Kenny Broberg
Kenny Broberg has become one of the most awarded and internationally recognized pianists of his generation. He won the silver medal at the 2017 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, the bronze medal at the 2019 International Tchaikovsky Competition, and the Christel DeHaan Classical Fellowship as the winner of the 2021 American Piano Awards. Mr. Broberg is widely praised for his inventive, intelligent, and intense interpretations.
After his first encounter with classical music through his Italian grandfather’s love for the Three Tenors, Mr. Broberg began piano lessons at the age of 6 on the family upright piano. Raised in Minneapolis, he started formal piano studies with Dr. Joseph Zins at Crocus Hill Studios in Saint Paul. In 2016, he earned his Bachelor of Music degree from the Moores School of Music at the University of Houston, where he studied with Nancy Weems. He later continued his studies at Park University in Parkville, Missouri. Deeply committed to teaching, he has served as artist-in-residence at Indiana University, associate professor of piano at the Reina Sofía School of Music in Madrid, and professor of piano at the Katarina Gurska Centro Superior de Música.
Having performed on stages and in concert halls across five continents, Mr. Broberg has collaborated with many of the world’s most respected conductors, including Ludovic Morlot, Kent Nagano, Leonard Slatkin, Vasily Petrenko, Nicholas Milton, John Storgårds, Michael Sanderling, Carlos Miguel Prieto, Alexander Sladkowsky, Gerard Schwarz, and Nicholas McGegan. He has appeared with numerous orchestras, including the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the symphony orchestras of Minnesota, Montreal, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Sydney, Seattle, and Fort Worth, among many others. He is also a passionate chamber musician, both as a performer and educator. His chamber music partners include the Dover, Guarneri, Escher, Calidore, and Goldberg String Quartets, as well as numerous duo collaborations. Mr. Broberg has been featured on WQXR, Performance Today, Minnesota Public Radio, and ABC (Australia). He is increasingly active as a composer and conductor, and presented his original composition Barcarolle on NPR in March 2021.
His recordings have been released on Decca Gold, Warner Classics, the Steinway label, and Universal Music Australia. His album Songbird, recorded with violinist Maria Ioudenitch, received the Chamber Music Recording Award at the 2023 Opus Klassik Awards. His most recent album was recorded with violinist Sara Dragan and is titled Godowsky: Timeless.
Jinjoo Cho
Violinist Jinjoo Cho is a versatile classical virtuoso of the 21st Century. 1st Prize Winner of the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis in addition to Montréal, Buenos Aires, Schoenfeld, and Stulberg International Competitions, Jinjoo has performed on concert stages worldwide since the age of 11. Today, she continues to captivate audiences at renowned venues and festivals such as Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium, the Aspen Music Festival, the Gilmore Festival, La Jolla Music Society’s Summerfest, the Banff Centre, Festival de Lanaudière, La Seine Musicale, the Kronberg Academy, Schwetzingen Festspiele, Herkulessaal, Teatro Colón, and the Seoul Arts Center.
A charismatic soloist, Jinjoo has appeared with leading orchestras such as The Cleveland Orchestra, Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, Deutsche Radio Philharmonic, Orquesta Clásica Santa Cecilia de Madrid, Ensemble Appassionato, Seoul Philharmonic, North Carolina, Phoenix, and Charlotte Symphonies, collaborating with renowned conductors such as James Gaffigan,
Kent Nagano, JoAnn Falletta, Karina Canellakis, Mathieu Herzog, Peter Oundjian, Michael Stern, Tito Munoz, Michael Francis, Moritz Gnann, Shi-Yeon Sung, Pietari Inkinen, and Clemens Schuldt. Jinjoo has deep love and appreciation for the chamber music repertoire, and cherishes sharing the stage with prominent artists of the globe such as Gary Hoffman, Andreas Ottensamer, Ray Chen, Itamar Golan, Roger Tapping, Jaime Laredo, Sharon Robinson, Vadim Gluzman, and Clive Greensmith. In 2021, Jinjoo formed Trio Seoul with pianist Kyu Yeon Kim and cellist Brannon Cho.
