Orkun Akyol (b. 1992) is a PhD student in composition
and theory at UC Davis. Currently he studies with Laurie San
Martin. He holds a master’s degree in composition from Istanbul
Technical University, Center for Advanced Studies in Music
(MIAM), during which he studied with Jeremy Woodruff, Pieter
Snapper and Reuben de Lautour. Orkun’s latest interests are jazz
music and computational creativity. His music writing is
nourished from his diverse experiences as a jazz pianist and as
an industrial engineer with a bachelor’s degree from Bogazici
University.
Dean Kervin Boursiquot, born in 1986, is a
first-generation Haitian-American, and New York native. The
guitar, film music, and music from the twentieth century sparked
his interest in music composition. While in New York, he received
his bachelor’s degree in composition at Mannes College the New
School for Music. Notable awards include: Vox Novus
Fifteen-Minutes-of-Fame: Parhelion Trio 2012, Peter Gross grant
2010, Mannes Orchestra Competition 2009, CRICE
(composer-in-residence Chamber-Ensemble) commission and second
place Jean Schneider Goberman Prize 2009.
Addie Camsuzou is a composer and violinist from
the central coast of California. She holds a Bachelor of Music
degree in music theory/composition from Sacramento State
University, where she studied composition with Dr. Stephen
Blumberg, and violin with Ian Swensen and Anna Presler. She is
currently pursuing a Ph.D. in music composition.
Berklee College of MusicCalifornia State University, Northridge, Master's in composition
Peter Chatterjee is a Bay Area-based composer,
arranger, and conductor. He began studying composition at Berklee
College of Music, where his primary mentors were Dr. Marti
Epstein, Dr. Panagiotis Liaropoulos, Bob Pilkington, Ayn Inserto,
and Greg Hopkins. At Berklee, he focused on jazz composition,
film scoring, and conducting. He holds a bachelor of music
in jazz composition and film scoring, and graduated summa cum
laude. Peter earned his master’s degree in composition with
distinction at California State University, Northridge, where he
studied with Dr.
Bachelor of Fine Arts in Composition and Experimental Sound Practices , CalArts
Paul Engle is a musician from Los Angeles, where he spent much of
his musical life as a guitarist and songwriter. His formal music
training began at Los Angeles City College with an emphasis in
jazz guitar and composition. Paul holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts
in Composition and Experimental Sound Practices from
CalArts, where his teachers included Andrew McIntosh, Wolfgang
von Schweinitz, and Marc Lowenstein. His recent works embrace
nuanced differences of sameness and invite interactions of
procedural austerity with will and intuition.
Max Gibson is a British-Irish composer, sound artist, performer,
writer, and educator, splitting his time between Birmingham, UK,
and Northern California. His works have been performed and
presented internationally in Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada,
France, Slovenia, Sweden, Turkey, the USA, and across the UK.
His teachers and mentors have included Rolf Hind, Antoine Beuger,
Ron Kuivila, Paula Matthusen, Howard Skempton, Michael Zev
Gordon, Scott Wilson, Daria Kwiatkowska, and Michael Finnissy,
among others.
Jacob Lane is a composer, pianist, and educator
who lives in Davis, California. He is the pianist for the chamber
group Sl(e)ight
Ensemble and has been a member of The Music Teachers’
Association of California since 2015. In addition to his private
studio, Jacob teaches piano performance and music theory at New
World Music Academy in Pleasanton, California. Jacob holds
degrees in music performance from Mills College (Oakland,
California), and Northern Vermont State University (Johnson,
Vermont).
James R. Larkins (b. 1999) is a composer and
cellist from North Carolina whose music explores the space
between structural precision and musical spontaneity. He holds a
bachelor’s degree in music and chemistry from the University
of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he studied composition
under Allen Anderson, Stephen Anderson, and Lee Weisert, and
studied cello under Brent Wissick.
