Graduate Students

Matt Aelmore

Composition and Theory
mattaelmore@gmail.com

Matt Aelmore writes music and meta-music. Originally from Wichita, Kansas, his work is deeply rooted in the psychological absurdity that characterizes American conservatism. Matt developed these tendencies in the surreal cityscapes of New York City, concurrently earning his MM from Manhattan School of Music. Presently he is pursuing his PhD in Music Composition and Theory from the University of Pittsburgh. In Pittsburgh, rust is sterling. Frequent collaborators with Matt include: guitarist Jordan Dodson of Ensemble Sans Maitre, singer Christie Finn and clarinetist Felix Behringer of Noise-Bridge Duo, and composer and improvising percussionist Mike Perdue. His work has been performed at art galleries, concert halls, and living rooms across the country. He is seriously considering collecting various types of cacti. Etc.

Aaron Brooks

Compostion and Theory
aab66@pitt.edu

Aaron Brooks is a composer of diverse interests who comes to contemporary classical music by way of rock and metal’s avant-garde. Born and raised in Greenville, North Carolina by visual artist parents, he developed an interest in creativity via drawing at a young age. He transitioned to self expression via 4-track home recording during his teenage years, subsequently finding a home in the contemporary composition world in college. He is currently pursuing doctoral studies in theory and composition at the University of Pittsburgh, while still finding time to play with adventurous rock bands. Aaron has composed in various styles, but always attempts to maintain a quirky and exciting approach to rhythmic
complexity and drive in all of his music. His dissertation research seeks to develop a methodology for the analysis of related types of notated and freely improvised avant-garde guitar music, focusing on the music of Richard Barrett and Derek Bailey. He has written pieces at the request of Collide-O-Scope Music, pulsoptional, and the American University Student Sax Quartet, among others. He has received additional performances by groups such as IonSound Project, the NOW Ensemble, Alia Musica Pittsburgh, and the ECU Choral Scholars. He has been a selected participant at the Wellesley Composers Conference, the soundSCAPE festival in Italy, the PSO Young Composers Reading, and the Cleveland Composers Recording Institute.

Chris C. Capizzi

Jazz Studies
ccc36@pitt.edu

Chris C. Capizzi is a Graduate Student Assistant in the Jazz Studies Ph.D. program, manager of the W.R. Robinson Recording Studio and Coordinator of the Sonny Rollins International Jazz Archives, at the University of Pittsburgh.   He is a jazz pianist, composer and improviser, as well as an instructor in jazz piano at Carnegie Mellon University.  As a jazz musician, his most important teacher and mentor was John “J.C.” Moses, one of Eric Dolphy’s  favorite drummers, from whom he learned a profound respect for rhythm and form.  As a composer, his recent premieres include performances of At the Heart of the World, for flute, tenor voice and percussion (IonSound Project, 2012), and Scenes, for two dancers, piano and bass (Attack Theater Music and Dance Collaboration, 2011).  As a scholar, his current research interest is the liturgical music of Mary Lou Williams, and he has been invited to present his MA thesis, “Preserving Black American Music: Mass, by Mary Lou Williams,” at the 2013 Annual Conference of the Society for American Music.  The project was also awarded a 2012  Morroe Berger - Benny Carter Jazz Research Fund grant from the Institute of Jazz Studies, at Rutgers University.  Chris holds a BFA, with University honors, from Carnegie Mellon University, and a MAM from Heinz College, Carnegie Mellon.  www.ccapizzi.com   

Yuko Eguchi

Ethnomusicology
yue1@pitt.edu 

Yuko Eguchi completed her M.A. degree in Ethnomusicology in 2008. Her thesis Re-Creating "India" Through Musical and Ritual Performances: Music and Religion of Diasporic Indians in Pittsburgh investigates Hindu ritual music and diaspora in Pittsburgh based on the fieldwork at the Sri Venkateswara Temple in Penn Hills. She was awarded a Japan Iron and Steel Federation Mitsubishi Foundation Fellowship in 2009 and is currently working on her dissertation The Art of Geisha: Constructing Feminine Identity, Aesthetics, and Social Class. She has lectured on Japanese music (shamisen) and culture at various sites. She also received a title as master of tea ceremony (in Urasenke school) in 2009. She graduated from Bates College with a B.S. in 2003 majoring in Music Composition and minoring in Economics.