In addition to being an active performer, Jinjoo is a dedicated educator. She is currently an Associate Professor of Violin at the Bienen School of Music at Northwestern University. Her previous teaching positions include the Schulich School of Music at McGill University, Cleveland Institute of Music, and Oberlin Conservatory. Jinjoo frequently serves on the jury panels of international competitions such as the Sibelius Competition (Finland, 2025), Indianapolis Competition (USA, 2022), and Schoenfeld Competition (China, 2024), as well as on screening committees for the Isang Yun Competition (Korea, 2024), Premio Paganini (Italy, 2023), and Montréal Competition (Canada, 2019). Her commitment to nurturing young musicians is inspired by her own mentors, Paul Kantor and Jaime Laredo.
Jinjoo’s dedication to music extends beyond performance and teaching. In 2015, she founded the ENCORE Chamber Music Institute in Cleveland, Ohio, a summer festival and seasonal residency series that brings together international artists and talented students for intensive learning and performance experience. Her creative ventures also include commissioning new works from composers Juri Seo and Andrew Rindfleisch, as well as collaborating with artists from other disciplines, such as dancer/choreographer Jinyeob Cha. In 2021, her debut book, Shine Someday, became a bestseller on major Korean book platforms.
A distinguished recording artist, Jinjoo has released six albums: Novella (SONY), Toy Store (Carrier Records), Saint-Saëns (Naïve Classique), La Capricieuse (SONY Classical), The Indianapolis Commissions (Azica), and Jinjoo Cho (Analekta). Described as “a delectable curtain-raiser” (Strad Magazine) and “finest silk thread of a violin tone” (Rondo Magazine), Jinjoo’s discography has garnered critical acclaim worldwide as well as commercial success.
Sasha Kasman
Pianist Sasha Kasman Laude’s playing is praised by critics as “subjectively inflected” (International Piano), “powerful and vivid” (Palm Beach Arts Review), and having “such an abundance of intelligence that it can only be described as relentless” (Ludwig Van Toronto). An internationally active performer and teacher, Kasman Laude has given solo recitals at Steinway Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Yamaha Ginza Hall (Tokyo), Salle Cortot (Paris), and in twelve cities across Italy. A 2019-2020 Young Artist-in-Residence of National Public Radio’s Performance Today, Kasman Laude’s playing and interviews have been broadcast on NPR stations nationwide. Kasman Laude is a prizewinner of numerous competitions, including the 2022 Honens International Piano Competition. One of five finalists of the 2025 American Pianists Awards, Kasman Laude recently performed Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto with the Indianapolis Symphony under the baton of JoAnn Falleta and Nikolai Medtner’s Piano Quintet with the Dover Quartet. This past season also featured return solo engagements for the Ilse Newell Concert Series and Brevard Symphony Orchestra in Florida, and serving on the jury of the Los Angeles
International Liszt Competition. Upcoming major performances include solo recitals at Utah State in Logan, the Chopin Foundation of the United States (Key Biscayne, FL), USU Eastern, and the University of New Hampshire.
Since her debut at 13 with the Alabama Symphony, Kasman Laude has been a soloist with the National Symphony and National Philharmonic of Ukraine, Juilliard Orchestra, Calgary Philharmonic, Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, Dayton Philharmonic, and the symphony orchestras of Ann Arbor, Brevard, Hendersonville, Huntsville, Southern Adventist University, and University of Michigan. Kasman Laude is also an enthusiastic chamber musician, collaborating with such distinguished players as Martin Beaver, Blake Pouliot, Doori Na, Timotheos Gavriilidis-Petrin, New York Chamber Players, and the Viano, Aeolus, and Fry Street quartets. Sasha and her father Yakov Kasman have been an internationally touring piano duo for fourteen years. She is an advocate and experienced performer of contemporary music, premiering works of living composers Stewart Goodyear, Thomas Cabaniss, Marc Migó, Nathan Daughtrey, Zachary Detrick, Brittany J. Green, and Eric Mobley.
Kasman Laude is a guest artist, teacher, and adjudicator at summer festivals including IKIF, The Odyssiad, pianoSonoma, Vivace, Southeastern, USU, and Fry Street Summer Festivals, Kyiv International Summer Academy (Ukraine), Busan International Music Academy (South Korea), and PianoCity Milano (Italy). She has lectured and given masterclasses at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Calgary, Lee University, Bowling Green State University, and Wisconsin Conservatory of Music. A past Fellow of PianoArts of Wisconsin, Kasman Laude greatly enjoys music outreach and has given over one hundred educational performances in schools and community venues.
