Wesleyan Music Graduate Students

Jorge Arevalo (ABD)

jarevalo_at_wesleyan.edu

Vincenzo Cambria (Fulbright/Capes Grantee) (ABD)

vcambria_at_wesleyan.edu

Vincenzo Cambria received a BA in D.A.M.S. (Disciplines of Art, Music, and Performing Arts) from the University of Bologna (Italy), and a MA in ethnomusicology from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil). He has conducted research on the music of Candomblé religion and on the music of “blocos afro” in Bahia (Brazil). His current research focus is the relationship between music and violence in some favela communities of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil).

Jennifer Caputo (ABD)

jcaputo_at_wesleyan.edu

Bill Carbone (ABD)

wcarbone_at_wesleyan.edu

Bill Carbone has a B.A. in Jazz Performance from the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston and an M.A. in ethnomusicology from Wesleyan University where he is currently knee-deep in the PhD program as well. During his M.A., Bill focused primarily on Caribbean musics, particularly those from Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago, exploring the assimilation of regional music elements into globally marketed popular forms. He has switched gears for his PhD dissertation and is currently investigating the Harlem, NY organ-jazz scene in the interest of compiling a history of its performers as well as considering their ongoing influence vis-à-vis sampling and revival movements. Bill is also an active performer who drums in reggae, jazz, and rock groups throughout New England and New York. His personal webpage is http://www.myspace.com/billcarbone and some of his music is posted at http://www.myspace.com/burustyle.

Fugan Dineen (ABD)

ddineen_at_wesleyan.edu

Ian Eagleson (ABD)

ieagleson_at_mail.wesleyan.edu

Joy Lu, Chia-Yu

clu_at_wesleyan.edu
Joy Lu is a musician, scholar, educator, and conductor. She received a B.A. in erhu (Chinese two-string fiddle) performance from National Taiwan Normal University, and an M.A. in ethnomusicology from the University of Sheffield, U.K. She researches Chinese and Taiwanese music, with an emphasis on folk songs, ritual music, instrumental music, music and gender, minority, cultural tourism and modernity. Joy is an active erhu performer, playing in Taiwan, China, Europe and America.

Tim Eriksen

teriksen_at_wesleyan.edu

Garrett Field

gfield_at_wesleyan.edu

Garrett Field received a B.F.A. in Jazz and Contemplative Studies from the University of Michigan, and an M.A. in ethnomusicology from Wesleyan University. A student of South and North Indian classical music, Field has practiced the former since 1999. His MA thesis explored the South Indian classical improvisations of Mandolin U. Shrinivas. Field’s dissertation investigates the Sinhala Poetry-Song of the Sri Lankan national renaissance, with a special focus on the works and careers of Sunil Santha, Ananda Samarakone and W.D. Amaradeva from 1940 to 1960.

Joseph Getter (ABD)

jgetter_at_wesleyan.edu

Joseph Getter received a B.A. in Religion from Oberlin College and an M.A. in Ethnomusicology from Wesleyan, with a thesis on South Indian music in the United States. As a Ph.D. candidate at Wesleyan, he is researching Tamil film music. Joseph teaches world music at Southern Connecticut State University and the University of New Haven. He also accompanies theater and modern dance, teaches music privately, co-directs a children’s gamelan, and has appeared in many concerts in India, Indonesia, and throughout the eastern US. His writing on the music of India has been published by Wesleyan University Press and in the journal Ethnomusicology.
http://jgetter.web.wesleyan.edu/

Nicholas Hockin (ABD)

nhockin_at_wesleyan.edu

BFA Music, York University (1989) MA Ethnomusicology, Wesleyan University (2003)
Working title of dissertation: “Drumming Modernity: Musical Transformation and the Rise of the Jenbe in Bamako, Mali.”
Interests: The Mande cultural area; urbanization in West Africa; tradition, modernity, and processes of change; music and identity; music and dance; drumming in Mali, Guinea, Senegal, the Gambia, Ghana, Cuba, Brazil, South India, and central Java; Shona mbira.

