Caroline Bowers
Peter Breithaupt
Peter Breithaupt is a Ph.D. candidate in ethnomusicology at the University of Texas at Austin. He holds a Master of Music degree in percussion performance from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2013) and a Master of Arts in music research (2011) as well as a Bachelor of Music in percussion performance (2010) from Western Michigan University. His dissertation
research examines the alternative music scene in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, focusing on issues of labor and development. Peter is currently a lecturer at the University of Texas at San Antonio.
Peter has presented papers at the Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM) Annual Meeting (2018), the SEM Southern Plains Chapter Conference (2017 and 2018), and the University of Texas at Austin’s New Directions in Anthropology (2017). His article “Entering the Conversation: Finding Information in the Library and Online for Percussion Research” appeared in the May 2019 volume of Percussive Notes. Peter’s research has been supported by Fulbright-IIE and the Presser Foundation.
Complementing his scholarly work, Peter maintains an active professional life as a drummer, percussionist, composer, and songwriter. He tours internationally with Msafiri Zawose, one of Tanzania’s foremost Gogo musicians, and performs regularly with Rattletree, an award-winning Afro-dance band, and Hecho a Mano, an Austin-based salsa band. He also composes music for
film; most recently, he composed, produced, and scored the soundtrack to Maasai Remix (2019), a documentary film that follows three Maasai individuals from Tanzania who are trying to defend their community’s rights to land and a pastoralist lifestyle. An old-time music enthusiast, Peter is a dedicated clawhammer banjoist. He is also an avid mountain biker.
John Bimbiras
John Bimbiras is a second-year Ph.D. student in Ethnomusicology. He holds a B.M. in jazz and classical guitar performance from Towson University (2011), as well as an M.A. in composition from The City College of New York (2016), where he studied with David Del Tredici. His research focuses on politics, transnationalism, and the music of the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. He is also interested in Lithuanian polyphonic songs and Algerian Chaabi. After graduating from CCNY, John became a Research Associate at the CUNY Dominican Studies Institute and helped the Institute secure a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to create an interactive website entitled A History of Dominican Music in the U.S. During his time at CUNY DSI, he also transcribed and arranged an entire collection of original manuscripts from the composer and bandleader Rafael Petitón Guzmán (1894-1983).
As a guitarist and vocalist, John began performing in bars and nightclubs in Baltimore City at the age of twelve. He released a CD of original material with his band Everyman in 2011, produced by Mike Pope. In New York City, he performed regularly at venues such as Rockwood Music Hall, The Bitter End, Pianos, and the Shrine. Here in Austin, John has been performing with the UT Hispanic Caribbean Ensemble, Tambores Del Pueblo, and other groups. Recently, he also wrote music for the Tiny Banger, a play by Alice Stanley that was premiered by Trinity Street Players.
Rose Bridges
Rose is in her fourth year working toward a Ph.D. in Musicology at UT. She holds a Master of Music degree in Musicology from Boston University (2015) and a Bachelor of Music in Composition from the Peabody Conservatory of The Johns Hopkins University (2012). She is a native of Detroit, Michigan.
Rose’s current research focuses on music in film and television, especially animation. In 2017 she published the book 33 1/3 Japan: Yoko Kanno’s Cowboy Bebop Soundtrack, as a part of the 33 1/3 Global series from Bloomsbury Press. She is also currently researching and writing a chapter in an edited volume on the history of Japanese anime music. Rose has presented papers on music in anime, American live-action film and animation, and video games at conferences including Music and the Moving Image, the Society for American Music, the North American Conference on Video Game Music, the Mechademia Conference on Asian Popular Cultures, the University of Texas FLOW Conference in Television Studies, and the Boston University Graduate Music Conference. She is also interested in popular music studies, Wagner studies, constructions of race and gender in music, and reception studies. Rose has worked as a teaching assistant at UT for History of Film Music, History of Music III, Introduction to Western Music and Music of African-Americans.
Outside of her academic work, Rose writes online as a media reviewer. She is a regular contributor to Anime News Network, the most popular English-language anime and manga news site. She previously wrote for LGBT news/lifestyle website Autostraddle.