Kasman Laude is a native of Moscow, Russia and comes from a musical family. Throughout her childhood and undergraduate studies at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, she was a student of her father Yakov Kasman. She went on to earn an MM degree from the Juilliard School with Robert McDonald, and in 2023 received her DMA from the University of Michigan, where she was the studio assistant of Logan Skelton and recipient of the School of Music, Theater, and Dance's top graduation honor, the Earl V. Moore Award. The same year, Kasman Laude joined the faculty of Utah State University’s Caine School of the Arts as Assistant Professor of Piano in the Department of Music. She regularly performs alongside her distinguished colleagues and the American Festival Chorus and Orchestra, has twice been a soloist with the USU Symphony Orchestra, conducts dozens of pianists in the Youth Conservatory’s annual Monster Concerts, and host the popular Music Box Concert Series for pre-schoolers. Dr. Kasman Laude is an honored recipient of Utah State’s 2025 USU Caine College of the Arts Community Engaged Faculty Award and the 2026 USU ArtSci Distinction in Creativity Award.
Kasman Laude considers teaching a calling and is dedicated to upholding the legacy of serious pianistic education of her own musical lineage. She emphasizes stylistic clarity rooted in academic study and values the expressive traditions of the Russian school, as well as pianistic health informed by the Taubman approach and Alexander Technique. She regularly adjudicates and gives masterclasses for local and state organizations in Utah. At Utah State, Dr. Kasman Laude teaches a studio of undergraduate piano majors and graduate students, and courses in piano literature, collaborative piano, and special topics in performance and pedagogy. Her students have won local, state, and national competitions.
Marie Engle
Thriving in her thirties, Marie Engle is a performer, educator and creative pursuing opera, improv comedy and experimental combinations of the two to make you laugh, cry, and think. Hopefully.
In the realm of classical music, Marie has performed opera, art song, improvisation, and chamber music, as well as producing concerts and teaching. She has always been loud, so she found a good outlet for that with opera. She made a smash debut as Dorabella with OperaDelaware in 2022, where she was lauded for “excellent mugging.” She also graced the stage as Donna Elvira with Wichita Grand Opera, Ramiro in La finta giardiniera with Juilliard Opera, and Romeo in I Capuleti e i Montecchi at the Chautauqua Institution. She spent two summers at the Marlboro Music Festival and School being very silly, cleaning toilets and also performing Hindemith, Loeffler, Schumann, Reger, and Brahms classics in the Potash Hill Concert Hall. No cigarettes or potato hashes were harmed or involved. In 2018, she sang her first Pierrot Lunaire at Juilliard’s Chamberfest and dazzled Halifax audiences in 2023 with the same piece with Inner Space Concerts.
Marie uses narrative, comedy and improvisation to elaborate the classical repertoire in home, church, and concert hall spaces. She loves an inexpensively producible project that is also fun and good. Some projects have included From a Bulb: Regrowth After Loss, an autobiographical concert project performed outdoors in 2021, and La voix humaine: Experimenting with Improvised Monologue, an operatic performance for an American audience without translations provided in 2025. Both of those shows were pretty intense and sad, so Marie is currently working on a comedy show and other projects that combine improvisatory comedy forms with classical music to enhance musical story-telling in a contemporary context. On top of needing lots of attention as a performer, Marie is also a nerd who needs lots of attention.
Marie has a Bachelor of Music from Northwestern University, a Master of Music from the Juilliard School with Marlena Malas, and is currently pursuing a Doctorate of Musical Arts back at Northwestern with W. Stephen Smith. She spent two years working in Vienna, a year studying in Paris, and a summer teaching in Florence. She looks forward to having a real job some day. Marie also completed the first year sequence of improv comedy training at the notorious Second City Training Center (in both Brooklyn and Chicago).
Marie teaches singing to a diverse body of students, focusing on everything from classical choral repertoire to Japanese Pop to Greek Orthodox church music. In 2021, Marie’s students, sibling trio Girl Named Tom, won NBC’s reality singing competition The Voice. Not to be confused with her project La voix humaine. They are not the same thing.
In her free time, Marie loves to cook, go thrift-shopping, and drink fancy Japanese tea.
James Kang
Violist James Kang is an inviting performer and artist-teacher who creates meaningful connections with audiences across the U.S. and abroad. James is the founding violist of the Abeo Quartet which was formed at Juilliard in 2018 and has been featured at Alice Tully Hall, The Kennedy Center, and Norway’s Vertavo Festival. James is currently pursuing his DMA studies at Northwestern University as the Teaching Assistant of Prof. Helen Callus, and received his bachelor’s degree at the Juilliard School as a proud recipient of a Kovner Fellowship.
