Scholarship

I am interested in the way we listen to people. More specifically, I am explore the idea that we can decode an individual’s numerous identities through the sound of their voice, and that there is a discernable relationship between how one sounds and who they are. I refer to this relationship—or rather, assumptions about the relationship between voice, body, and identity—as normative vocality. Like other presuppositions, normative vocality usually hovers below the surface of consciousness, except at moments when a voice and a body seem not to fit, such as when a man sings in falsetto. In my dissertation—Seeing the Voice, Hearing the Body: Countertenors Voice Type, and Identity—I explore the way male falsetto has been excluded from normative vocality since the latter nineteenth century, and the subsequent issues of gender identity, national identity, and embodiment male falsettists have faced since. 

In my research, I focus on late Victorian Voice Culture and the emergence of vocal subjectivity; post-1945 opera, especially Benjamin Britten; the BBC, early music, and the renegotiation of post-1945 English musical identity; new wave pop; historically-informed performance practice; and sound and voice studies.

I have given papers at the American Musicological Association (national and midwest chapter), North American British Music Studies Association, the Indiana University Musicology Colloquium, and the Midwest Victorian Studies Conference.  

I have two book projects in the works. The first—which bears the self-explanatory title Singing Bach: A Guide to Performance and Pedagogy—draws on my dual expertise in vocal performance and musicology. It aims to equip non-specialist singers and singing teachers with the tools they need to successfully learn and perform J.S. Bach’s vocal music in any setting. The other one is a biography of Klaus Nomi, a description-defying countertenor, performance artist, and new wave pop star active in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

I previously taught at University of Indianapolis, Butler University, and Indiana University, Bloomington.

*complete curriculum vitae available upon request

Education

PhD in Musicology (Indiana University, Bloomington)

Dissertation: "Seeing the Voice, Hearing the Body: Countertenors, Voice Type, and Identity" (Phil Ford, advisor)

MM in Music History (Butler University, Indianapolis)

BA in Music (Butler University, Indianapolis)