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In this episode, I chat with Dr. Annie Hsieh. Annie Hui-Hsin Hsieh is a Taiwanese-Australian composer working in acoustic and electroacoustic music, known for creating vivid sonic experiences shaped by space, gesture, and social interaction. Her works have been presented internationally at major festivals and venues including MATA, ISCM World Music Days, Adelaide Festival, Huddersfield Festival of Contemporary Music, and the Seoul International Computer Music Festival, and she has received commissions from ensembles and institutions such as the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Lucerne Festival, and ELISION Ensemble. She is the recipient of awards including the APRA Art Music Fund and the Belegura Composer Award, and is currently Associate Professor of electronic music and composition at Carnegie Mellon University.

In this episode, I chat with Professor Andrew Waggoner. Professor Waggoner is a composer whose vivid, dramatic style has earned praise from The New Yorker as "the gifted practitioner of a complex but dramatic and vividly colored style." His music has been commissioned and performed by major ensembles including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Academy of St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields, JACK Quartet, Corigliano Quartet, and international groups such as Ensemble Accroche Note and the Rudersdal Kammersolister. A recipient of the American Academy of Arts and Letters Academy Award, Guggenheim Fellowship, and Fromm Foundation commission, his recordings include Quantum Memoir on Bridge Records and Terror and Memory on Albany Records. He currently teaches composition and improvisation at Duke University and serves as Co-Artistic Director of the Weekend of Chamber Music.

In this episode, I chat with Professor Pascal Le Boeuf. Professor Le Boeuf is a GRAMMY-winning composer, jazz pianist, and producer whose music blends improvised performance with chamber writing and technology-driven production. Praised by the New York Times for his sleek, hyper-fluent style, he has been commissioned by ensembles and organizations including Akropolis Reed Quintet, Alarm Will Sound, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, and New World Symphony. He is an Assistant Professor of Music at MIT and holds a Ph.D. in composition from Princeton University.

In this episode, I chat with Professor David S. Lefkowitz. Professor Lefkowitz is a composer, theorist, and professor at UCLA whose music has been performed widely across the United States, Europe, and Asia. His more than 150 works range from solo and chamber pieces to large-scale music for choir, orchestra, and wind ensemble, and his compositions have appeared on over twenty commercial recordings. He has taught composition, orchestration, and music theory at UCLA for more than three decades, where he has also served in departmental leadership roles. His training includes degrees from Cornell University, the University of Pennsylvania, and the Eastman School of Music.

In this episode, I chat with Professor Eran Egozy. Professor Egozy is Professor of the Practice in Music Technology at MIT, an entrepreneur, clarinetist, and technologist best known as co-founder and chief technical officer of Harmonix Music Systems, the company behind Guitar Hero and Rock Band, which sold over 35 million units worldwide and generated over $1 billion in annual sales. Named in Time Magazine's Time 100 and Fortune's Top 40 Under 40, he now leads MIT's Music Technology and Computation Graduate Program, with research focused on interactive music systems, music information retrieval, and multimodal musical engagement. His recent projects include the audience-participation works 12 and Tutti, and ConcertCue, a program-note streaming app featured in concerts of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and awarded a Knight Foundation grant. As a clarinetist, he performs with Radius Ensemble and has appeared with Emmanuel Music and A Far Cry.

In this episode, I chat with Professor Jason Yust. Professor Yust is a music theorist and professor at Boston University whose research spans mathematical theories of rhythm and harmonic spaces, Schenkerian analysis, eighteenth-century form, music perception, and scale theory. His 2018 book Organized Time: Rhythm, Tonality, and Form received the Society for Music Theory's Wallace Berry Award in 2019, and his articles have appeared in the Journal of Music Theory, Music Theory Spectrum, Music Analysis, and the Journal of Mathematics and Music, among other journals. He is co-Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Mathematics and Music and has served the Society for Music Theory in multiple capacities, including as founder and former chair of its Mathematics of Music Analysis interest group. He holds a Ph.D. in Music Theory from the University of Washington and a B.A. from Brown University.