Christopher J. Miller (ABD)

cjmiller_at_wesleyan.edu

Chris Miller is a composer, performer, educator, and scholar. He holds a B.A. from Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, and an M.A. from Wesleyan. He is active as a performer and teacher of traditional Javanese gamelan music.
His article “Orchids (and Other Difficult Flowers) Revisited: A Reflection on Composing for Gamelan in North America” was recently published in the world of music.
He is currently completing his dissertation on Indonesian musik kontemporer. With the working title “Nativist Cosmopolitanism and Radical Traditionalism: Making Modern Music in Indonesia,” the study investigates the place of artistic experimentalism in a modernizing postcolonial context.
http://cjmiller.web.wesleyan.edu/

Sie Ai Ng

sng01_at_wesleyan.edu

Sie Ai Ng received a B.Mus (Hons) from the University of Melbourne and an M.A. in Ethnomusicology from University Malaysia Sarawak. She has conducted fieldwork with the Bidayuh of Selako-Lara and Bukar Sadong in the southwest region of Sarawak. In 2004, with a grant from the United Nations Development Programme and Global Environmental Facility (UNDP-GEF), she produced a 20-minute documentary film, Voices of Loagan Bunut, which features the instrumental, dance, and vocal music of the Iban, Berawan, and Penan living in the periphery of Loagan Bunut National Park. Her continued research interests include music of Borneo and Malaysia; ethnicity and multiculturalism in Malaysia; Sarawak’s rainforest music and the environment; and cultural tourism and commodity.

Aaron Paige

apaige_at_wesleyan.edu

Amanda L. Scherbenske (ABD)

ascherbenske_at_wesleyan.edu

Amanda L. Scherbenske recently completed her M.A. thesis “The Making of Folksmentshn: The Culture of Klezmer Transmission” at Wesleyan University. Her area and research interests include Yiddish, Eastern European, and Central Asian musics, as well as gender, kinesis, music and the body, music and dance, historical ethnomusicology, performative framing, music and cognitive processes, and music and the elderly.

Peter Steele

psteele_at_wesleyan.edu

Peter Steele is a musician, scholar and composer working primarily on Balinese Gamelan music.  He has an M.A. in ethnomusicology from the University of British Columbia.  His M.A. thesis focuses on compositional developments in contemporary Balinese music.  He is an active performer and composer and has had several of his works performed by Balinese ensembles at the annual Bali Arts festival.
He is currently teaching a tutorial on Balinese Gamelan Angklung and is the music and education coordinator for Gamelan Dharma Swara in New York City.
His research interests include transnationalism, musical identities, and the relationship between movement and music in Balinese gamelan performance.

Po-wei Weng (ABD)

pweng_at_wesleyan.edu

Po-wei Weng (M.A. ethnomusicology, Wesleyan University; M.A., musicology, National Taiwan University) is currently a Ph.D. candidate in ethnomusicology at Wesleyan University. His musical career began with a ten-year professional training in Peking opera as both musician and actor. He was a Chinese flute major in the college and a winner of several Chinese flute competitions in Taiwan. Since he came to the United States in 2004, he has been an active performer of Chinese flute and Javanese gamelan, and also an instructor of Peking opera percussion. As a scholar, Weng has published articles on Chinese operatic and traditional music in Taiwan. His M.A. thesis, “Dynamic Interaction: Significance and Communication in Peking Opera Percussion Music” (2006), explores the complex signification system of Peking opera percussion, examining how these musical conventions are contextualized into an active and interactive process of performance-building. Weng has also conducted extensive fieldwork on ritual and folk music of Penghu archipelago in southwestern Taiwan, which has resulted in two co-authored books: The Shao-Fa Ritual Music in the Penghu Archipelago (The Bureau of Culture, Penghu County, 2005) and Nanguan and Bayin Music in the Penghu Archipelago (BCPC, 2004). At the doctoral level, Po-wei Weng expands his research interests into film/TV music, music and technology, and music, globalization and post-colonialism. His recent research focuses on the soundscapes of Pili budaixi, a techno-mediated, televised puppetry, and the music in Chinese wuxia/kungfu movies.
http://powei.mto.idv.tw/

Yang Min

myang_at_wesleyan.edu

Min Yang holds a B.A. in musicology/ethnomusicology and an M.A. in ethnomusicology from the China Conservatory of Music in Beijing, where she received systematic training in the practice, theory, and history of Chinese folk and traditional music. Her research interests are music of China and music and gender.