Trey Makler (b. 1994) is a musical
storyteller. His music creates dramatic, poignant
narratives that take the listener on unexpected journeys through
memories of hope, play, struggle, and triumph. Aside from
composing, he enjoys writing poetry, doodling, and
organizing concerts. He is a doctoral candidate in composition
and theory at the University of California, Davis, and holds
degrees from the Juilliard School and the University of
Missouri. His primary teachers have included Mika Pelo,
Melinda Wagner, Stefan Freund, and W. Thomas McKenney.
B.A. Music: Skidmore College M.M. Music Composition: Boston Conservatory at Berklee
Colin Minigan (b.1994) is a Massachusetts-born composer whose
recent music is concerned with natural phenomena, and the
relationship between static and fluid elements of musical
composition and performance. In addition to composition Colin
spent time studying ethnomusicology and uses this perspective to
inform his compositions. Colin has frequently collaborated on
dance projects with performances throughout the United States and
is an administrator and curator of the Xsection Film Festival, a
festival aimed at promoting interdisciplinary collaboration
between dance, science, and film.
M.A., University of California Santa CruzB.M., San Francisco State University
Bryndan Moondy (b. 1994) is a composer and classical guitarist
based in northern California. In his creative practice
Bryndan seeks to engage the substance and materiality of sound
while also exploring its metaphoric capacity. His work
frequently draws influence from the natural world as well as
other mediums within the visual and literary arts. Bryndan
has received degrees in composition from San Francisco State
University (B.M.) and University of California Santa Cruz
(M.A.). His primary teachers have been Hi Kyung Kim, Ben
Sabey, and Richard Festinger (composition); and Larry Ferrara
(classical guitar). Bryndan has had the pleasure of working
with ensembles such as the Mivos Quartet, WasteLAnd, Vertixe
Sonora, Elevate Ensemble, and Splinter Reeds; he has had his
works performed and workshopped internationally at festivals
including the Barcelona Modern Composition Course, June in
Buffalo, Hot Air Music Festival, and April in Santa Cruz.
Joseph Donald Peterson (b. 1995, he/him) is a performer,
composer, and occasional violin maker. He received his Bachelor’s
degree in viola performance from The Juilliard School, where he
studied with the violist Samuel Rhodes and the composer Justin
Dello Joio. During his time there, he was runner-up in the
Juilliard School viola competition, contributed to the
student-led newspaper, The Citizen Penguin, and co-led several
student actions.
Joseph Vasinda is a composer and music educator based in the
Sacramento area and is attending school to earn a PhD in
music composition and theory. As a composer, he is deeply
interested in creating works that resonate with performers.
Whether through performer input on the musical material,
performer feedback on the experience of playing through the
piece, or by using improvisational elements, Joseph writes pieces
that he hopes performers will find enjoyable or rewarding.
Zoë A. Wallace is a classical composer and guitarist who is
continually striving to broaden the repertoire for instruments in
an ensemble setting. She has performed in a number of concerts as
a soloist and in a duo throughout California, Illinois, and Utah,
and has had the pleasure of playing the premieres of such pieces
as Duet in A Major by Darlene Castro, Roots by Nicholas
Denton-Protsack, Vertex by Zoë Wallace, the west coast
premiere of Distance and the Sea by Stan Funicelli.
Esther Luna DeLozier is a Ph.D. candidate in
Ethnomusicology. Currently, she is conducting ethnographic
research examining the value of the live music experience. During
her time at UC Davis, she has cultivated her desire to promote
access to and community in the arts by spearheading community
outreach programs in the music department. As a Mellon Public
Scholar, she collaborated with the California Arts Council
reviewing their public arts grant-making programs. She previously
worked as a recording editor and an assistant producer with
Telarc Records and managed the Audio Department for TNT Latin
America, a division of Time Warner. Ecomusicology, social
anthropology, and public policy concerning the promotion of the
arts through community engagement are among her main interests.
