Current Students

Will Boone is a native North Carolinian pursuing a doctorate at UNC-Chapel Hill.  In 2008 he earned his M.A. in Musicology from UNC with a thesis entitled “Composing Playlists, Conducting Streams: The Life of Classical Music in the Internet Age.”  Will is now working on a dissertation that will explore the intersections of culture, technology, spirituality, and the music industry in the performance of contemporary gospel in predominantly African-American churches in North Carolina. A passionate teacher with a deep interest in many African-American musical traditions, Will designed an undergraduate course entitled “The Hip-Hop Producer” which he taught for the first time in the summer of 2009.  When he takes a break from his academic pursuits, Will loves to write songs, fish, read good fiction, and laugh at crass humor.  He hosts a weekly radio show on UNC’s student station WXYC.

Megan Eagen earned degrees in Physics and Music Composition from Iowa State University in 2007.  Her senior recital, made up entirely of original works, included three chamber pieces, a song cycle, a choral sextet, and three movements from her first symphony, “Bells for Raskolnikov.”  Megan received her MA from the University of Chicago in 2008.  In her master’s thesis, entitled “Appropriation and Assimilation: Presence and Significance of Marian Texts in the 17th Century Lutheran Liturgy,” she examined the role of Mary in Protestant liturgical works composed during the Thirty Years War.  Megan’s musicological focus continues to be seventeenth century liturgy and counterpoint, though she is also interested in plainchant, polyphony, Schenkerian analysis and Irish traditional music (“Trad.”).  Megan has played piano for over twenty years and oboe for fifteen.  She continues to compose and teach piano, while also participating in the UNC Symphony Orchestra.  Outside of music, she enjoys running, Ceili dancing, reading, writing, and spending time outdoors.

 Ryan Ebright holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Music and Economics from Westmont College. In 2006 he earned a Master of Music degree in Musicology and Vocal Performance from the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University, where he studied with British bass-baritone John Shirley-Quirk. His master's thesis explored Franz Schubert's settings of Johann Mayrhofer's neoclassical poems, and his research interests include mid- to late-Romantic German Lieder and contemporary American opera.

Naomi Graber is from the greater Washington, D.C. area. She received her B.A. in Music History and English from Brandeis University in 2007. In 2009, she completed her M.A. at UNC with a thesis on thematic connections in Beethoven’s late works.  She is now working on a dissertation on Kurt Weill's early American career.  Her broader research interests include American musical theater, sonata form(s), and historiography.

Benjamin Haas, a native of Western North Carolina, is a first-year graduate student at UNC.  He holds a B.M. in music education from Cedarville University and an M.M. in musicology from the University of North Texas.  While at UNT, Benjamin completed a thesis on the intersection of children’s music and leftist pedagogy in 1930s America.  His research interests include 20th century American music, music and politics, and music in educational contexts.

Catherine Hughes completed her BA in music and French at the College of the Holy Cross. Before starting at UNC, she spent a year teaching English in Bergerac, France. Her research interests include 19th and 20th century French music, and opera. She has played the cello for fourteen years, and enjoys playing in chamber ensembles.

Brian Jones is a native of Salt Lake City, Utah. He holds a B.M. in music education from the University of Utah and an M.A. in musicology from Brigham Young University. His master’s thesis, “Finding the Avant-garde in the Old-time: John Cohen in the American Folk Revival,”explores avant-garde aesthetics among New York folk revivalists in the 1950s and '60s. He presented portions of this research at the 2009 SAM conference in Denver. Having played bass for 15 years, he still takes the occasional jazz, blues, alt-country, or symphonic gigs that happen to come up. His current research interests include 20th-century American music, popular music, aesthetics, music and the visual arts, and the eclectic legacy of Harry Smith.

 Erin Maher, originally from Pennsylvania, graduated from Moravian College in 2008 with a Bachelor of Music degree in music composition. In addition to composing, she played the flute in a number of student ensembles; studied French and Spanish; tutored music theory; and completed an honors thesis on the sacred music of Arthur Honegger, Darius Milhaud, and Francis Poulenc. Her primary research interest is the music of 20th-century France, particularly the composers known as “Les Six.” More generally, she is interested in issues of race, religion, politics, sexuality, and gender in music.

