Current Projects
Opera in Colonial India
Ethnomusicologists and music historians alike have sought to uncover the makeup of musical life during the British Raj. Such scholars as Raymond Head, Richard Leppert, and Ian Woodfield have argued that the performance of Western art music in occupied India played a crucial role in the creation of the British imperial imagination (Head 1985, Leppert 1989, Woodfield 2000). These analyses, however, primarily cite chamber and symphonic music performances, leaving opera by the wayside. This is a particularly questionable move considering the cultural cache of Italian opera in nineteenth-century Britain.
My study addresses this imbalance through a reconstruction of operatic life in Bombay from 1860s to the 1920s. I draw on coverage of opera in the Times of India, the largest English-language newspaper on the subcontinent. I show that British expatriates in Bombay had a hunger for the art form—a desire fulfilled through the construction of Bombay’s Royal Opera House. I argue that opera served as a potent symbol of Western modernity for Britons separated from the metropole. In addition to informing the global history of music, this paper illuminates a neglected aspect of identity formation at the height of British imperialism.
Presented as “Butterfly in Bombay: Towards a History of Imperial Operatic Culture” at the 2018 Niagara SEM Meeting
Winner of the T. Temple Tuttle Student Paper Prize
Article in progress
M. A. Thesis
The Dissident Dame: Alternative Feminist Methodologies and the Music of Ethel Smyth
Abstract
While the works of women and other groups typically excluded from the canon are becoming more common in concert programs and historical survey texts, musicological interrogation into the subversive potential of these pieces lags far behind our colleagues in the humanities. This thesis serves as a framework for an intersectional approach two musicology, using the life and oeuvre of self-consciously feminist composer Dame Ethel Smyth (1858-1944) as a case study. Much of her musical output remains understudied in relation to the social, political, and cultural climate of Victorian England and in the context of Western art music.
Each chapter takes a specific genre of Smyth's music and uses a multidisciplinary approach to illuminate the political work of select, representative pieces. Chapter One draws on the fields of literature and narratology to unpack the feminist potential of minor-mode sonatas. In Chapter Two, I evaluate the lasting impact of Smyth's choral literature, both apolitical and suffrage-oriented, in terms of their contributions to the British nationalist movement. Finally, I turn to Smyth's operatic masterpiece, The Wreckers, in Chapter Three; I call on sociology, anthropology, and history to contextualize how the composer pits moral tropes against ideals about female sexuality.
Together, these chapters suggest that early feminist politics pervade Ethel Smyth's music more than originally thought, thus encouraging music scholars to look more deeply at works that we have, as a field, perhaps dismissed too quickly as simple, straightforward, and even trivial.
Portions of Chapter Two were presented at:
2014 University of Illinois Interdisciplinary Music Graduate Conference
2014 CUNY Graduate Students in Music (GSIM) Conference
2014 Bowling Green State University Graduate Student Forum
Portions of Chapter Three Were Presented At:
2016 American Musicological Society--Midwest Chapter Meeting
Committee members: Marcie Ray (Advisor), Kevin Bartig, and Aminda Smith
Conference Proceedings
"Upskirting the Past: Cross-Dressing Divas and Their Impact on LGBTQ Rights"
Abstract
Cross-Dressing, while ostracized by heteronormative culture, has played a surprisingly large role in the history of western music. From the castrati of 17th-century opera to the travesti of the 18th and 19th centuries to drag queens and pop stars of the 20th and 21st centuries, cross-dressing divas have captured audience’s attention.
First appearing in Roman Catholic Church music and eventually spreading to the operatic tradition, this paper explores castrati as a group but focuses on the most infamous castrati, Carlo Broschi, now more commonly known as Farinelli, and his role in the development in Italian Opera. Eventually, travesti replaced castrati, as the public still yearned for the “high voice”; however, cultural attitudes towards castrati became negative. Jumping forward to the “drag” tradition of the twentieth century, particularly Drag Queens whose prominence grew after the Stonewall Riots of 1969, this presentation will focus on RuPaul, whose song “Supermodel (Your Better Work)” was the first music video by a drag performer to be played on MTV, causing a great rise in the visibility of the drag community. Finally, this paper will include a close look at Lady Gaga, whose alternate male persona, Jo Calderone, makes a number of appearances in her music videos, most notably, “Yoü and I.”
Viewing my musicological research through the lens of queer theory, I theorize that cross-dressing is more accepted when it is viewed as a form of cultural entertainment as opposed to a queer lifestyle. As humans, we are uncomfortable with anything that goes against our typical and outdated view on the duality of gender. However, by viewing cross-dressing as a means of entertainment, the public has been greater able to accept these alternate ways of life. This is an important topic of research due to the prevalence of current discussion and scholarship into Queer Theory and LGBTQ rights. By better understanding the ways in which cross-dressing has been discussed historically, we can more actively participate in the dialogue on its place in our modern world.
Based on an Undergraduate Thesis advised by Reeves Shulstad
Portions of this thesis were presented at:
2013 College Music Society National Conference
2013 National Conference of Undergraduate Research
Digital Scholarship
MusicTheoryExamplesByWomen.Com
Collaboration with Molly Murdock
Molly Murdock and I met while both pursuing master's degrees at Michigan State University. We formed an immediate bond over feminist causes and the importance of representation of women composers in the classroom. In a pleasant turn of events, we both ended up at Eastman to pursue Ph.D.s. This web database grew out of Molly's music theory pedagogy courses and projects at MSU and Eastman.
At MusicTheoryExamplesByWomen.Com, I act as the Historical Consultant and general contributor. My primary responsibility involves writing short, accessible composer biographies, as well as providing additional resources for users to find if they want to learn more. Additionally, I occasionally write short think-pieces concerning feminist/critical pedagogy, gender and the canon, and other topics that relate to the mission of the website.
Our goal is to make the inclusion of music by women composers as easy as possible.