In this episode, I chat with Professor Gundula Kreuzer. Professor Kreuzer is a musicologist and Professor at Yale University whose research spans the history and theory of opera, staging technologies, media archaeology, music in the Third Reich, and contemporary experimental opera. Her first book, Verdi and the Germans: From Unification to the Third Reich (Cambridge University Press, 2010), won the Lewis Lockwood Award from the American Musicological Society and the Gaddis Smith International Book Prize, and her second, Curtain, Gong, Steam: Wagnerian Technologies of Nineteenth-Century Opera (University of California Press, 2018), explores how composers shaped staged opera through specific theatrical technologies. She is a member of the Academia Europaea and recipient of the Royal Musical Association's Dent Medal, the Alfred Einstein Award, and multiple other honors. At Yale, she founded the YOST: Y | Opera | Studies Today conference series and leads the Opera Studies Today Working Group, fostering dialogue between artists, scholars, and administrators in the field.

In this episode, I chat with Professor Wolfgang Marx. Professor Marx is Professor of Historical Musicology at University College Dublin and a member of the UCD Humanities Institute, whose research centers on the representation of death in music, György Ligeti, post-truth and music, and the theory of musical genres. He has served multiple terms as Head of the UCD School of Music and has held editorial roles such as the Journal of the Society for Musicology in Ireland. An inaugural UCD Innovation Fellow, he is currently President of the Society for Musicology in Ireland and a general editor of Brill's series "Death in History, Culture, and Society." Before entering academia, he worked for a decade as a freelance author and product manager for major labels including Sony, Teldec, and BMG.

In this episode, I chat with Mr. Derek David. Mr. David is a composer, conductor, and educator based in Boston whose work spans dramatic chamber, vocal, and orchestral music as well as a deep commitment to Yiddish musical culture. He is currently Lecturer in Music at MIT and serves as musical director and conductor of "A Besere Velt," the largest chorus dedicated to the performance and preservation of Yiddish repertoire. His music has been commissioned by ensembles including the Juventas Ensemble, Verona Quartet, and Del Sol String Quartet, and featured at the LA Philharmonic's Noon to Midnight Festival and the Boston Festival for New Jewish Music. His honors include the American Prize in Composition (Chamber Music, 2015), the EAMA Nadia Boulanger Institute Prize, and a Morton Gould ASCAP Award, and he holds doctoral and master's degrees from the New England Conservatory of Music.

In this episode, I chat with Professor Oscar Bettison. Professor Bettison is a British-American composer and faculty member in the Composition Department at the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University, where he has taught since 2009. Described as possessing "an unconventional lyricism and a menacing beauty," his music bridges the worlds of concert music and beyond, and has been featured in the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, and broadcast on radio and television across the U.S., Britain, Australia, the Netherlands, and Brazil. He has received commissions from the Los Angeles Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Alarm Will Sound, MusikFabrik, Bang on a Can All-Stars, and So Percussion, among others, and his honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Royal Philharmonic Society Prize, and the inaugural BBC Young Composer of the Year Prize. He holds a Ph.D. from Princeton University and studied previously at the Royal College of Music in London and the Royal Conservatorium of The Hague.

In this episode, I chat with Professor Forrest Pierce. Professor Pierce is a composer and Associate Professor of Composition at the University of Kansas whose music blends religious mysticism, contemporary virtuosity, and a deep affinity for the human voice. Sincere, often triadic, and blatantly tuneful, his work draws on non-western traditions, rock-era influences, and common-practice harmony to evoke a world of sacred unity and natural beauty. His catalog of over 50 vocal works has been performed internationally by ensembles including the BBC Singers, the Latvian Radio Choir, Volti, the Indianapolis Symphony, and the Boston Choral Ensemble, and he is the winner of the 2012 Barlow Prize in Composition, among other honors. Professor Pierce holds a doctorate from Indiana University and studied opera composition with Dominick Argento at the University of Minnesota, and he also serves on the faculty of the Cortona Sessions for New Music in Tuscany.

