University of Virginia

M. A. Critical and Comparative Studies in Music, December 2009

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

B. Mus. Piano Performance, May 2002

B. Mus. Piano Pedagogy, May 2002

* “Bronze Tablet” Honors (top 3% of graduating class in College of Fine and Applied Arts)

* Senior Thesis: “Interaction of Traditions: The History of European and American Thought at Black Mountain College,” David W. Patterson, Advisor

 “Art is Dead. Long Live Rock! Rock Music and the Avant-garde, 1967-1999”

Scholarship on avant-garde artistic movements frequently portrays them as elitist, irrelevant, or simply dead. But rock music’s persistent interaction with avant-garde composition, art, and literature since the late 1960s and the increasingly porous boundaries between experimental, rock, and jazz scenes suggest otherwise. The recent explosion of discourse on “Avant Rock” in the popular press implies that the concept of an avant-garde and the innovations of 20th Century artistic movements still carry meaning for rock fans and critics. My dissertation profiles four artists and bands who self-identify and are widely regarded as avant-gardists: New York proto-punks The Velvet Underground, Fluxus artist and vocalist Yoko Ono, producer and ambient musician Brian Eno, and veteran alternative rock band Sonic Youth. While these artists conform (surprisingly) in many ways to established notions of “the avant-garde,” I have also chosen them for their potential to revise problematic aspects of avant-gardism. At a time when many scholars have questioned the utility, or even the possibility of an avant-garde, this music and the popular discourse surrounding it attest the avant-garde’s continued relevance.

First Place Oral Presentation in Arts & Humanities, Robert J. Huskey ResearchExhibition, 2010

McIntire Department of Music Graduate Teaching Assistant Award, 2010

Society for American Music Student Travel Award, 2009

Fickénscher-Pace Fellowship, 2007-2008

Graduate School of Arts & Sciences Fellowship and Graduate Teaching AssistantStipend, 2004-2008

Robert J. Huskey Travel Fellowships, 2008, 2010

McIntire Department of Music Travel Grants - 2007, 2008

University of Illinois School of Music Annual Fund Award, 2001-2002

Andrew De Grado Memorial Piano Award, 2000-2001

“Avant-gardism, African rhythm, and appropriation in David Byrne and Brian Eno’s My Life in the Bush of Ghosts,” Joint meeting of the Society for American Music and the International Association for the Study of Popular Music - U.S., Cincinnati, OH, March 2011 (abstract accepted)

“’The colour of the light and the sound of the rain’: Brian Eno’s Ambient Music and the Neo-Avant-garde,” International Association for the Study of Popular Music Annual U.S. Conference, New Orleans, LA, April 2010

“’The colour of the light and the sound of the rain’: Brian Eno’s Ambient Music and the Neo-Avant-garde,” U.Va. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Robert J. Huskey Research Exhibition, Charlottesville, VA, April 2010

“Sonic Youth and Cage’s Number Pieces,” Society for American Music Annual Conference, Denver, CO, March 2009

“’The colour of the light and the sound of the rain’: Brian Eno’s Ambient Music and the Neo-Avant-garde,” South Central Graduate Music Consortium, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, September 2008

“’The patron saint of art rock’? Connections between Sonic Youth and John Cage,” International Association for the Study of Popular Music Annual U.S. Conference, Iowa City, IA, April 2008

“’O pulchare facies’: Hildegard of Bingen and the Womyn’s Choral Movement,” Feminist Theory in Music 9, Montreal, Canada, June 2007

“Franz Liszt and Romantic Keyboard Virtuosity,” Guest Lecture, Introduction to Music Literature, Spring 2007

“’O pulchare facies’: Hildegard of Bingen and the Womyn’s Choral Movement,” South Central Graduate Music Consortium, Charlottesville, VA, September 2006

“’The patron saint of art rock’? Connections between Sonic Youth and John Cage,” U.Va. McIntire Department of Music colloquium presentation, August 2005

American Musicological Society

International Association for the Study of Popular Music

Modernist Studies Association

Society for American Music

As Pianist

U.Va. New Music Ensemble, Spring 2011

Schumann Op. 47 and Mozart K. 493 Piano Quartets, benefit concert for Thomas

      Jefferson Memorial Church, Unitarian-Universalist, December 12, 2010.

Regular accompanist for services, Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church, Unitarian-

      Universalist, Fall 2009, Substitute pianist 2006-present.

Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians, U.Va., March 30, 2008

“Fred Frith and Friends” Concert, U.Va., February 6, 2008

* Performed excerpts from Frith’s solo piano work Seven Circles; concert was part of the composer’s Arts Board residency.

Early Music Activities

Harpsichordist/Continuo group, U.Va. Baroque Orchestra, Spring 2005-present

* Performed solo keyboard works of William Byrd, November 20, 2010

* Appeared as soloist in J.S. Bach’s Concerto for Two Harpsichords in C Major, April 29, 2007

Soprano, U.Va. Early Music Vocal Ensemble, Fall 2007

Continuo, Westminster Organ Series Concert, March 17, 2006

* With countertenor Paul Walker (U.Va.), cellist Brent Wissek (U.N.C. Chapel Hill), and others. Music of Schütz, Monteverdi, Buxtehude, J.S. Bach, and J.C. Bach.