My scholarly work centers marginalized composers, especially female-identifying and BIPOC composers, and almost always involves vocal music.
As Managing Director of the Hampsong Foundation, my scholarly endeavors over the past 15 years have ranged from researching and writing radio scripts in collaboration with the WFMT Radio Network, to creating public musicology content for Song of America, to various projects via our current partnership with the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor).
I have served as a judge for the International Division of the annual George Shirley Vocal Competition since 2022.
I also have been part of the faculty of the Singing Down the Barriers Institute (University of Michigan) since 2021.
Current university affiliation:
I was a lecturer at the University of Michigan, School of Music, Theatre, and Dance and team-taught the course “The Savvy Singer” in Fall 2022 & Fall 2021 with baritone Thomas Hampson as part of EXCEL. I currently run the Song of America Fellowship program at U-M SMTD in the 2023-2024 academic year.
Additionally, Thomas and I are also consultants for the Singing Justice Humanities Collaboratory team.
I am a member of the American Musicological Society, the Society for American Music, the Theatre and Performance Research Association (TaPRA) and the International Alliance for Women in Music.
In May 2024, I have been invited to present a paper at “The Theatrical Voice: Performing Class, Gender, Race and Identity,” taking place at the University of Surrey. More information is forthcoming.
In August 2023, I joined the “Sound and Voice Working Group” of TaPRA , the Theatre and Performance Research Association.
At their 2023 Annual Conference 2023, I presented on the topic “Dorothy Rudd Moore’s 1976 Sonnets on Love, Rosebuds and Death: An Intersectional Encounter with the Black Feminine.”
In November 2022, I helped organize the conference Singing Justice: Decentering Whiteness in Vocal Music in Stuttgart, Germany. More information available here.
I presented at the November 2021 American Musicological Society (Virtual) Conference as part of the panel “Sexuality and Gender in Contemporary Opera.” My presentation was titled “Meeting My Own Eyes:” Analyzing the Sound of Thought in Zesses Seglias’s Opera To the Lighthouse.”
Select publications:
Review: The 21st-Century Voice: Contemporary and Traditional Extra-Normal Voice (2nd Edition)
by Michael Edward Edgerton
Publication: Tempo (Cambridge University Press) / Volume 70 / Issue 275 / January 2016