo, received the American Musicological Society’s Otto Kinkeldey Award, which recognizes “a musicological book of exceptional merit by a scholar beyond the early stages of his or her career.”The book was published under a Creative Commons license by the University of California Press and features audiovisual materials including music by Mozart, Beethoven, Bizet, Louis Couperin, and others recordedby Moseley and his Cornell colleagues Malcolm Bilson, Ariana Kim, Shin Hwang, and Matthew Hall.