B.A. Music, Musicology, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile
Ana María Díaz-Pinto is a PhD student in
ethnomusicology. She is originally from Rancagua, Chile, and
received her bachelor’s degree in music, with a major in
musicology, from Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile in
2020. During her undergraduate experience, she developed a
particular interest in dance and movement, performance and
ethnography theory, and Latin American youth culture.
Master’s degree in musicology from Taipei National University of the Arts, Institute of Musicology
Hsiang-Yu Mark Feng is a Ph.D. student in ethnomusicology. He
holds a Master’s degree in musicology from Taipei National
University of the Arts, Institute of Musicology. His master
thesis, “The Persistence and Adaption of Hakka Mountain Songs:
Hakka Blues of Sangoudahousheng,” studies the transformation of
traditional music under Taiwan’s postcolonial tendency after the
1990s. Mark also published in Formosan Journal of Music
Research in 2019; this paper tackles a methodological
paradox in current methods of analyzing Hakka popular music.
B.M. Music Education, Arizona State UniversityM.A. Ethnomusicology, Arizona State University
Alex Rossi was a Bay Area native
before moving to Arizona to earn both his B.M. and M.A. from
Arizona State University. He has worked as a public school
teacher, having taught general music and band. Alex’s main
research interests include music-motor synchronization, music of
South America, and animal beat perception, and he has presented
at the International Council for Traditional Music’s study group
on Sound, Music, and the Sciences.
Jennifer Sherrill has been a musician and teacher in the Chicago
region for the past twenty years. She holds a bachelor’s and a
master’s in vocal performance and vocal pedagogy from Northern
Illinois University and North Park University. She has served as
cantor and youth choir director for Saint Gregory the Great on
the north side of Chicago and has introduced countless young
students to the joys of piano, ukulele, and singing.
Sun Ny Vang (Moob Leeg) [Blue HMong], born
and raised in St. Paul, Minnesota; parents are
from Sainyabuli Province, Laos.
M.A., Music (Ethnomusicology), University of
California, Davis, 2020. B.A., Music Education (K–12 Vocal and
General Music), The College of St. Scholastica, 2018.
Elizabeth Campbell is a musicology Ph.D. student at the
University of California, Davis. She graduated from Indiana
University in 2017 with master’s degrees in musicology and
library science after completing a bachelor’s degree in music at
Luther College in 2014. Her research interests include
Renaissance vocal polyphony and amateur music making in the
United States, in particular the music of the early
twentieth-century women’s suffrage movement.
Sarah Miller is a Ph.D. student in musicology at the University
of California, Davis. She received her Master of Music in voice
and her Master of Arts in musicology at Butler University in
Indianapolis, Indiana. Her research interests include
eighteenth-century opera, gender, sexuality, cross-dressed
performance, and taiko. Over the summers, Sarah enjoys teaching
voice and general musicianship skills to elementary aged students
with UC Davis Youth Programs Summer Camps.
Tracy Monaghan (she/her) is a PhD student in
musicology whose work focuses on issues of race, gender, and
musical appropriation in 20th- and 21st-century opera. She is a
soprano and an avid performer of new music, favoring extended
vocal techniques. Tracy also works to dismantle food insecurity
in her communities. She is currently based in the Bay Area of
California.
Leanny Muñoz is a PhD candidate in
Musicology. She received her Master of Music from Louisiana State
University; there she completed her master’s thesis, “Homenajes:
Finding Spanish Identity in Falla’s Orchestral Suite.” She
completed a Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Arts with a concentration
in Fine and Performing Arts and a minor in Music Performance at
the Louisiana Scholars’ College at Northwestern State University
of Louisiana.
Ryan Nason is a PhD candidate in musicology whose dissertation is
on music and nostalgia in Disneyland. He holds two master’s
degrees from the University of Oregon, one in musicology (2018)
and the other in Jazz Studies: Trumpet Performance (2016). This
is Nason’s second time at UC Davis, as he completed his
undergraduate degree in music history, theory, and
ethnomusicology in 2014. When not in Disneyland or writing
about music, Nason is a competitive water-skier and coach.
