Embedded Files
Interim Co-Chair
Dhiren Panikker
University of Maryland, College Park
Independent Researcher
Dhiren Panikker is Los Angeles-based pianist, composer, and scholar. His research examines brownness and the politics of intercultural improvisation in contemporary jazz. Dhiren holds a PhD in ethnomusicology from UC Riverside, an MFA in Integrated Composition, Improvisation, and Technology from the UC Irvine, and a B.M. in Jazz Studies from CSU Fullerton. His research has been published in Jazz & Culture, Jazz Perspectives, and the edited collection, The Improviser's Classroom: Pedagogies of Adaptive Performance, Social Engagement, and Creative Practice (forthcoming). He has presented his work at numerous international conferences including the Society for Ethnomusicology, International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation, and the International Association for the Study of Popular Music. Dhiren has held positions as a visiting lecturer at UC Riverside, Scripps College, Pomona College, and Cypress College. An active pianist and composer, Dhiren has performed at prominent venues throughout Los Angeles, and currently performs with his own group, Trio Sangha. Outside of performance, Dhiren maintains a studio of jazz piano students and conducts master classes and workshops throughout Southern California.
Interim Co-Chair
Dave Wilson
Te Kōkī New Zealand School of Music
Dave Wilson is Senior Lecturer and Director of the Jazz Performance Program at the New Zealand School of Music– Te Kōkī. His research interests include how music and sound relate to nationalism, belonging, power, intangible cultural heritage, transnational networks of taste, the construction of social space, and the nature of scenes. He is co-author, with Timothy Rice, of the music appreciation textbook Gateways to Understanding Music (Routledge, 2019), and his writing has also appeared in Music & Politics, Yearbook for Traditional Music, Commoning Ethnography, Arts, Leonardo Music Journal, Ethnomusicology Review, and Journal of World Popular Music. His work in southeast Europe has been supported by the ACLS (American Council of Learned Societies), the American Councils for International Education, and the Herb Alpert Foundation. Related to this research have been the premier of his work at the Days of Macedonian Music new music festival (here), collaborations with DJs in the Macedonian electronic music scene, and the album On the Face Place (SkyDeck Music, 2016) by CSPS Ensemble featuring a number of his compositions for small jazz ensemble. Dave's recent albums In Passing (SkyDeck Music, 2017) and SLANT (pfMENTUM, 2019), a series of original improvisation-based co-compositions on tenor saxophone with pianist Richard Valitutto, supported by the Aaron Copland Fund for Music.
Treasurer
Brendan Kent
Carleton University
Brendan Kent is enrolled in the Music and Culture program at Carleton University (Ottawa, ON, Canada) where he is completing his master’s thesis on real-time improvised music-making over the internet during COVID-19. His research interests include improvisation, participation, pedagogy, sound installations, and networked performance arts. Brendan is a guitarist and pianist with a zeal for teaching. In both his research and pedagogical practice, he is interested in how reflexivity impacts learning and creative outcomes. An active composer, his compositions are often inspired by polyrhythms, repetition, serialism, and symmetry. His short article titled “Prepared for the Worst . . . and the Best: The Mannlicher Carcano Radio Hour Continues Keeping People Together During COVID-19” has been published in the first issue of the Critical Studies in Improvisation special issue “Improvisation, Musical Communities, and the COVID-19 Pandemic.
Secretary
Jing Xia
Memorial University of Newfoundland
Jing Xia is a professional Chinese zheng/guzheng player and PhD candidate in ethnomusicology at Memorial University of Newfoundland. Her research focuses on the diasporic experiences of professional Chinese instrumentalists and their intercultural and transnational music-making in North America. Through practice-based research and autoethnography, she is now developing an improvisational practice as a zheng player as part of her dissertation work. Xia has published in Cultural Studies, Music Space, and SEM Student News. In 2018, she recorded a CD with vocalist Teresa Connors and electronic artist Jake Faraday. She also founded the Light Wind Ensemble, a St. John’s-based Chinese music group that aims to share Chinese musical culture and promote intercultural understanding and appreciation through their diverse repertoires, ranging from folk tunes and popular music to contemporary fusion compositions and improvisations.
Outgoing Chair
Siv B. Lie
University of Maryland, College Park
Siv B. Lie (“seev bee lee”; she/her) is assistant professor of music at the University of Maryland. Her research in ethnomusicology and linguistic anthropology explores relationships between cultural production, race, and politics. Her book, Django Generations: Hearing Ethnorace, Citizenship, and Jazz Manouche in France (University of Chicago Press, 2021), shows how music and language shape ethnoracial and national belonging among French Manouche (Romani/“Gypsy”) populations. She has published in Ethnomusicology, The Journal of the American Musicological Society, Popular Music and Society, Ethnic and Racial Studies, Jazz and Culture, and French Cultural Studies. She is co-founder and Principal Coordinator of the Initiative for Romani Music at New York University and a curator of the Music section of RomArchive. She is also a violinist, violist, and vocalist. Learn more about her work at sivblie.com.
External Liaison
Thomas Zlabinger
York College/CUNY
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse