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.
Ph.D. music (UC Davis), 2025M.A. musicology (University of Oregon), 2018M.A., trumpet performance in jazz studies (University of Oregon), 2016B.A., music (UC Davis), 2014
Ryan Nason’s dissertation is on music and nostalgia in
Disneyland. When not in Disneyland or writing about music,
Nason is a competitive water-skier and coach.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Michael Accinno received his Ph.D. in 2016 with research
interests in nineteenth-century American music and disability
studies. He has held academic appointments at Duke University and
UC Riverside.
2020: Thomas Hampson Award for Research and Publication on
Classic Song, American Musicological Society
2019: Short-Term Fellowship, Library Company of Philadelphia and
Historical Society of Pennsylvania
2018: NEH Summer Institute Scholar, “Global Histories of
Disability” Gallaudet University, Washington, D.C.
Phil Acimovic is a composer and gamelan musician in Easthampton,
MA. He writes quiet, austere music for solo and chamber
ensembles. In 2018 he served as Artist-In-Residence at the Cold
Hollow Sculpture Park in VT. Acimovic’s music taps into abstract
emotional states, the quiet corners of the mind that are
obstructed in our hyperactive world. His most recent project is a
set of solo instrumental works inspired by abstract visual
artists and complementing the disquietude of the Covid pandemic.
His works have been performed by the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble,
the Empyrean Ensemble, the St.
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.
Ph.D. in composition and theory from UC Davis Bachelor's in Music from the Juilliard School
Chris Castro is a composer and double bassist from Brooklyn, New
York. His music has been described as “on par with Varèse,”
giving him the nickname “The New Colossus of Sound.” He is a
recipient of Chamber Music America’s 2021 Classical Commissioning
Award. His new work, Canções dos Desassossego (Songs of
Disquiet), will be written for the Lyris Quartet and soprano
Sharon Harms and premiered in 2023. His music has been performed
by Sharon Harms and the Composers Conference Ensemble under James
Baker (Two Songs from Brooklyn Narcissus), the St. Louis Symphony
under David Robertson (Choruses III), pianists Sarah Cahill and
Eric Zivian (IV-I), piano duo HereNowHear (Beethausenstro -
Castockhoven) and the Lydian String Quartet (Choruses IV). He is
the 2022 Guest Composer for the James Tenney Memorial Symposium,
composing and collaborating with the New Mexico Contemporary
Ensemble. He has lectured at UC Davis and Sacramento State
University and is currently faculty at Chapman University in
California. He has a Ph.D. in composition and theory from UC
Davis and a bachelor’s in music from the Juilliard School in both
double bass and composition.
Josiah Tayag Catalan (he/him) is a
Filipino-American composer born in New York City and raised in
the San Francisco Bay Area. Recently, his compositional interests
have become centered around discovering the intersects of
musics influenced by traditional, avant-garde, popular, and
indigenous Philippine musics.
Music Annex, Room 1108, 233 Cushing Way, Davis, CA 95616
Born in Taiwan, composer-performer Yu-Hsin CHANG earned her Ph.D.
in Composition and Music Theory from the University of
California, Davis. Since August 2024, she has served as a
full-time Assistant Professor at the Academy of Music at Macau
University of Science and Technology, where she teaches courses
such as Music Technology and Electronic Music Production. Prior
to her current position, Dr.
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. He is currently an Assistant
Professor at the Herberger Institute for Design and the
Arts, School of Music, Dance and Theater at Arizona State.
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 received a PhD in ethnomusicology from the
University of California, Davis and a BA from Evergreen State
College. He currently teaches at Chihlee University of Technology
in Taiwan. His dissertation research was on the music and poetry
of Odisha, India. His current research is on the history and
ideas of American pragmatism and behaviorism.
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.
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.
Andressa Gonçalves Vidigal is a Ph.D. student in musicology at
the University of California, Davis. She is Brazilian and grew up
in the city of Maringá, Paraná. She holds a bachelor’s degree in
music from Universidade Estadual de Maringá and a
master’sfrom University of California, Davis. Her
current studies are funded by the Brazilian agency CAPES
(Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel);
from whom she received the esteemed Doutorado Pleno (Full
Doctoral) Scholarship.
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.
Sarah Lappas received her Ph.D. in 2013 in Ethnomusicology with
research interests in African American and African popular music,
music and violence, multispatial criminalization, indexicality,
and musico-racial signification.
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 graduated in 2022 as a musicology PhD
student at UC Davis. Jonathan also 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 eighty pieces for orchestra, including over two
dozen first performances.
D.M.A., University of Missouri–Kansas City ConservatoryM.A., University of California, Davis (2016)B.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.
Serena Yang is a postdoctoral fellow for the Japan Society for
the Promotion of Science.
Her research interests include twentieth- and
twenty-first-century music, interdisciplinary studies, cultural
studies, and Asian music. Yang holds a bachelor’s degree in
violin from National Sun Yat-Sen University, Taiwan, and a
master’s degree in music history from the University of
Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music under Bruce McClung.
Miguel Petris is an arts administrator based in Boston, MA. In
Boston he earned his Master’s degree in Horn Performance from the
Longy School of Music of Bard College. He earned a
Bachelor of Arts in music performance at the University of
California, Davis. He believes that music is a bridge builder and
is able to connect humans across the world.