As a soloist, James won the American Opera Society of Chicago Centennial Award and top prizes at the American Viola Society Solo Competition and the ASTA National Solo Competition. In 2023, he performed Hindemith’s Der Schwanendreher Viola Concerto with the University of Delaware Symphony Orchestra. James performs with orchestras such as ProMusic Chamber Orchestra and Chicago Philharmonic, and has served as Principal Violist for the Juilliard and Symphony in C orchestras.
As an avid chamber musician, James has collaborated with musicians such as Itzhak Perlman, Joseph Kalichstein, Donald Weilerstein, Calidore String Quartet and Dover Quartet. Recent highlights for Abeo Quartet include returning to perform at the Kennedy Center and being the 2023-24 Ernst Stiefel String Quartet-in-Residence at Caramoor which entailed a yearlong residency that included outreach to young listeners. In June 2025, Abeo will be returning to Bad Tölz, Germany to give recitals after winning a prize at the Bad Tölz International String Quartet Competition in 2023.
James is devoted to teaching and is currently on the Chamber Music Faculty of Music Institute of Chicago. In 2019, he taught young violists in Brazil as a guest faculty artist in partnership with Guri Santa Marcelina. Dedicated to cultivating joy in his audiences, James is also active in community outreach and has participated in engagement concerts with Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Meet the Music!, “If Music Be the Food…,” and United Nations Chamber Music Society. His festival appearances include Music@Menlo, Perlman Music Program, Aspen Music Festival, NYO-USA, Yellow Barn YAP, and La Jolla SummerFest.
Luiz Fernando Venturelli
Luiz Fernando Venturelli is a Brazilian cellist gaining recognition as one of the most compelling young artists of his generation. Known for his versatility, technical command, and expressive depth, he appears regularly across the Americas, Europe, and Asia as a soloist, chamber musician, and pedagogue.
A recipient of Brazil’s 2025 Citi Award, Luiz has earned numerous distinctions, including the $50,000 Gurrena Fellowship from the Meadowmount School of Music and First Prize at the Astral Artists National Competition. He has also been recognized at the 24th Sphinx Competition, the Paulo Bosisio Competition, and the Samuel & Eleanor Thaviu Competition, as well as concerto competitions with the Goiás Philharmonic and the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra.
Luiz made his solo debut at the age of nine at Sala São Paulo and has since appeared with orchestras including the Peninsula Music Festival, the Bahia Symphony, Goiás Philharmonic, Espírito Santo Symphony, Campinas Symphony, Piracicaba Symphony, Heliópolis Symphony, São Paulo University Symphony, and the SESI Chamber Orchestra. In 2023, he premiered a cello concerto by Jorge Grossmann with the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra.
As a chamber musician, Luiz is a founding member of the Galvin Cello Quartet, an award-winning ensemble managed by DininArts. He is also a founding member and Artistic Director of the Swan International Music Festival, a pedagogical initiative based in Singapore that brings together emerging artists and leading international faculty.
Born into a musical family in São Paulo, Luiz began his studies at Instituto Baccarelli. He earned his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from Northwestern University, graduating with Honors Distinction under Hans Jørgen Jensen, and is currently pursuing his Doctor of Musical Arts at Northwestern.
Luiz performs on an 1850 Giovanni Dollenz cello, generously loaned by anonymous donors. He is represented in Latin America by ArteMatriz Artists and Projects, and his principal teachers include André Micheletti and Hans Jørgen Jensen.
Chihiro Kakishima
Japanese-American violinist Chihiro Kakishima has worked with orchestras across the U.S. and Japan, including the Rochester Philharmonic, Syracuse Symphony, Sapporo Symphony, Ann Arbor Symphony, and the Lansing Symphony Orchestras. Most recently, Chihiro was appointed to section violin in the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. Concerto engagements with the Ann Arbor Symphony and Michigan Pops Orchestras garnered her appearances in Hill Auditorium and the Michigan Theater. Summer festival appearances include Pacific Music Festival, Colorado College, Sarasota Music Festival, Bach Virtuosi Festival, and Chautauqua Summer
Festival, the last three of which she served as concertmaster, principal second, or assistant concertmaster.
She held a Visiting Assistant Professorship at the Crane School of Music at the State University of New York – Potsdam in 2024 and can be found teaching in various other capacities, including teaching college students at the Eastman School of Music, coaching chamber groups at the University of Rochester’s chamber music program, and teaching privately a variety of age groups.