In this episode, I chat with Professor Kelly Bylica. Professor Bylica is a music education scholar and faculty member at Boston University whose research focuses on curriculum and policy, critical pedagogy, middle school music, and issues of diversity, access, and leadership in music education. Grounded in her experience as a middle school and K-8 general music and choir teacher in Chicago, her work encourages music educators to challenge assumptions and develop critically artistic dispositions through musical experience. She has published in journals including Music Education Research, British Journal of Music Education, Arts Education Policy Review, and the Journal for Popular Music Education, and contributed chapters to the Oxford Handbook of Music Composition and Oxford Handbook of Care in Music Education, among other volumes. She serves on the editorial committees of Music Educators Journal and Journal of Popular Music Education, chairs the Council for Research and Teacher Education for the Massachusetts Music Educators Association, and holds a Ph.D. in Music Education from the University of Western Ontario, where she was a Trillium Scholar.

In this episode, I chat with Professor Felipe Lara. Professor Lara is a Brazilian-American composer and Associate Professor of Composition at the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University, praised by the New York Times as "a gifted Brazilian-American modernist" whose music possesses "voluptuous, elemental lyricism." A 2024 Pulitzer Prize finalist for his Double Concerto for esperanza spalding, Claire Chase, and orchestra, his works have been commissioned and performed by leading ensembles and orchestras including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Ensemble InterContemporain, Ensemble Modern, JACK Quartet, and the International Contemporary Ensemble, at venues ranging from Carnegie Hall to Walt Disney Concert Hall and the Philharmonie de Paris. His honors include a Radcliffe Institute Fellowship from Harvard University, the Ernst von Siemens Musikstiftung commission, and the Koussevitzky Music Foundation commission, and three portrait albums of his music were released on Kairos (Vienna) in 2024 and 2025. He holds a Ph.D. from New York University and has previously taught at Harvard, the University of Chicago, Boston Conservatory at Berklee, and NYU.

In this episode, I chat with Mr. Adam Boyles. Mr. Boyles is a conductor and vocalist who has been a prominent figure in New England's musical life for nearly two decades. He serves as Assistant Conductor of the Hartford Symphony Orchestra and Director of Orchestras at MIT, and is Music Director Emeritus of the Brookline Symphony Orchestra. A versatile presence on the podium, Mr. Boyles made his Boston Pops debut in June 2024 stepping in for Keith Lockhart, and has guest conducted ensembles including the Springfield Symphony Orchestra, Long Beach Symphony Orchestra, and Tucson Symphony Orchestra. He holds a Doctor of Music in Orchestral Conducting from the University of Texas at Austin and brings additional depth to his musical life as an accomplished singer, having performed in opera, professional choral ensembles, and musical theatre.

In this episode, I chat with Professor Miguel Zenón. Professor Zenón is a Grammy-winning alto saxophonist, composer, and Associate Professor in Music and Theater Arts at MIT, widely regarded as one of the most groundbreaking and influential musicians of his generation. Born and raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico, he has released eighteen recordings as a leader, including the Grammy-winning El Arte Del Bolero Vol. 2 (2023) and the Grammy-nominated Golden City (2024), and his latest Vanguardia Subterránea: Live at The Village Vanguard (2025). A recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship, Guggenheim Fellowship, and Doris Duke Artist Award, Professor Zenón has been recognized as Alto Saxophonist of the Year multiple times by the Jazz Journalists Association and as Composer of the Year in 2023. His music, rooted in jazz and deeply informed by Puerto Rican musical traditions, has been commissioned by SFJAZZ, Chamber Music America, the MIT, and the Spektral Quartet, among many others.

