The Department of Music is excited to announce this year’s incoming class of graduate students. There are seven new students in total from all across the country interested in unique and exciting research topics. Professor David Garcia, Director of Graduate Studies says,
“This year’s incoming graduate student cohort promises to greatly enrich the intellectual and scholarly profile of the program. We are excited to have them join us!”
We look forward to the many ways in which each of these students will impact our musical community here at Carolina and the community at large. Read on to get to know a little bit about each of the incoming students.
Sophia Maria Andricopulos
“I chose UNC for many reasons, first among them the department’s reputation for professional development. I’m most excited about the variety of faculty interests and research methodologies, because this helps create an environment that can support inter-disciplinary inquiry and foster a more inclusive and dynamic field. Research at its most fun is like a puzzle, and for me, engaging multiple perspectives is crucial to bringing all the pieces together.
I mainly research rock music, which recently has included the early recording career of Carlos Santana and the stadium concerts of contemporary rock trio Biffy Clyro. I’m interested generally in the relationships between audience activities, mediation, technology, and aesthetics in rock music, but I’m particularly intrigued by how these relationships have developed as the popular music industry responded to digitization.”
Sophia Maria comes here from the University of Oregon, where she has completed a Masters degree.
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Michael Carlson
“I am very excited to join Music Department at UNC which is supportive of such diverse and varied approaches to scholarship. I began my musicology studies at CUA and took about a 10 year gap to peruse graduate degrees in philosophy, theology, and theological anthropology. My interests in theology and music naturally were reunited as independent work at Fairfield University and The Hartt School reignited a scholarly passion for the music of the Latin American Baroque and Early Opera, the subject of my masters thesis at Hartt. I come to UNC with a desire to pursue my interests in early music, especially opera, in the Americas and also gender and LGBTQ+ studies. I look forward to researching more on how opera serves as a vehicle for personal, spiritual, and sexual identity.”
Michael completed a Masters of Music in Musicology this spring at the University of Hartford.
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Justin Frankeny
“I chose UNC for the diverse research interests of the faculty, the opportunities to continue my study of new music, the possibilities of interdisciplinary research, the success of UNC graduate students and alumnae, and the warm welcome I received from all the faculty and student I had the pleasure of meeting. One of my primary research interests thus far has been art music since 1950 and its implications of funding and approachability, meaning the degree to which an audience finds a piece of music approachable or easy to listen to. I studied this topic in my senior thesis through a variety of historiographic and ethnographic perspectives, including that of the composer, performer, listener, etc. I am incredibly excited for the opportunities at UNC to continue this realm of study under the guidance of faculty such as Dr. Annegret Fauser and Dr. Andrea Bohlman, but equally excited to explore other musical areas and methodologies through the diverse research interests of the musicology faculty.”
Justin completed a Bachelor of Music in Composition and History at Baldwin Wallace University this spring.
Emily Ann Hynes
“I chose UNC because of the interdisciplinary opportunities, the friendly atmosphere, and the opportunity to be a Royster Fellow. I’m most excited to work with the professors and to discover new lines of inquiry in my areas of interest. I’m also excited to work in the digital scholarship center to continue working on interactive mapping and learning about the digital humanities. I’ve previously done research on music in the Russian gulag and how that compared to the Soviet leadership’s political goals. I have also extensively mapped the work of the Ballets Russes in Europe and the Americas. In addition to interest in Russian music, I have also done research on marginalized people in recent American musical theater and the Southern American field song collecting of John, Alan, and Ruby Lomax and Dorothy Scarborough.”
Emily completed her Bachelor of Music in Voice this spring at St Olaf’s College, and comes to UNC as a Royster Fellow.
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Eduardo Tatafumi Sato
“As I had almost all my music and research formation in Brazil it will be a great experience and challenge to study in a new environment with different perspective and tradition. When I visited UNC program I liked the good atmosphere among all people involved in the graduate program and the possibility of discussing different topics in an interdisciplinary approach.
My research interests are related to Brazilian music in a broad way (composed or performed by Brazilian musicians or even European music performed in Brazil), specially from the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th. I am also interested in music criticism and modernist music, after my Master thesis about Mario de Andrade’s criticism.”
Eduardo completed his Masters of Arts in Brazilian Studies at the University of Sao Paulo.
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Kelli Dawn Smith
“I was initially interested in UNC because of the wide variety of methodologies practiced throughout the department as well as the generally progressive mentality among the students and faculty. The warmth and hospitality shown to me by the students and professors during my visit really sealed the deal. I cannot wait for the opportunity to continue my work in gender studies and new media with Dr. Fauser and Dr. Bohlman, as well as collaborate with Dr. Katz to expand his already thriving Beat Making Lab to include an experimental laptop ensemble.
As for my research, I am most interested in integrating my previous work experience in information technology with my current interests in experimental and contemporary music. In my Master’s thesis, for example, I delved into comments sections and internet forums to reveal the ways in which women are excluded from online popular music communities, particularly communities formed around alternative and underground music. I also leveraged these skills in founding the Electronic Music Workshop at MSU. The mission of this group is to collectively compose and perform new laptop music in both academic and casual concert settings, as well as establish a sustainable model for future student-lead laptop music groups at MSU. In collectively creating new music, we have the opportunity to learn new technologies, techniques, and approaches to building electronic instruments.”
Kelli completed her Masters of Arts in Musicology at Michigan State University this past spring. She comes to Carolina as a Royster Fellow.
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Kendall Hatch Winter
“I chose UNC-Chapel Hill for the people that populate the department. Its faculty are well respected and well-connected scholars who nevertheless make their students a priority. Its students are formidable scholars in their own right who also demonstrate tireless service to the university and to the field of musicology. I’m most looking forward to the energizing effect that simply being around such driven mentors and colleagues will have on me and my research.
My current area of particular interest is the music of the American woman’s suffrage movement, ca. mid-19th — early-20th century. The topic effortlessly marries my interests in music by and/or about women, the evolving sociopolitical role of women throughout US history, and music and politics. Archival research lends itself well to this topic for a variety of reasons, not least of which is that there is very little scholarship on the music of the American suffrage movement currently in existence. Through the use of primary sources in my research, I can reanimate the voices, ideas, and opinions of people long since gone for a modern audience. I am humbled by archival research because it frequently yields results I never expected, or, no results at all.”
This past spring, Kendall completed her Masters in Arts in Musicology at Tufts University.
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