Nathan Frink

Jazz Studies
naf21@pitt.edu

Nathan A. Frink is a saxophonist, composer, and scholar pursuing a PhD in Jazz Studies at The University of Pittsburgh. His research interests include the analysis of free improvisation, as well as the acoustic characteristics, and methods of transmission among avant-garde artists. He has been invited to present a paper entitled “The Psychoacoustic Profile” at the Improvising Brain Symposium in April of 2013, discussing the intersection of performance, music analysis, and neuroscience. His doctoral dissertation focuses on the music of Ornette Coleman from 1980-2010.

Nathan currently holds a bachelors degree in music from Nazareth College of Rochester, where he studied jazz under the tutelage of Dr. Paul Smoker, and was a founding member of the college jazz combo, Loose Change. He earned his MA in Jazz Studies from The University of Pittsburgh in the fall of 2011. Nathan has performed both domestically and abroad with artists such as Bobby Few and Rasul Siddik, and also performs regularly in Pittsburgh and throughout the Northeast. As of June of 2011, he has been employed and mentored by legendary tenor saxophonist David Murray.

Mark Fromm

Composition and Theory
mark.fromm@gmail.com

A native of Pittsburgh, Mark Fromm is a bassoonist, saxophonist, and composer. As an active performer, he strives to write music that is exciting and fun to perform as well as to hear. He was recently honored with a commission by the Pittsburgh Chamber Music Society to write a saxophone quartet celebrating the 250th anniversary of the foundation of the city, and the resulting piece, Steel, Slag and Silicon, was premiered in April of 2009.

Matthew Gillespie

Composition and Theory
mdg27@pitt.edu

From Asheville, North Carolina, Matthew Gillespie has studied at University of North Carolina at Greensboro and East Carolina University and currently is a teaching fellow at Pitt. He has composed primarily solo, chamber, and vocal music, which has been heard throughout the Eastern seaboard of the United States. Recent scholarly interests include the music of Franz Liszt and Charles Ives. As a composer, he is currently engaged in trying to lighten up, just a little.

Sara Gulgas

Musicology
seg80@pitt.edu

Sara Gulgas is a first-year PhD student in Historical Musicology at the University of Pittsburgh.  Hailing from Youngstown, Ohio, she earned a BA in Music History & Literature from Youngstown State University in 2011.  Sara has just returned from the United Kingdom where she completed her MA in Popular Music Studies from the University of Liverpool.  Her Master’s thesis was an ethnographic case study entitled, “We’re Still Here: An Exploration of the Musical Cityscape of Youngstown, Ohio.”  Sara’s main research interest is the history of baroque rock ‘n’ roll in the 1960s and how the musical synthesis of rock and classical music catered to the counterculture’s anti-mainstream ideology.  Sara is a trombonist who has enjoyed performing with the Dana Symphony Orchestra, Youngstown State University Wind Ensemble, the Greenville Symphony, University of Liverpool Symphony Orchestra, YSU Opera, and the Youngstown Playhouse.

Ben Harris

Composition and Theory
bgh7@pitt.edu

From Tulsa Oklahoma, Ben Harris is a violinist, violist and composer. He received an MA in Composition from SUNY Buffalo in 2006, and is currently pursuing a PhD in Composition and Music Theory at the University of Pittsburgh. He is drawn to improvised music and is active as a performer and composer of open form and graphic scores. His dissertation project consists of an analysis of Giacinto Scelsi's String Quartet No. 2 and the composition of a new work for string quartet and computer.

Jonghee Kang

Composition and Theory
yourice@gmail.com 

Born in Seoul, Korea (South), Jonghee Kang began to study concert music composition after early piano studies. After graduating from Yonsei University (South Korea), she went to New York City, and studied concert music composition and film scoring at New York University, where she got her master’s degree in 2004. She is currently pursuing her Ph.D in composition and theory at the University of Pittsburgh as she works as a teaching fellow at the music department.

Jonghee has actively participated in music festivals and master classes in the past few years. Most recently, she studied at the Susan and Ford Schumann Center for Composition Studies at Aspen Music Festival and School, and her works were performed in Aspen, Los Angeles, and Seoul by different ensembles.

Jonghee has written across a wide spectrum of musical genres, ranging from new concert music to film scoring to ethnic new age. Her works have been premiered internationally by professional musicians. As a solo pianist/accompanist, she has performed works by classical music composers as well as her colleagues.