After attending the University of Michigan for her Bachelors’ degree – double majoring in violin performance with Aaron Berofsky and biomolecular science with an international studies minor – she received her Master of Music degree from the Eastman School of Music. She served as teaching assistant to Renée Jolles since entering
the school in 2020 and received her Doctor of Musical Arts degree in May of 2026.
Robert Levinger
Pianist Robert (Bobby) Levinger possesses the qualities of humility, honesty, and confidence as an artist. He has been praised for bringing depth, conviction, and authenticity in his performances. He plays “with considerable dramatic flair, thunderous power, dazzling speed and technical excellence” (The People’s Critic). Robert feels well at home in a wide variety of musical situations, whether it be solo, concerto, or chamber. As founder and artistic director of the Medtner Festival of America, Robert is thrilled to be bringing his passion project to life in the Chicago area, establishing Chicago as a hub for Medtner performance and scholarship in the United States.
As a soloist, Robert’s performances have taken him across the U.S., England, Spain, and Japan. Recent solo venues of note include: Overture Hall of Madison, WI; Trianon Theatre of San Jose, CA; Roussel Hall of New Orleans, LA; White Rock Theatre of Hastings, UK; and Palau de la Música Catalana, Barcelona, Spain. In the past, Robert’s performances have also been broadcast on WPR in Wisconsin. Sponsored by the Maria Canals Piano Competition, he gave a recital and masterclass tour in Barcelona, playing outside historic Camp Nou and for the president of FC Barcelona in the process.
Recent awards and honors include being named a national finalist in the MTNA Steinway and Sons Young Artist Competition, and a semi-finalist in the 2017 San Jose and 2018 New Orleans International Piano Competitions. His years of study in Texas also garnered him great successes, as he medaled in the Young Texas Artists’, Houston Tuesday Musical, San Antonio Young Artist, and TMTA Collegiate Competitions.
Since his orchestral concerto debut at age 14, Robert has been recognized for his concerto playing, engaging with orchestras around the U.S., including the Madison Symphony, Mississippi Valley, Austin Symphony, Moores Symphony, and La Crosse Symphony Orchestras. His performance of the Grieg Concerto with the Madison Symphony in Overture Hall was presented live on Wisconsin Public Television and Radio. Most recently, following success in 2019 performing Prokofiev’s First Piano Concerto, Robert received a return engagement with the La Crosse Symphony Orchestra, performing Beethoven’s Fourth Concerto on multiple occasions.
He has performed in solo masterclasses for artists including Paul Lewis, Boris Berman, Anton Nel, Boris Slutsky, Abbey Simon, Lang Lang, Alessio Bax, and Ignat Solzhenitsyn. In addition, he has performed in chamber masterclasses for the Takács Quartet, Joel Krosnick, Ieva Jokubaviciute, Raman Ramakrishnan, duo526, and the Claremont Trio.
Chamber playing has come to define much of Robert’s musical personality. Completing an additional Masters’ degree in Chamber Music from the University of Michigan, he was twice invited to the historic Kneisel Chamber Music Festival in Maine, performing trios, quartets, and quintets in 2019 and 2021. In 2022, Robert completed a five-month chamber residency – known as Lincoln Center Stage – aboard a Holland America Line cruise ship, performing as part of a piano quartet ensemble. Six days a week, Robert performed solo, duo, trios, and quartets while traversing the seas and meeting people from around the world. Following this "high-seas adventure," Robert was twice selected as a fellow at the Yale School of Music’s Norfolk Chamber Festival, performing in the season’s six-week program of music spanning from Baroque to Contemporary.
In 2018, Robert also co-founded BrioChe Duo with violinist Chihiro Kakishima. Together, their performances have taken them around the world, most recently the Eastman School of Music in the U.S. and performance venues in Kanagawa Prefecture in Japan. Together, the duo has also specialized in the violin works of Medtner, exploring his violin sonatas in recitals at the University of Michigan, duo526’s Sonata Seminar at Indiana University, the Eastman School of Music, and throughout Chicagoland.
As a teacher, Robert taught at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University as an Associate Instructor of Piano. At the Yale School of Music, like at IU, he also taught piano to non-major college students as a secondary lessons instructor. In addition to these higher education positions, he was a faculty member at the Stamford Music and Arts Academy in southwest Connecticut and maintains a private piano studio in-person and on Zoom. Currently, Robert is an associate teaching instructor at Northwestern University's Bienen School of Music.