John Bologni graduated from UC Davis in 2013 with a BA in music
performance. As a student he was second chair double bass in the
UC Davis Symphony Orchestra. He now puts his musical
sensibilities to good use as an in-demand audio engineer in the
greater Sacramento area. He has mixed live performances for
crowds of over 1,000 people, recorded and mixed records reviewed
by Downbeat magazine, and recorded international
orchestral tours.
Courtney Castañeda is presently the Orchestra
Director at The University of Texas Elementary School and
Assistant Director at the University of Texas String
Project.
Richard Chowenhill is an award-winning composer and guitarist.
His music has been performed across North America by the Lydian
String Quartet, the Talujon Percussion Ensemble, the Beat City
Percussion Ensemble, the Wellesley Composers Conference
Orchestra, Music from China, members of the UC Davis Symphony
Orchestra, members of the UC Davis Early Music Ensemble, the
Davis Shakespeare Ensemble, and numerous other soloists and
ensembles. Originally from California, he has performed as a
guitar player in numerous California-based bands and chamber
ensembles.
After graduating, Front moved to Brooklyn, working for Boosey &
Hawkes as a part-time Database assistant and part-time at a small
non-profit called the Gruber Foundation. He eventually moved to
the Gruber Foundation full-time, then worked at a few different
non-profits, and in the past few years, has started specializing
in the Salesforce database.
Emma Gavenda was a harpsichord performance major
at UC Davis. She moved to Auckland, New Zealand, in 2017 and
joined The Graduate Choir NZ, a high-quality community choir,
immediately upon arrival. Since 2019, Emma has been working as
part of the fundraising team for the Auckland Philharmonia
Orchestra as their Trusts and Foundations Manager. When she’s not
singing or writing grant applications, she is exploring
Aotearoa—New Zealand’s immense natural beauty, by hiking,
kayaking, and swimming throughout the country.
After graduating from UC Davis, she completed a Master of Music
degree in flute performance at San Francisco State University and
has taken a number of professional auditions. She also
established a private teaching studio, which now includes about
twenty private students. Green frequently performs in chamber
music concerts around the Bay Area, and is now preparing to join
the San Jose Wind Symphony.
Jessica M. Gutierrez is an ethnomusicologist-in-training with
research interests in Mexico, Native American music, music in
video games, indigenous studies, music and identity, and
ethnography. She is fascinated by how native peoples in the
Americas not only maintain, but celebrate their traditions
through music and dance. In her current research, she is using
Diamond’s Alliance Studies Model (2007) as the primary
analytical framework to trace cultural and historical connections
to a famous Zapotec- Mexican song and dance.
Shawyon Malek-Salehi graduated from UC
Davis in 2014 with a double major in music (violin performance)
and pharmaceutical chemistry. He began studying the violin at the
age of five and was concertmaster of the UC Davis Symphony
Orchestra (UCDSO) from 2010 to 2013 and during their
international tour to Spain in 2012. He won the UCDSO Concerto
Competition in 2009, 2012, and 2013. At UC Davis, Malek studied
with Dan Flanagan and also participated in masterclasses with
Fritz Gearhart, Ida Kavafian, Rachel Barton Pine, David Halen,
and Gil Shaham.
Susanna Peeples earned her bachelor’s
degree from the UC Davis Music Department in 2009 and went
on to earn her master of music degree (in music
education) from the University of the Pacific. She has been
teaching choirs, piano, and guitar at Granite Bay High School.
Jonathan Pwu is now a band and orchestra director at his alma
mater, Saratoga High School in Saratoga, California. During
his time at Davis he assisted Pete Nowlen with the UC
Davis Concert Band and played clarinet.
“One of the best things about studying music at Davis was the
flexibility and support that the professors and staff gave
the students. They really consider your interests and
encourage student involvement beyond just playing in
an ensemble.”
Hari (“Indi”) Savitala graduated in 2003 from UC Davis with
a Bachelor of Arts in Music, focusing on percussion performance.
After hearing a lecture on acoustics and seeking advice from the
music faculty, he studied acoustics at Rensselaer Polytechnic
Institute (RPI) and graduated in 2006 with a Master of Sciences
degree in Architectural Sciences with a concentration in
Acoustics.
M.M., Percussion Performance – University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music (2010)B.A., Music Performance – UC Davis (2008)
Megan Shieh-Cruz is an active freelance
percussionist residing in the San Francisco Bay Area, devoted to
the performance of Western Contemporary Classical and
Afro-Caribbean percussion. She received her bachelor’s degree in
percussion performance from UC Davis, studying with Chris Froh, and her master of music
degree in percussion performance from the University of
Wisconsin-Madison School of Music in 2010 under the mentorship of
Anthony Di Sanza.
Zoe Kemmerling is a public interest lawyer and violist based in
Oakland, CA. From 2008 to 2017, she pursued an eclectic musical
career as a violist, Baroque violinist, writer, and administrator
in Boston and throughout the northeast. She was active in the
early music scene in Boston and New York City, playing regularly
with ensembles including Grand Harmonie, Les Bostonades, and
Trinity Baroque Orchestra. With three colleagues, she founded the
period-instrument Emergence Quartet, which was featured on NPR’s
On Point with Tom Ashbrook and at the Lincoln Center Library.