Jungwon Kim

Ethnomusicology
juk33@pitt.edu

Jungwon Kim, a native of South Korea, is a first year graduate student in ethnomusicology. She majored in violin performance and musicology for her undergraduate degree and received her master’s degree in gender studies from Seoul National University in South Korea. While she focuses on gender issues in ethnomusicology, her interests are wide-ranging: from Western classical music and popular music to traditional Korean music. In particular, she is trying to extend her research topic, the discourse on Korean female musicians in the field of Western classical music, dealt with in her master’s thesis, to the discourses on/of women in traditional Korean music and popular culture. As a member of the Carpathian Music Ensemble, she enjoys learning and experiencing various East European music cultures such as Ukrainian, Macedonian, and Armenian music.

Young-Soo Kim

Jazz Studies
jzcafe@hotmail.com

Young-Soo Kim, a native of South Korea, is a PhD student in Jazz Studies. He is a jazz guitarist, composer, and educator. After graduating from Sungkyunkwan University (South Korea), he went to Europe, and studied jazz guitar in Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands. Afterward, he went to the US to study and received his master’s degree in studio/jazz guitar from the University of Southern California in 1996.

He returned to Korea and worked as an associate professor at the Dong-ah Institute of Media & Arts for 8 years. He also operated his own music school and jazz live club in Korea.

In 2009, he came back to US and studied in a doctorate program in Music Education/Jazz Studies at the University of Northern Colorado. He then transferred to the PhD program in Jazz Studies at the University of Pittsburgh where he works as a teaching fellow in the Department of Music.  

Da Lin

Ethnomusicology
dal63@pitt.edu

Da Lin graduated from the Xi’an Conservatory of Music in China with a BA in musicology. She grew up with the strong influence of Western music, and discovered her great interest in Chinese traditional music after becoming an undergraduate. She plays piano and qin (seven-stringed zither). Da is currently focusing on several kinds of traditional operas which are popular among Han Chinese in central China.

Charles Lwanga

Ethnomusicology
chl124@pitt.edu

Dr. Charles Lwanga is a composer, pianist, choral conductor, master drummer, and clinician in African music and dance. Among other opportunities, his rich experience in African music and dance performance has previously accorded him the opportunity to direct the University of Pittsburgh’s African Music and Dance Ensemble for three years (Fall 2009- Spring 2012). Charles holds a PhD in Theory and Composition (University of Pittsburgh), MA in Composition, Post-Graduate Diploma in Music Education, as well as undergraduate degrees in Performing Arts and Law. He has previously studied composition with Justinian Tamusuza, Mathew Rosenblum, Amy Williams, Trevor Bjorklund, and Eric Moe and he strongly believes in the amalgamation of diverse musical idioms as a way of enhancing unity. His compositions, most of which blend Ugandan and Western/European musical idioms within interactive rhythmic and coloristic gestures have been read and performed by world renowned ensembles such as the GIMBA (Bahia, Brazil), CIKADA (Norway), IonSound (USA), counter)induction (USA) and renowned American cellist Dave Eggar. Currently, Dr. Lwanga is pursuing a second PhD in Ethnomusicology and his research focuses on popular music, politics and class formation in Uganda.

Lee Ellen Martin

Jazz Studies
lem74@pitt.edu 

Lee Ellen Martin is currently pursuing her Doctoral Degree in Jazz Studies at the University of Pittsburgh. From 2004 until 2008, she completed her bachelor’s degree in classical voice at McGill University, where she also studied vocal jazz privately with Ranee Lee. As her interest in jazz continued to grow she decided to pursue and complete a Master’s degree in vocal jazz performance at the University of Toledo from 2008 until 2010. While at the University of Toledo, she worked with the legendary lyricist, vocalist, and distinguished Professor of Jazz, Dr. Jon Hendricks. For her masters thesis she completed an oral history of Professor Hendricks’ early life, and the formation of his most successful vocal group, Lambert, Hendricks and Ross. Her work with Jon Hendricks inspired her to pursue a doctoral degree in jazz at the University of Pittsburgh. She aims to complete a dissertation on the subject of vocalese, a style of jazz singing in which a vocalist writes lyrics to recorded instrumental solos.  From this work she hopes to help foster the inclusion of jazz vocalists into the world of academia. For the past four years she has also participated in the Bowling Green State University New York Voices vocal jazz camp, where she was awarded a merit scholarship and selected on multiple occasions to premiere her own compositions in the camp concerts. She continues to study, research, compose and perform jazz.