Robert has studied with notable teachers including Nancy Weems, Logan Skelton, Roberto Plano, Wei-Yi Yang, James Giles, and Paul Wirth. Aside from music, Robert can usually be found playing word games or watching the latest Star Wars television show. During the American football season, he bleeds green and gold, fanatically supporting his home state’s Green Bay Packers. An animal lover, Robert also has been called a cat whisperer by some, falling hopelessly in love with felines of any kind and any place.
Inna Naroditskaya
I began my musical career as a performing pianist and musicologist in the former Soviet Union, and immigrating to the US, completed my PhD in ethnomusicology at the University of Michigan. As an ethnomusicologist, historian, and performer, with professional and personal experiences worldwide, I am curious about and invested in a variety of scholarly inquiries.
Viewing music as an active force in politics, I wrote my first book, Song from the Land of Fire: Azerbaijani Mugham in the Soviet and Post-Soviet Periods (2006) on Azerbaijani music as an insight into turbulent transitions over the last hundred years – from an outskirt of the Russian empire, to the Soviet revolution, through the socialist period, to independent Azerbaijan. In doing so, I analyzed Azerbaijani improvised mugham, composed music, jazz, and popular culture, exploring gender dynamics, and political aspirations within networks of local families.
Music and gender is a major theme in my research. When I wrote on Russian music and theater, the topic of women, music, and politics surged powerfully from the material itself. This research culminated in my second book, Bewitching Russian Opera: The
Empress from State to Stage (2012). This volume on Catherine II’s conspicuously “forgotten” operas has been reviewed as a work of “revisionism” that gives “lovers of Russian opera really spicy food for thought” (Taruskin) and as an “exciting and path-breaking study that should change the way we look at Russian opera, gender and the course of modern Russian cultural history” (Levitt). “In the boldness of her writing, Inna Naroditskaya in some ways resembles Catherine the Great,” writes O’Malley.
Experimenting with methods of historical ethnomusicology, I wrote about serf actresses in Russia’s private theater and about magical operas populated by mermaids. Allured by Russian magical rusalkas (water sprites) and their sublime operatic voices, I became also enchanted by sirens from varied waters in the volume I co-edited with Linda Austern, Music of the Sirens (2006). Active in the International Council for Traditional Music (ICTM), I have served as an author and co-editor of two volumes produced by the Music and Minority group (of ITCM)– Manifold Identities (2004) and Music and Minorities (2018).
Attempting to connect different parts of my professional and personal life as a musician and an immigrant, I felt committed and fortunate to assemble an amazing team of contributors for my edited volume, Music of Diasporic Weddings in the US (2018). This book comprises chapters on Roma weddings in New York, klezmer in Baltimore, Arabic wedding music across American cities, Indian wedding musicians, and American Latina weddings. It also includes cases of authoethnography written by bride/ethnomusicologists and chapters by musicians playing at weddings.
Currently I am preparing the first annotated English translation of Catherine II’s operas while planning my next ethnographic fieldwork. Among many articles and chapters I have written, some relate to my major research areas, and others don’t. Years ago, Ethnomusicology Forum published my much thought-about and experimented-with article, a cross-domain comparison of “Mugham and Carpet.” Music and Minorities Around the World includes my chapter, “Jews, Jazz, Early Cinema in America and Stalin’s Russia” (2012). Most recently, Gli spazi della musica (Universita degli Studi di Torino) published my essay, “Is Argentine tango Russian, and How Jewish is Russian Tango?” which draws together many strands of my research with other interests, including the new ones on the history and ethnography of tango.
I have presented nationally and internationally, recently at UC Berkeley, The University of Michigan, The University of Chicago, The Ethnology Institute in Osaka, and Hebrew University. I have served as a member of program committees for the International Council for Traditional Music and for the Society for Ethnomusicology, chaired SEM’s European Study Group and a number of conference panels.
I was fortunate to receive several rewarding fellowships – a Rockefeller Bellagio Scholarly Residency, the Harvard University Davis Senior Fellowship, and a University of Michigan Rackham research grant. In addition to scholarship, I have written articles and OpEds for a wide readership in The Huffington Post, The Washington Post, and Pacific Standard.
Several of my former students are now my colleagues, successful scholars and performers within American academe. My teaching reflects my curiosity and appetite for exciting new explorations, in my classes on Music and Islam, European pop culture, Russian Modernism, and others.