Tim Miller is originally from Kensington, Maryland, and received his B.M. from the University of Delaware.  In 2007, he received his M.M. in the History of Musical Instruments from the University of South Dakota, with a thesis on the origins and development of the pedal steel guitar.  While a graduate assistant at the National Music Museum in Vermillion, SD, he conducted research in several European archives and collections, and read papers at conferences for the American Musical Instruments Society.  His primary research interests involve the individual roles of instruments and instrumentalists in small ensembles, particularly in European music of the late 17th and early 18th centuries, as well as American popular and country music of the first half of the twentieth century.  Tim is an active performer on double bass, lute, and theorbo, and is frequently found playing sitar, oud, mandolin, pedal steel, or whatever other stringed instruments he finds lying around the house.

Vanessa Pelletier is originally from Québec City. She completed her  Bachelor of Music degree with Distinction at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario in 2007, and in 2007-2008, she was a Post-degree student in the German Department at Queen’s University. Vanessa’s interests are in mediaeval liturgical and sacred music, particularly plainchant and Aquitanian and Notre Dame polyphony. In particular, she is interested in stylistic analysis of this period. In addition to her musicological studies, Vanessa is a member of The Malyshko Collegium, an early music ensemble directed by Dr. Olga E. Malyshko, and with whom she has recorded a CD entitled Musical Echoes of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. In her spare time, Vanessa enjoys studying plants, reading French literature and working on her calligraphic skills.

Chris Reali is a native of Sea Cliff, NY. He holds a B.A. from New York University, an M.S. in music education from CUNY, Queens College and an M.A. in musicology from CUNY, Hunter College. Chris wrote his master's thesis on the Allman Brothers Band and presented a paper at the AMS Greater New York chapter meeting in January 2009 excerpted from his work. Prior to coming to Chapel Hill, Chris worked as a middle school band director and general music teacher in Westchester County, NY. His primary areas of interest are twentieth-century American popular music, the intersections of music and technology, and the impact of popular music on society. Chris owns too many guitars, but enjoys playing rock and blues when he can. He has toured as a performer and instrument technician in the United States, Canada, Europe and Japan. Chris is also excited about be performing with Gamelan Nyai Saraswati at UNC-CH. To hear some of the original music written by Chris visit www.virtualreali.com.

 Karolin Schmitt was born in Trier, Germany. After completing her undergraduate studies with majors in piano and flute in 2007, she earned a master's degree in contemporary music with honors in 2008 and a master’s degree in “Konzertreife Klavier” in 2009 at the University of Music in Saarbrücken. In her studies of flute and piano, she has always been interested in looking beyond the borders of the field of performance. She hopes to apply her experience as a performer in a productive musicological manner, and to expand further the field of performance theory. In 2009, she was awarded the prestigious “ERP” fellowship by the German National Academic Foundation (Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes), which enables her to continue her studies by studying musicology in the U.S. Both as a performer and as a scholar, she is especially interested in contemporary music, performance theory, philosophy, and the relationship between music and society.

Karen Shadle, a native of Louisville, Kentucky,received her B.A.from Centre College in 2005 with majors in music and government. Karen has studied local music cultures abroad in Morocco and Northern Ireland. In 2007, she completed a thesis on the operas of Mozart and his contemporaries. She is currently working on a dissertation that explores social aspects of New England psalmody during the Revolutionary War period. A pianist and singer, Karen enjoys the occasional performance opportunity and is active in several community groups.

Chris Wells graduated with high honors from Guilford College with a BA in music and political science. He earned departmental honors in music with a thesis applying methodology from comparative politics to the debate on “registers” within voice pedagogy. Now a first-year student at UNC, Chris is interested in Jazz and other African-American music from the late nineteenth century through World War II and connections with dance in both social and performance contexts. This interest is informed by Chris’s experience dancing, performing, and teaching Lindy Hop, Charleston, and other early Jazz dances both in the U.S. and in Europe. Other interests include German and American art song, music and political revolutions, and "entrance music" in professional wrestling. Chris also writes regular articles on medical liability issues for Greensboro-based Medical Justice Services, Inc.