I received a BS in Computer Science from North Carolina State University in 1983 and worked in the computer industry for many years, first at Data General (now a part of EMC) on the DG-One project, then with Phoenix Technologies Ltd. as a software engineer/architect and engineering manager of their main product, the BIOS. After a startup I was involved in collapsed, I took some time off then decided to go back to my first love–music. I attended Wheaton College in Norton, MA, for two years and took all of the music courses a music major would be required to take. At Boston University, I earned my MM in musicology in 2005 (thesis: "The Patronage of Composers in the United States") and completed my PhD in 2010. My dissertation was titled “The Roots and Influences of the Everly Brothers.”

At Boston University, I taught a graduate-level course in Research and Bibliography and an undergraduate Music Appreciation course. I was also an instructor in their music education program for the following courses: American Music; Blues; and Foundations of Music Education II: Sociology and Psychology.

I am currently a full-time faculty member in the music department at Bridgewater State University. I have taught American Popular Music, a first-year seminar on Folk Musics of the United States, a second-year seminar on Native American Music, a second-year seminar on Music in Television, Music Fundamentals, and Class Piano. I am a member of the Writing Across the Curriculum Advisory Board and the Part-Time Faculty Advisory Board. I organize and facilitate the biannual Faculty Showcase Recital, am an advisor the BSU Musician's Club, and run a weekly ukulele jam session open to anyone at any playing level.

For several years I was the children’s choir director at the Original Congregational Church in Wrentham, MA, and a member of the adult choir and the bell choir. I was also an occasional soloist (voice, piano, organ), accompanist, and substitute organist/pianist. I teach voice and piano privately, as well as photography, quilting, yoga classes.I have been the musical director for several productions of the Un-common Theatre Company in Foxboro, MA, and St. Catherine’s of Sienna Catholic School in Norwood, MA. As a recovering programmer, I find myself still drawn to programming and occasionally do website design and web-based projects (examples: Foxboro Music Association, Mark DeVoto).

 

Peer-Reviewed Presentations

“Felice and Boudleaux Bryant and the Transformation of Professional Songwriting in Nashville in the 1950s”, presented at the International Country Music Conference, May 2016, Nashville, Tennessee.

“’Sincerely Faking It:’ Re-embodying the Voice in Lip Synch Battles,” presented at the Music and the Moving Image Conference, May, 2016, New York City

“Performing the Performance: From Country Radio to Rock ‘n’ Roll Television in the Early Career of the Everly Brothers,” presented at the 2015 Annual Conference of the Society for American Music, March 2015, Sacramento, California, and the Music and the Moving Image Conference, May 2015, New York City

“Mama Sang Tenor: The Evolution of Voice Placement in Nineteenth-Century Shape-Note Books,“ 2013 Annual Conference of the Society for American Music, March, 2013, Little Rock, AK

“The Shape of Music: The Shape Note Songs of Nineteenth Century America,” Library Concert Series, Bridgewater State University, October 2012, Bridgewater, MA

“The Roots and Influences of the Everly Brothers,” PhD Dissertation, Boston University, 2010

“Song Structure as Rhetorical Model in Early Rock ‘n’ Roll: A Case Study,” 2010 Musicology and Ethnomusicology Graduate Student Paper Session, Boston University, Boston, MA, and the 2011 Annual Conference of theSociety for American Music, March 2011, Cincinnati, OH

“Salty Dog Blues: A Ragtime-Blues-Hillbilly-Swing Band-Bluegrass Standard and the Concept of Originality in the 1920s and 30s,” Fall 2009 meeting of the New England chapter of the American Musicological Society, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT

“Some Observations on Duets in Mid-Twentieth Century American Musical Theater,” 2009 Musicology and Ethnomusicology Graduate Student Paper Session, Boston University, Boston, MA

“Recontextualizing for and by a Global Audience: An Online Community for Hawaiian Music,” 2008 Annual Conference of the Society for Ethnomusicology, Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT

“’Nana I Hawai’i I Ko’u Mau Maka (See Hawai’i Through My Eyes):’ Cultural Identity in Contemporary Hawaiian Music,” Fall 2006 meeting of the New England chapter of the American Musicological Society, Providence College, Providence, RI, and the 2006 Annual Conference of the Society for Ethnomusicology, Honolulu, HI

“The Patronage of Composers in the United States,” Masters Thesis, Boston University, 2005

Encyclopedia Articles, Reviews, Program Notes

Review Article: Hawaiian Music in Motion: Mariners, Missionaries, and Minstrels by James Revell Carr, Journal of the Society of American Music (forthcoming).

Articles for The Grove Dictionary of American Music, 2nd edition (forthcoming):

• Irmgard Farden Aluli
• Halau o Kekuhi
• Haunani Kahalewei
• Nalani Kanaka’ole and Pualani Kanaka’ole Kanahele
• Keaulumoku
• Ozzie Kotani
• Patronage

Program notes for Boston University Wind Ensemble, 2003-2005

 

Invited Lectures and Presentations

Panelist, “The 2016 Nobel Prizes Explained” convened by the Center for the Advancement of Research and Scholarship and the Center for the Advancement of STEM Education, Bridgewater State University, November 14, 2016. My presentation was entitled “Bob Dylan and the Nobel Prize for Literature: Challenging the Gatekeepers.”

Panelist, AMS Committee on Career-Related Issues, “Self-Advocacy for the Adjunct/Contingent Faculty,” 2015 Annual Conference of the American Musicological Society and Society for Music Theory, November 2014, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Guest lecturer on Native American and Hawaiian music in World Music, Bridgewater State University, Bridgewater, Massachusetts, September 2013, and January 2016.

“The Shape of Music: The Shape Note Songs of Nineteenth-Century America,” Library Concert Series, Bridgewater State University, Bridgewater, Massachusetts, October 2012.

“Writing (Pop) Music History,” Music Department Forum, Bridgewater State University, Bridgewater, Massachusetts, April 2012.

Respondent, Boston University Graduate Music Society’s 4th Annual Graduate Student Conference, Kofi Agawu, Keynote Speaker, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, May 2011.

Guest lecturer on Berg’s Wozzeck and Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, Emerson College, Boston, Massachusetts, April 2010.

Guest lecturer on ethnomusicology, popular music, blues and jazz in Music Research Techniques, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, April 2007.

Guest lecturer on Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas at Boston Conservatory, Boston, Massachusetts, February 2007.

Guest lecturer on early twentieth-century music in various music appreciation classes, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, April 2006.

 

Professional and Civic Organizations

American Musicological Society, 2003 – present
Society for American Music, 2005 – present
Society for Ethnomusicology, 2005 – present
College Music Society, 2011 – present
Foxboro (Massachusetts) Local Cultural Council, chair, term expires 2016
Foxboro (Massachusetts) High School Council, co-chair, 2008-2012
Chaminade Music Club (Attleboro, Massachusetts), 2001 – present
Foxboro Music Association, 2008 – present
Foxboro Community Band, 2011 – present, co-founder and executive director