Overview: 

While repertoire resources for conductors and musicians are readily available across many dimensions of interest, our understanding of the distribution of works and their performance trends over time is less well-developed. This strand of research explores the questions of who is writing, what they are writing, who is performing these works, as well as where and (potentially) why concentrations of performance activity manifest. 

Applications: 

• Historically Marginalized Composers at the 2022 Midwest Clinic

  • Commissioned by the Midwest Clinic

• Institute for Composer Diversity: Orchestral Seasons

  • Commissioned by the League of American Orchestras

• Diversity in State Music Lists: Dashboard

• The Midwest Clinic

  • 2021 Repertoire Diversity Dashboard

• Mexican Repertoire Initiative at Dartmouth College

Funded Grants: 

• 2021 | $3,000
  Bridging the Repertoire Divide: Expanding Composition Access and Opportunity in School Music Ensembles (Kathrine G. McGovern College of the Arts Impact Grant)

Overview:

Ensemble music offers a view of music performance situated within a dense, interactive network of interpersonal communication. Focusing on conducted ensembles in the Western tradition, this strand of research explores these interactions across ensemble types, experience levels, and performance contexts.

Publications:

• 2014 | Conductor gesture influences evaluations of ensemble performance

• 2018 | Questions of gesture and sound: Temporal interactions in conducted ensembles

• 2019 | The effects of temporal action-sound congruence on evaluations of conductor quality

• 2020 | The question of lag: An exploration of the relationship between conductor gesture and sonic response in instrumental ensembles 

Grants: 

• 2020 | Musician's affective response to expressive conductor gesture (Univ. of  Houston New Faculty Research Grant)

Overview: 

I have been fortunate to learn from and work with some masterful music educators in my career, many in ensemble settings. I am intensely interested in exploring the differences and similarities across what many would consider disparate approaches to teaching music in ensembles. Part in parcel with that, I am interested in the different ways these methods appear in the field, remixed and reimagined as bespoke solutions for different teachers, students, and communities.  

Publications: 

• Autonomy without anarchy: Peer interaction, learning, and musical growth in the school ensemble (2016)

Overview: 

Teaching is busy. Music teaching is especially busy. This area of inquiry is my attempt to adapt existing and useful tools from productivity literature to the needs and workflows of the average music teacher. 

Applications: 

• Building a Second (Music Teacher) Brain - TMEA 2022

• Mise en Place for the Busy Music Teacher - TMEA 2023

Overview: 

Effective lesson planning is critical to pre-service teacher training. However, learning to create developmentally appropriate lesson plans that address scope, sequence, assessment, and pacing can be challenging. For pre-service teachers in music education, these challenges are compounded by the breadth of musical disciplines included in their coursework, like Elementary General, Choral, Wind Band, Marching Band, Orchestra, Jazz, and Mariachi. As a result, developing lesson plans for University-based laboratory instruction is particularly daunting, even with best-practice-focused rubrics and instructional aids. The complexity of synthesizing the numerous threads of instruction, content, and context presents a unique challenge to the developing music teacher.

Funded Grants: 

• 2023 | $20,000
  "Development of an Interactive, AI-powered Lesson Planning Rubric System"
  (University of Houston Faculty and Department Instructional Support Teaching Innovation Program Grant)