Faculty

Profile

As an undergraduate I studied piano at the Eastman School of Music and in Vienna on my junior year abroad, then at the Liszt Academy in Budapest on a Fulbright scholarship. For graduate studies I focused on contemporary music and critical studies in music at the University of California-San Diego. Before joining the Lang Arts faculty in 2003, I taught at the University of South Carolina and at Whitman College in Washington State. Both of these teaching experiences productively shaped my approach to pedagogy and curriculum development at Lang. My own undergraduate studies took me from the relatively narrow focus of a conservatory curriculum to a broader liberal arts education at the University of Rochester, so I’m an advocate for a well-rounded interdisciplinary education that situates music among the other arts and in the larger contexts of history, culture, and society.

My scholarly work focuses on musical performance, popular culture, and perceptual practices in the arts. My book Dreams of Love: Playing the Romantic Pianist explores the concert pianist as a cultural icon, considering the role of technology in producing and perpetuating the mythology of the pianist’s romantic allure over the past two centuries. I co-edited A Song for Europe: Popular Music and Politics in the Eurovision Song Contest, a defining collection of essays about the politics and poetics of the world’s largest and longest-running international song competition. Another Song for Europe: Music, Taste and Values in the Eurovision Song Contest is my follow-up book on the contest's music. My current research on perceptual practices explores music and touch, and musical haptics, for a new book project titled Touching Sounds: The Tactility of Music.

Degrees Held

PhD, Critical Studies & Experimental Practices in Music, University of California-San Diego

MA in Music, University of California-San Diego

BA in Music, Eastman School of Music/University of Rochester

Professional Affiliation

American Musicological Society

Recent Publications

Another Song for Europe: Music, Taste and Values in the Eurovision Song Contest (Routledge, 2021)

“Queer Patriotism in the Eurovision Song Contest,” in Oxford Handbook of Music and Queerness, ed. Fred Maus and Sheila Whiteley (2019)

“Liberace’s Musical/Material Appeal,” in Oxford Handbooks Online (Oxford University Press, 2018)

“The Camp Sincerity of Christmas Carols,” in Music & Camp, ed. Christopher Moore and Philip Purvis (Wesleyan University Press, 2018)

“Ein Lied kann eine Brücke sein: Verbindungen von Ton und Bild beim diesjährigen Eurovision Song Contest,” Österreichische Musikzeitschrift (2015)

“Austria, ORF, and Conchita Wurst,” in Texte 14: Public Service Media in Europe (ORF, 2015)

Dreams of Love: Playing the Romantic Pianist (Oxford University Press, 2014)

“Schumann’s Melodramatic Afterlife,” in Rethinking Schumann (Oxford University Press, 2010)

Co-editor of A Song for Europe: Popular Music and Politics in the Eurovision Song Contest (Ashgate, 2007)

“Transcription, Transgression, and the (Pro)Creative Urge,” in Queer Episodes in Music and Modern Identity (University of Illinois Press, 2002)

"Concerto con amore: ‘Relationship’ and the Soundtrack Piano Concerto," in ECHO: An Online Journal (2000)

“Hollywood’s Embattled Icon” in Piano Roles: 300 Years of Life with the Piano (Yale University Press, 2000)

Research Interests

Music history and performance

Romantic piano culture and repertoire

Music in film and television

Visual music and synaesthesia

Tactility in music and musical haptics

Gender and sexuality studies, queer theory

Eurovision Song Contest, European studies

Awards And Honors

Fulbright Visiting Professor at the University of Vienna (2013)

German Chancellor Scholarship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (1999-2000, 2012)

National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Stipend (2003)

AMS 50 Fellowship from the American Musicological Society (2000)