Among our graduate degree recipients before 2004 are the
composers Eric Sawyer, Martha Horst, and Anne Guzzo; and
musicologists Donna M. DiGrazia, Carol Hess, Don Meyer, John
Palmer, Matthew Daines, Suzanne Jubenville, Mark Brill, and Paul
Christiansen.
Sarah Wald was born in Chicago. She
attended Columbia University in the City of New York for her
bachelor’s degree in music with a focus in
composition. While at Columbia, Sarah studied composition
with Tristan Murail and Arthur Kampela, as well as with Robert
Lombardo in Chicago. She also studied flute with Sue Ann
Kahn. Sarah then studied with Conrad Susa and David Garner
at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music for her master’s
degree in composition. For her master’s thesis, she composed
and produced Elegy for a Lady: a Music Drama in One A
Born and raised in Tehran, Iran, Aida Shirazi is
a Ph.D. student in composition at UC Davis, and she works with
Pablo Ortiz. Shirazi’s music is described as “well-made”
and “affecting” by The New Yorker. She holds her B.A. in
classical piano from Tehran University of Art (Iran), and her
B.M. in music composition and theory from Bilkent University
(Turkey). She studied santoor (traditional Iranian dulcimer) with
Parissa Khosravi Samani.
Born and raised in central Illinois, Daniel
Godsil (b. 1982) is a composer of chamber, orchestral,
vocal, electronic, and film music, currently pursuing his
PhD in composition and theory at the University of
California, Davis. He holds an MFA in music composition from the
Vermont College of Fine Arts, where he studied with John Fitz
Rogers, John Mallia, and Jonathan Bailey Holland.
David A. Roby was born and raised in Orlando, Florida. He started
studying piano at age five and has since become a
professional recording multi-instrumentalist. He is self-taught
on mandolin, tenor banjo, fiddle, trumpet, guitar, bass,
accordion, tin whistle, and bodhrán. David Roby is a member of
the recording project Dance the Bridge with long-time
friend Damon Gentry. Dance the Bridge has recorded
two EPs and one full-length
LP, which is also available at iTunes.
Hendel Almétus received a Ph.D. in composition from UC Davis in
2012. He was born in Haiti where he began his musical training at
the age of 12. He earned a bachelor’s in music composition from
the Houston Baptist University and a master’s in composition
from the Eastman School of Music.
Gabriel José Bolaños (b. 1984 Bogotá, Colombia)
is a Nicaraguan-American composer of solo, chamber, orchestral
and electronic music. He holds a PhD in composition from UC Davis
and a BA from Columbia University. His principal composition
teachers include Mika Pelo, Pablo Ortiz, Laurie San Martin,
Fabien Lévy, and Sebastian Currier, and he studied orchestration
with Tristan Murail. He likes to write music that explores
unusual timbres and structures, and is interested in
computer-assisted-composition, auditory perception, and
linguistics.
Chris Castro graduated in 2018 with a doctoral degree in
composition from UC Davis. He holds a bachelor’s degree in
composition and double bass from the Juilliard School.
Composer and Chinese flutist Yu-Hsin Chang is currently a Ph.D.
candidate in music composition and theory at UC Davis.
She received her previous degrees (MFA, BFA) from Taiwan.
Her works include solo, chamber, and orchestral pieces for
both Western and Chinese music instruments, and have been
performed by soprano Tony Arnold, the Empyrean Ensemble, the
Daedalus Quartet, the Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, the Chai Found
Music Workshop, and the Little Giant Chinese Chamber Orchestra.
Luis Chavez graduated with a Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology in 2018
from UC Davis. He holds the bachelor’s and master’s degrees
in music from California State University, East Bay.
He currently lectures at Sacramento State University.
An alumnus of the Juilliard School, William David Cooper has
enjoyed a diverse career as composer, conductor, and
keyboardist.His music has been championed by Augustin Hadelich,
the Juilliard Orchestra, Trio 180, the JACK Quartet, and the
Lysander Trio, and has been performed at the Radio France
Festival and the Wellesley Composers Conference. He has
recently been commissioned by Soli Deo Gloria, and is currently
writing Hagar and Ishmael, a two-act opera, that will
premiere with members of the Indianapolis Symphony
Orchestra. In addition to positions on faculty at Purdue
David Dennen is assistant professor of Applied English at Chihlee
University of Technology in Taipei, Taiwan. He received his Ph.D.
in ethnomusicology from the University of California, Davis. He
received his bachelor’s from the Evergreen State College in
Olympia, WA, where he concentrated on ethnomusicology, cultural
studies, and performance.
Anthony (Tony) Dumas is a Visiting Assistant Professor at the
State University of New York, The College at Brockport where he
teaches courses in both the Department of Theatre and Music
Studies and the Delta College Program. Previously, Dr. Dumas has
taught at UC Davis, Woodland Community College, St. Lawrence
University, and SUNY Potsdam.
MusicologyPh.D. Musicology, University of California, Davis
Carol A. Hess has published books and articles on the music of
Spain and the Americas. Her work has been funded by the National
Endowment for the Humanities, the Spanish Ministry of Culture,
and the New York Public Library, among other entities. She
received the Society for American Music’s Irving Lowens Article
Award, and her book Manuel de Falla and Modernism in Spain,
1898–1936 (University of Chicago Press, 2001) won the
ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award and the American Musicological Society’s
Robert M. Stevenson Prize for Outstanding Scholarship in Iberian
Music, in addition to other prizes.
Ben Irwin holds master’s degrees in composition and clarinet
performance from the University of Wisconsin at Madison and a
bachelor’s degree in music from Carleton College in Northfield,
Minnesota.
Gillian Irwin has been a student of ethnomusicology at UC Davis
since Fall 2014. Before coming to Davis, she studied music and
English at Muhlenberg College (Allentown, PA) and served as a
Fulbright English Teaching Assistant in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. At
Davis, Gillian specializes in Indonesian music with interests in
educational and cultural policy, national identity formation, and
the relationship of the region to the nation of Indonesia.