Benjamin Coghan
Benjamin is a PhD student in Historical Musicology at the University of Texas, Austin from Waldorf, MD. He completed a Bachelor of Music Education in Choral Studies and a Bachelor of Music in Music History at The Ohio State University before beginning graduate studies in musicology at Louisiana State University, and transferring to UT-Austin. His research interests include disability studies and music performance/reception, American popular music during the nineteenth century, and has tertiary interests in the music of Fluxus and American opera & art song. While at UT, he has served as both the Colloquium Representative and Co-President of the Association of Graduate Ethno/Musicology Students (AGEMS).
Benjamin has been a member of AMS, AMS-Midwest, AMS-South, AMS-Southwest, and the Society for American Music (SAM). He has presented papers at the annual meeting of SAM (2017), will be presenting at the Music & the Moving Image Conference (2019), and has participated in several regional graduate conferences. As a member of the Austin community he performs with the Capital City Men’s Chorus, enjoys Austin’s paths and parks with his dog Joplin, works with fused glass at the Helios Fused Glass studio, and has a large collection of cactuses and succulents.
Hannah Durham
Office location: MBE 3.508
Hannah Durham is a Ph.D. candidate in musicology. She holds Bachelors of Arts degrees in History and Music (2004, 2009) and completed her Master of Music degree at the University of Texas at Austin in 2012. Hannah’s research interests include American
popular music after 1950, genre, reception history, performance studies, and disability studies. Her dissertation will investigate the evolving status of the [pop/rock] album throughout the last 40 years and how it informs the creation and perpetuation of pop-canonization processes.
Hannah has served two terms as Secretary-Treasurer for the Association of Graduate Ethnomusicology and Musicology Students (AGEMS), and is currently the Teaching Assistant for MUS 302L – Introduction to Western Music and MUS 307 – History of Rock Music. She has played French horn for various UT ensembles and has written, recorded, and performed with several rock bands in and around Austin as guitarist and bassist.
Michael Harland
Sarah Lahasky
Sarah Lahasky is a PhD student in ethnomusicology and a member of the Portfolio Program in Museum Studies. She received a BM in double bass performance and a minor in Spanish from Shenandoah University-Conservatory, and an MM in ethnomusicology at the University of Texas at Austin. Her research interests include heritage creation and cultural policy-making, especially concerning UNESCO’s 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage. Additionally, she is interested in the ways in which neoliberal economic reform have affected the spaces, supporters, and artists of music with folkloric roots in Argentina.
Sarah recently served as a faculty member for the Austin Bass Workshop and Kansas City Bass Workshop, where she taught introductory classes on Argentine music and coached both workshops’ first “Music of Latin America” bass ensembles. She has previously served as the Secretary/Treasurer for the Association of Graduate Ethnomusicology and Musicology Students (AGEMS) and the Student Union Outreach Committee for the Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM). In her spare time, Sarahenjoys working as an Assistant Learning Specialist for the Academic and Student Services department through UT Athletics.
Peng Liu
Peng Liu is a Ph.D. candidate in musicology and an instructor of record at the University of Texas at Austin (UT-Austin), where he received his Master of Music in musicology in 2016. A recipient of China National Scholarship, Peng obtained his Bachelor of Arts in musicology from China Conservatory of Music in 2014. Peng is currently working on his dissertation that
investigates how Anna Caroline de Belleville (1806-1880) as virtuoso pianist, composer, and music entrepreneur, successfully navigated the changing social structures and musical tastes of the nineteenth century in Europe and the U.K. His other research interests include nineteenth-century piano music and culture, women musicians in music, Beethoven, Chinese and Chinese
American contemporary music, music and meaning, and critical studies of race and gender. Peng’s article on the semiotic approach to the singing style in Beethoven’s piano sonatas was published in the Journal of Central Conservatory of Music (in Chinese) in 2018. Peng has presented his research papers at various conferences in the U.S. and Europe, including the
American Musicological Society (AMS) Southwest Chapter Conference (2015, 2016, 2019), Music of Asian America Conference (2018), Show & Prove Hip Hop Studies Conference (2018), the Sixth Biennial North American Conference on Nineteenth-Century Music (2019), the Second International Conference on Women’s Work in Music (2019), and several graduate music conferences. In 2018, Peng was selected as winner of the AMS-Southwest Chapter’s Hewitt-Oberdoerffer award for best graduate student paper. In 2019, he was a recipient of the H. Robert Cohen/RIPM Fund from the AMS and the Continuing Summer Fellowship at UT-Austin to support his dissertation research. During his service as Co-President for UT-Austin’s Association
of Graduate Ethno/Musicology Students in 2018-2019, Peng initiated and chaired the 2019 UT-Austin Graduate Music Conference. Currently, Peng serves as a student representative for the AMS-Southwest Chapter (2018-2020).
