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 Messbauer graduated from Muhlenberg College in the spring
of 2011, receiving a bachelor’s degree with honors in
anthropology and music. While at Muhlenberg, she received
the Louise M. Cafouros Award for distinguished scholarship in the
field of anthropology, as well as the Class of 1969 Award for
Promising Work in the Field of Music.
Jonathan Minnick is a third-year musicology PhD student at UC
Davis. Jonathan graduated with a bachelor of music in
trombone performance from the University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill in 2016. At UNC, he performed in many ensembles
across the campus while also focusing on musicological studies,
leading to an honors thesis exploring Richard Strauss’s Alpine
Symphony. This thesis explores the Alpine Symphony in terms of
its historical origins, cultural influences, symphonic
characteristics, and extensive tone painting.
David Möschler is an award-winning San Francisco Bay Area-based
musical director and conductor. He has music-directed over one
hundred musical theater, opera, and theater productions, and
conducted over eightypieces for orchestra, including over two
dozen first performances.
D.M.A., University of Missouri–Kansas City ConservatoryM.A., University of California, DavisB.M., University of the Pacific Conservatory of Music
Dr. Garrett Rigsby has been fortunate to have held an eclectic
career as an educator and conductor, leading bands, orchestras,
operas, choirs, and cutting-edge new music ensembles, among
others. He currently serves as the Director of the UC Davis
Marching Band at the University of California, Davis. He also
directs the University Campus Band in the Music Department during
Winter and Spring Quarters. Prior to his appointment at UC Davis,
Dr. Rigsby served as an Assistant Conductor at the UMKC
Conservatory in Kansas City, MO.
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.
Davin Rosenberg grew up in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, and is a
PhD candidate in ethnomusicology at University of California,
Davis. His research focuses on flamenco in the Americas wherein
he explores musicking in the social (re)creation of space and
sense of place; groove and performance temporalities;
intersensory modalities, and transnational musicocultural flows
and interrelationships.
The music of Garrett Ian Shatzer (b. 1980) has been performed by
such musicians as the Mobius Trio, Erato and Finisterra
Piano Trios, GRAMMY-award winning countertenor Ian Howell,
EOS Duo, Lyris Quartet, Meridian Arts, Empyrean, Luna Nova
and Citywater Ensembles, violinist Rolf Schulte, cellist
David Russell, and pianist Geoffrey Burleson in such venues
as the Kennedy Center (Washington, D.C.) and the Teatro
Colón (Buenos Aires). His current commissions include a
choral work to be premiered in St.
Born and raised in Tehran, Iran, Aida 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.
Previous positions include Visiting Assistant Professor of Music
(Orchestra and Musicology), Alma College, Alma, MI 2018-2020;
Visiting Instructor of Music (Orchestra and Music History),
Whitman College, Walla Walla, WA 2017.
Alexander Stalarow received his Ph.D. in Musicology in 2017. His
dissertation, Listening to a Liberated Paris: Pierre
Schaeffer Experiments with Radio, was funded by awards
including a Chateaubriand Fellowship from the French
government, a Bilinski Dissertation Fellowship, and an Alvin
H. Johnson AMS 50 Fellowship. Alex currently lectures at the San
Francisco Conservatory of Music and University of the
Pacific.
Ryan Suleiman was born to Lebanese and Mid-Western parents in
California. His music engages with dreaming, the natural world,
and the understated beauty of everyday life. His one-act chamber
opera, Moon, Bride, Dogs, was described by the San
Francisco Chronicle as “a gem” with “an aesthetic that is at once
so strange and so accessible.” While his artistic interests vary,
he seeks ways of conveying the simultaneity of beauty and dread
that characterizes our times.
B.M. Performance (flute), UC Santa BarbaraM.A. Musicology, Pennsylvania State University
Claire Thompson is a doctoral candidate in musicology at UC
Davis. She has a B.M. in performance (flute) from UC Santa
Barbara, and a master’s degree in musicology from Pennsylvania
State University. Her research interests include music aesthetics
and the cultural and political aspects of opera and operetta. Her
dissertation explores the creation, dissemination, and reception
of nineteenth-century Italian operas based on the works of Sir
Walter Scott. She is a recipient of the Hubert H. and Barbara P.
Jeremiah Trujillo is an active soloist, collaborative pianist,
and historical musicologist. He is the recipient of numerous
awards, including a special prize for the interpretation of a
nineteenth-century Romantic work at the 2013 San Francisco
Young Pianists Competition. He is a recipient of the 2018
Faculty Recognition Award for Excellence in Musical Performance
at UC Davis, and the 2014 Eisner Prize for Music, awarded at
UC Berkeley. Jeremiah was also a finalist in the 2013 Carmel
Music Society piano competition, held at Sunset Center in Carmel,
CA.
Alex Van Gils is a composer, performer, and generative video
artist, exploring the interplay between human and electronic
creative agents. In his composition work he creates musical
systems that explore, amplify and transform the gestures of human
improvisational partners.
Alex lives in Brooklyn, NY, and his active projects include
XBUCKET, a performance trio featuring live-processed violin and
generative video, and also a discipline of daily audiovisual
compositions uploaded to @avg.music on instagram. Alex holds a
Ph. D. in Music Theory and Composition from UC Davis.
David Verbuč (from Slovenia) received his master’s degree in
ethnomusicology at UC Davis (with distinction), and his
bachelor’s degree in music education from the Academy of Music,
University of Ljubljana, Slovenia (under the supervision of
Svanibor Pettan, professor of ethnomusicology).
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
Ching-Yi Wang began her music training in piano at the age of
five, and started taking composition lessons at the age of twelve
and received bachelor and master of fine arts degrees in theory
and composition from Taipei National University of the Arts in
Taiwan (TNUA). One of her music compositions, Yu Lin
Ling, was awarded the Tune in Taiwan, 2002. Wang has taught
at Tainan National University of the Arts.
Her music can be found on the Taiwan Composer League’s Taiwan
Contemporary Composers I: Chamber Music CD, released in
2007.
Chia Wei Lin is greatly interested in the historiography of music
and the history of performers.
Born and raised as a pianist in Taiwan, Lin received her master’s
degree from Taipei National University of the Arts and her
bachelor’s degree from National Taiwan Normal University. She
began playing piano at age three and her formal music education
commenced at age eight. As a pupil of Professor En Wang, a
renowned pianist and an enthusiastic promoter of new Taiwanese
music, Lin has performed works by contemporary Taiwanese
composers, including the esteemed composer Mao-Shuen Chen. She
has been performing since the age of twelve, with several
premieres to her credit. Recently, she performed and recorded the
incidental music for the theater work Elephant’s
Graveyard, composed by contemporary American composers
Laurie San Martin and Garrett Shatzer in the Mondavi Center at UC
Davis.
