The department is excited to welcome four new graduate students this fall. These four scholars come to Carolina from across the state and country with diverse research interests. We look forward to all they will accomplish during their time here in our department.
Drew Borecky
Originally from Winston-Salem, NC, Drew Borecky is a graduate of the Masters of Musicology Program at the University of Tennessee Knoxville and holds Bachelor’s degrees in music and education from Western Carolina University. His research interests concern the interplay of music and various forms of media, including film, television, and video games. His Master’s thesis examined the interplay of music and representations of mental illness in the television crime drama. His other research interests include music and representation, ludomusicology, as well as music in “nerd” culture. Drew has presented work at Music and the Moving Image Conference (May 2018-2019) and the Nation Meeting of the American Musicological Society (November 2019).
Ken Ge
Ken Ge is a writer, bassist-bandleader, and photographer from Columbia, South Carolina. His research focuses on the intersections between timbre, technology, musical identity, race, and gender amidst the “tone wars” surrounding electric jazz and fusion musics. He holds degrees in music from the University of Miami, Indiana University, and Furman University. Ken has performed with artists spanning the idioms of contemporary jazz (Cyrille Aimée, Shelly Berg, Victor Goines, Wycliffe Gordon, Lauren Henderson, Vitali Imereli, Stanley Jordan), big band (The Harry James Orchestra), free and improvised music (Matt Piet), Latin jazz (Michael Spiro), cabaret (Jayne Curry, Roz Ryan), crossover and pops (The Henry Mancini Institute Orchestra, Jeff Tyzik), and mixed media (Carrie Mae Weems). He has several years of experience in the cruise industry, having worked as musical director for Celebrity Cruises and Oceania Cruises, and most recently as director of the cruise division at Suman Entertainment Group, one of the largest employers of bands and musicians in the United States.
Kari Lindquist
Kari Lindquist holds an M.A. in Humanities from the University of Chicago with an interdisciplinary focus on Music History and English and a double BA in Comparative Literature and Arts & Ideas in the Humanities from the University of Michigan.
Her current research explores wind band repertoire of the folk revival through the lens of 20th-century nationalism to question national identity in folk songs and the boundary between high/low art. She also is interested in how early sound recording technology influenced folk song circulation and musical borrowing in American eclecticism. She has presented her work multiple times at the Society for American Music conference and the Literature/Film Association conference.
As an advocate of music education for all ages, Kari worked for four years as the Marketing & Community Engagement Coordinator in the DePaul University School of Music and for six years as music teaching artist in Chicago.
Briana M. Nave
Briana M. Nave is from Winston-Salem, North Carolina. She holds a Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance from Salem College (2016) and a Master of Arts in Music History and Literature from the University of Maryland, College Park (2019). Her master’s thesis examined gender politics in the reception of Courtney Love by mainstream rock journalism in the 1990s. Her current research interests concern the effects of copyright and contract law on the development of popular music in the United States. Her paper, “Death and the Widow: Gender, Agency, and the Haunting of Hole’s Live Through This,” received the Lowens Award for Best Student Paper from the Capital Chapter of the American Musicological Society in spring 2019.
To view the full list of our current graduate students, click here.