Benjamin McBrayer

Musicology
bmm71@pitt.edu

Benjamin M. McBrayer is a third-year PhD student in musicology at the University of Pittsburgh. His research interests include the reception history of English music, the history of music psychology, conceptions of American opera, and modernism in twentieth-century French music.  He most recently presented a paper on Francis Poulenc's opera Les Mamelles de Tirésias at the the University of Nebraska-Omaha's 2011 European Studies Conference.  Benjamin received his MM from the University of Cincinnati, College-Conservatory of Music, where he wrote a thesis entitled "The Specter of Peter Grimes: Aesthetics and Reception in the Renascence of English Opera, 1945-53." He also holds a bachelor's degree in music from the University of Dayton.

Kaitlyn Myers

 
Ethnomusicology
kem148@pitt.edu

Originally from Annapolis, Maryland, Kaitlyn Myers is a graduate student of ethnomusicology. She earned a BA in music from Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, where she received high honors for her senior honors thesis entitled, “‘You Could Try the Crane’: Vocal Music and the Preservation of Community in a Galway Pub.”

A classically trained soprano, Kaitlyn has combined her fascination with song with her love of both Irish and Indonesian music. She is currently writing her masters thesis, exploring the significance of Irish-American ballads in the creation of group identity for performers involved with American Civil War reenactment organizations. Kaitlyn is also interested in the vocal music of West Java, and has performed with Sundanese gamelan ensembles for four years, both at Kenyon and the University of Pittsburgh. When not busy with research, Kaitlyn enjoys singing with local choral groups, and helps run the Music Graduate Student Organization, which she co-founded with a fellow Pitt ethnomusicologist. 

Mary Ober

Musicology
msb_ober@netscape.com    

Ayo Oluranti

Composition and Theory
sao10@pitt.edu

Ayo Oluranti received a BA in music (composition and performance) from Southampton University, United Kingdom, in 2004, and is currently a Composition and Theory graduate student. He believes in both the traditional and the contemporary "experimental" approaches to Western classical music. In his compositions, he experiments with the fusion of elements that define this musical culture with those that define African music. Ayo is a strong advocate of the aesthetics of postmodernism in composition. He plays the organ as a soloist and an accompanist. 

Meng Ren

Ethnomusicology
mer78@pitt.edu

Meng Ren is a PhD student in Music (Ethnomusicology) at the University of Pittsburgh. He has studied abroad since 2003 after one year of university in China (majored in music education with a focus on opera performance). Meng currently holds an MA in Ethnomusicology from Pitt as well as an MA in Musicology (with a thesis on the “orientalism” in Gustav Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde), a Professional Certificate in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, and a BA (Double Honors) in German and Music from the National University of Ireland. Meng was a former recipient of the John and Pat Hume Scholarship (2007-08) from National University of Ireland and the Chancellor’s Fellowship in Chinese Studies (2009-12) from University of Pittsburgh. His doctoral dissertation demonstrates how staging of the Mulan story with patriotic and gender-equality themes during the Korean War (1950-53) directly led to the popularization of a regional Chinese opera (Yuju) in early People’s Republic of China. Other research projects include the multiethnic folksong genre hua’er and its modern development in Northwest China (M.A. thesis in Ethnomusicology), expressions of “Irish-ness” through Irish social dance, the role of Eurovision Song Contests in processes of Europeanization, and the re-appropriation of revolutionary songs in contemporary China. Since 2007, Meng has presented his research papers at various conferences on Chinese Studies, Asian Studies, Drama Studies, and Music in Ireland, United Kingdom, and United States, including the most recent annual AAS meeting (2013) and SEM meetings (2011, 2012).

Indra Ridwan

Ethnomusicology
inr5@pitt.edu

Indra Ridwan was born in Bandung, West Java, Indonesia. He is a lecturer at the Indonesian College of Arts (STSI Bandung) and at Pasundan University in Bandung. He received his bachelor's degree from Padjadjaran University in Bandung and went to the Yogyakarta Institute of Art (ISI Yogyakarta) for his master's degree in Creative Arts and Studies. As a professional composer and arranger, Indra has composed and/or arranged over 300 songs for radio, television, and recordings. He is currently completing an MA Thesis on Sundanese children's songs, and plans to write his dissertation on the history of pop Sunda (Sundanese popular music).