Amelia McElveen
Amelia McElveen is a second-year Master’s student in Musicology. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Music General Concentrations in flute from Truman State University in 2017. Amelia’s main research interest is contemporary medievalism in modern Catholic monasteries and symphonic metal music. Her Master’s Report topic is on English chants written since the Second Vatican Council in North American monasteries. Her report will be based around her fieldwork at six monasteries and their development of vernacularism and tourism perspective.
Amelia is currently the Teaching Assistant for MUS 213M: History of Western Music I and ENS 106E: Early Music Ensemble (“Austinato”). Amelia currently serves as Musicology Colloquium Representative for the Association of Graduate Ethnomusicology and Musicology Students (AGEMS). Amelia currently plays the traverso with the Early Music Ensemble.
Jordyn Middleton
Jordyn Middleton is a second-year Master’s student in Musicology. She a holds a Bachelor of Music degree in Vocal Performance from the Boston Conservatory (2010). Jordyn’s research interests include the music of the Renaissance, issues of gender and sexuality, women’s studies, performance practice, and public musicology. She is currently working on her Master’s Report which will examine Anne Boleyn’s use of music to legitimize her position as queen of England through a discussion of her musical education, practice, and patronage. She is exploring ways of making this research more accessible and has begun work on a digital database which will be published later this year.
Jordyn currently serves as the Secretary-Treasurer for the Association of Graduate Ethnomusicology and Musicology Students (AGEMS). She is a Teaching Assistant for MUS 302L: Introduction to Western Music and continues to teach voice and piano lessons privately with Westlake Lessons. She also sings with “Austinato,” UT’s Early Music group.
Victoria Mogollón Montagne
Andrew Normann
Joseph Ovalle
Luis Sebastián Pabón
Kevin Parme
Kevin Parme is a PhD student in the Department of Ethnomusicology. His research interests include nationalism and music, tourism and music, cultures initiatives in Post-Revolutionary Mexico, and indigenous cultures of Mesoamerica. He has received the Rainwater Innovation Grant, E.D. Farmer Fellowship, Tinker Field Research Grant, and Foreign Language Area Studies Grant, among other awards. His dissertation project explores the participation of indigenous Oaxacan brass bands in nation-building initiatives of the Post-Revolutionary period. It considers the effects of such participation in the contemporary contexts of tourism, activism, and private celebrations. Kevin is currently conducting fieldwork in Oaxaca City.
Cary Peñate
Cary Peñate is a PhD student in Musicology at the University of Texas at Austin. She holds a Master of Music degree in Musicology (2015) and a Bachelor of Music in Music Education (2012) from the University of Miami. There, she studied with Deborah Schwartz-Kates, exploring the creative work of a number of Ibero-American musicians, including Alberto Ginastera, José Antônio Rezende de Almeida Prado, and Marco Rizo. Her master’s thesis focused on the Cuban composer Marco Rizo who apart from composing for the I Love Lucy show also played an active role in Cuban classical music and the Latin jazz scene in the United States.
Her initial interest in Marco Rizo developed into a curiosity of early Cuban cinema and its relationship with Hollywood as well as other Latin American countries’ film industries. Currently, she studies Latin American music with professor Robin Moore while specializing on film music. For her dissertation she is interested in early Cuban film music and its representations of the mulata character type in Latin America and the United States.
Outside her academic research, Cary performs classical piano music both as a soloist and in chamber settings. She continues to regularly perform private concerts in Miami, Florida and in Austin, Texas.
Xuan Qin
Xuan Qin is a first year doctoral student in Musicology at the University of Texas, Austin. She received her Master’s Degree from the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami in 2015, after earning a Bachelor of Arts in Music from Central Conservatory of Music in China. Her primary research interests include nineteenth century opera and gestural performance.
Xuan won the Eileen Southern Travel Grants from AMS in 2013 to attend the annual conference at Pittsburgh. Her paper “Alienation between Music and Poetry: On Cultural Misunderstanding in Alexander Tcherepnin’s Musical Setting of the Chinese Poem Drink Song” was accepted by International Graduate Student Conference in 2014 under the auspices of the International Musicological Society. Her Master’s Thesis titled “Ornament and Gesture – Approaches to Studying Bellini’s Norma and Giuditta Pasta’s Performance.” She presented one part of her thesis in the AMS Southern Chapter in 2014.
