Majel Connery completed a Ph.D. in musicology at the University of Chicago in June 2013. A scholar of contemporary opera, Connery’s academic work explores the relationship between music and movement, and visual aspects of the modern operatic stage.
In her dissertation, “The Politics and Praxis of Children's Music Education in the German Democratic Republic, 1949-1989,” Anicia Timberlake examines East German educators’ and composers’ attempts to create effective socialist pedagogical practices.
Kirsten Paige explores how Richard Wagner’s understanding of “climate” — as opposed to nature — shaped both his aesthetic theories and operatic depictions of nature.
Nicholas Mathew’s book project brings urban studies and a material history of commerce and commodity circulation to the study of the late eighteenth century music of Joseph Haydn.
Myra Melford is a composer known for her singular, kinetic, and lyrical voice in piano improvisation. Chicago blues, architecture, jazz, and experimental music inspire her work. Besides composing for her quintet, Snowy Egret, she is planning a work for chamber ensemble that combines techniques drawn from research in amplifying sounds produced inside the piano with new strategies for large ensemble improvisation.
Benjamin Brinner (Music) is a musicologist whose work focuses on Indonesia and Israel. He explores how the knowledge that musicians bring to performance is affected by their interaction with one another across socio-cultural environments.
Kim Sauberlich (Music) explores Black Atlantic musical practice in Rio de Janeiro, from the 1808 transfer of the Portuguese court to the city to Brazil’s 1888 abolition of slavery.
The author of two books on politics and performance in 19th-century opera, Mary Ann Smart (Music) is at work on a project tracing the influence of musical experience and listening on French philosophy, phenomenology, and anthropology from 1920 to 1970.
Lester Hu works on the comparative history of music and imperialism in the early modern period. His current book project examines the ideologies of empire and listening in eighteenth-century China through the lens of an imperial reform to musical tuning.