Jonathan Shold

Musicology
jms421@pitt.edu

Jonathan Shold is a PhD student in musicology and a teaching fellow at the University of Pittsburgh. His research interests center around the early twentieth century, with particular emphasis on Stravinsky and neoclassicism. His master’s thesis, “‘Temporalities of Timelessness’ in Stravinsky’s Neoclassical Apotheoses,” explores how early twentieth-century philosophies of time intersect with the concept of apotheosis in Stravinsky’s neoclassical ballets. He has also authored an article on flamenco cante, “‘Con tu voz’: Social Meaning in the Voice of Flamenco Cantaora Carmen Linares,” which was published in Divergencias: Revista de estudios lingüísticos y literarios (2010). Jonathan holds degrees in music history from Bowling Green State University (MM, 2011) and Wheaton College, Illinois (BM, 2009).

Max Hylton Smith

Musicology
mhs39@pitt.edu

Max Hylton Smith studied piano performance and Latin at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee, where he also fell in love with Anglican choral music.  Since coming to Pitt in 2010, Hylton has used his practical foundation in vocal/instrumental studies to ask questions about the role of cultural memory on the formation of the modern performing subject.  Interested especially in identity as an ongoing, mundane achievement, Max tries to connect the fleeting realm of motion (whether bodily, musical, or psychic) to the material objects and texts that govern the world in more concrete ways.  His master's thesis, titled Touching Maurice: A Body-based Reading of Ravel's Ondine, treats the musical score as an index to dandified comportment in fin-de-siècle France, implicating modern-day performers within a discourse of gendered gesture and queer eroticism.

Jeremy Woodruff

Composition and Theory
jeremy@neue-musikschule-berlin.de

Jeremy Woodruff, BM Boston University, MFA Brandeis, Mmus RAM London, studied composition with Michael Finnissy at the Royal Academy of Music, London from 1999 – 2001, Ethnomusicology at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam 2002–04, with field research in Chennai, Bangalore and Mysore, India. In 2004 he moved to Berlin, Germany where he co-founded and directs the Neue Musikschule Berlin and guest lectured at the University of the Arts Berlin and Hochschule für Musik “Hanns Eisler.” Current research includes sound art and the music and sound of American protest movements, with a focus on Pittsburgh. His music uses generative computer models and audio to organically compliment and dialogue with the performer’s experience.

Bryan Wright

Musicology
bsw12@pitt.edu

Bryan Wright earned his BA at the College of William and Mary in 2005 with a double major in music and religion. He completed his MA at the University of Pittsburgh in 2008. His research interests range from Renaissance motets (his MA thesis was an analysis of the six-voice motets of Michael Des Buissons) to American popular music styles of the early 20th century. He is also interested in Middle Eastern music and Appalachian "old-time" music. He has presented papers at regional and national meetings of the Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM) and the American Musicological Society (AMS). As a pianist, he has performed at numerous ragtime and jazz festivals, including the JVC Jazz Festival in New York City and the Scott Joplin International Ragtime Festival in Sedalia, MO. Bryan has released two solo CDs (Syncopated Musings in 2004 and Breakin' Notes in 2010) and a 78 rpm record set of the "Modern Piano Solos" of Bix Beiderbecke. In 2013, Bryan will be the Scott Joplin Foundation's Artist in Residence. Bryan is founder of Rivermont Records, a Grammy-nominated record label specializing in ragtime and early jazz. He enjoys teaching and has led group and private piano lessons and served as instructor for the "Introduction to Western Art Music" course offered at Pitt. Visit Bryan online at: www.bryanswright.com

Shuo Zhang

Ethnomusicology
shz16@pitt.edu

Having grown up in a family of musicians in Beijing, China, Shuo Zhang has delved into both Western and Chinese music since childhood. Although he earned a BS in environmental science from Peking University, Shuo's life-long goal is to know as much as possible about human music and language. His research interests include the history and theory of Chinese music, musical communication in Asia, and the relationship between music and language. As a performer of the Chinese Huqin, Shuo has traveled to Thailand and Singapore to perform and study.