Jeannelle Ramirez
Jeannelle is a PhD student in Ethnomusicology. She completed her Masters in Ethnomusicology at UT and holds a dual BA/BFA in Jazz Vocal Performance and The Arts from The New School in New York City. Prior to attending UT, she interned at Smithsonian Folkways in Washington DC and worked as an assistant in an entertainment law practice, where she became interested in copyright and intellectual property.
She is an Americanist focused on the study of popular music. Her research interests include transnational and global flows between Latin America and the United States, Latinx and African American musics, media and technology, sound studies and intellectual property. She is concerned with the ways in which national and ethnic identities are (de)constructed through music. Her research focuses mainly on new Latin Alternative music and related styles that work against hegemonic discourses and challenge the meaning of Latinidad. She has presented papers at the Society for Ethnomusicology Southern Plains Conference, Princeton University Voz Latina Conference, and the ILASSA conference. Jeannelle is also an independent singer-songwriter and particularly enjoys creating music with computer software.
Hannah Salmon
Hanna Salmon is in her second year of the PhD program in Ethnomusicology at the University of Texas at Austin. She completed her Bachelor’s degree in Classical Piano Performance at Temple University in Philadelphia. During her first year at UT, she was a recipient of the UT Mentoring Fellowship, and this year she is a recipient of a FLAS Fellowship for the study of Arabic. Her research concerns narrative, community-building, and home-building among Palestinian communities.
Cristina Saltos
Golriz Shayani
Office: MBE 3.412
Ashley Thorton
Ashley Thornton is a second year PhD student in ethnomusicology at UT Austin. She holds a Bachelor of Music in Percussion Performance (2018) and a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology (2018) from Southeast Missouri State University. Her research focuses on Kurdish and Turkish music, specifically the roles of gender and identity among women who play daf and erbane, both are types of frame drums. Other research interests she has include nationalism, transnationalism, migration, violence, representation in films and literature, applied ethnomusicology, and medical ethnomusicology.
Outside of her academic work, Ashley directs UT Austin’s Middle East Ensemble, Bereket’s, percussion section. In addition to that, she is a volunteer for UT Austin’s Refugee Student Mentorship Program with the Austin Independent School District (AISD) where she works with “English as a Second Language” students.
Heather Willoughby
Yu Ye
Yu Ye is a Ph.D. candidate in musicology at the University of Texas at Austin. He got a M.A. in musicology from Shanghai Conservatory of Music (2011) with the thesis on Astor Piazzolla and Tango Nuevo. Currently he is working on the doctoral dissertation, dealing with the contemporary tango music in the U.S. and China. Besides this primary interest, his other research interests include music and media, contemporary music in China, the twentieth and twenty-first century music, and musical nationalism/transnationalism. Outside the academic research, he plays piano and bandoneón, and enjoys the experience in the Gamelan ensemble and the Hispanic Caribbean ensemble at the University of Texas at Austin.
Joanna Zattiero
Joanna Zattiero is a PhD candidate and Continuing Fellow in Musicology at the University of Texas at Austin. She holds a Bachelor of Music in saxophone performance and a Master of Arts in music history from the University of Idaho. Her research specialization is late 19th and early 20th century American music, including historiography, criticism, and the development of popular music throughout the American West. Her Master’s thesis “One Small Girl, a Whole Quartet: Singer/Songwriter Lee Morse” deals specifically with a significant yet often overlooked figure in American popular music of the 1930s and how this figure navigated issues of regionalism and identity, gendered expectations within the musical context of the time, and rapid technological advances in music recording and transmission.
Joanna came to UT-Austin from Utah State University where she was an adjunct professor from 2009-2014, teaching a wide variety of music and arts courses to music majors and non-majors alike. She has presented her research at conferences of the American Musicological Society – Southwest Chapter, the College Music Society, and the Society for American Music, performed the premier of a new work for saxophone through the North American Saxophone Alliance and contributed to their NASA Update online publication, and has appeared on National Public Radio’s Sound Bites program. Prior to Utah State University, Zattiero worked in various roles with the Mid-Columbia Symphony in Washington state and has performed with various ensembles throughout the interior West.
Aside from music, Joanna has a number of diverse interests including hiking, backpacking, and training for and competing in long-distance endurance events on horseback. In her rare spare time, you may find her exploring the local parks and open space with her kids and Saint Bernard cross, Marcato.