In this episode, I chat with Mr. Elijah Smith. Mr. Smith is an American composer and electronic musician whose work spans orchestral, chamber, and multimedia genres, marked by dense textures, rhythmic ambiguity, and rich gravitational harmonies. His music has been described as "gnashing and relentless" by the Chicago Tribune, "seductive" by Gramophone, and "an ingenious study in clarity and distortion" by San Francisco Classical Voice, and has been performed by ensembles including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, JACK Quartet, Alarm Will Sound, Sō Percussion, and Yarn/Wire. He is Instructional Faculty and Manager of New Music Activities at the Curtis Institute of Music and Visiting Faculty at the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University. Mr. Smith holds a Ph.D. from Princeton University and his music is published by Project Schott New York.

In this episode, I chat with Professor Dan DiPiero. Professor DiPiero is a musician, writer, and Assistant Professor of Music at Boston University whose research explores affective connections between aesthetics and politics in U.S. improvised and popular music. He is the author of Contingent Encounters: Improvisation in Music and Everyday Life (University of Michigan Press, 2022), a finalist for the International Association for the Study of Popular Music Book Prize, and Big Feelings: Queer and Feminist Indie Rock After Riot Grrrl, forthcoming with University of Michigan Press. His writing has appeared in Jazz and Culture, Journal of Popular Music Studies, Los Angeles Review of Books, and other venues. A fierce advocate for popular music studies, Professor DiPiero serves as secretary of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music (US) and co-founded the Music and Sound Studies Working Group at the Cultural Studies Association.n dipiero

In this episode, I chat with Professor Louis Epstein. Professor Epstein is a historical musicologist specializing in early twentieth-century French music, digital mapping, and the science of teaching and learning. His book The Creative Labor of Music Patronage in Interwar France examines collaborations between patrons and composers that shaped French classical music between the world wars. A recipient of fellowships from the Fulbright Program, the Whiting Foundation, and the Mellon Foundation, he has published in journals including Music & Politics, Journal of Musicology, and Journal of Music History Pedagogy. Professor Epstein co-founded Open Access Musicology and leads The Musical Geography Project, an interactive digital mapping initiative that earned him the 2016 American Musicological Society Teaching Award. At St. Olaf College, he previously served as Co-Director of the Center for Innovation in the Liberal Arts.

In this episode, I chat with Professor Colin Roust. Professor Roust is a musicologist and professor at the University of Kansas whose research focuses on twentieth-century music, film music, band music, and the intersections of music, politics, and other arts such as film, opera, and ballet. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan and has been a leading advocate for music history pedagogy, serving as Chair of the AMS Pedagogy Study Group and on the editorial boards of the Journal of Music History Pedagogy and Engaging Students: Essays in Music Pedagogy. He is the author of Georges Auric: A Life in Music and Politics and co-editor of The Routledge Film Music Sourcebook, and he has presented his work at major national and international conferences. His current projects include critical editions of Early Music of Francis Johnson from the Phoebe Rush Manuscript and The Diary of Thomas Clarke Key, 357th Infantry Regiment Band, American Expeditionary Force.

In this episode, I chat with Dr. Sarah Iker. Dr. Iker is a music theorist and lecturer in the Music & Theater Arts section at MIT, where she teaches music theory, music history, aural skills, and seminars on topics such as dance, opera, and musical theater. She holds a Ph.D. in Music History and Theory from the University of Chicago and dual B.A. degrees in Piano Performance and Mathematics from Scripps College. Her research focuses on the historical reception and perception of Igor Stravinsky’s neoclassical music, using digital humanities methods to connect early twentieth-century listeners’ descriptions with contemporary analytical approaches. Beyond Stravinsky, her interests include musical theater, music perception and cognition, twentieth-century neoclassicism, and the digital humanities, and she presents her work at regional, national, and international conferences

In this episode, I chat with Mr. Garo Saraydarian. Mr. Saraydarian is a musician, educator, and researcher whose work spans jazz performance, music theory, and cross-cultural pedagogy. He teaches musicianship and music theory at MIT and serves as Assistant Professor in the Harmony department at Berklee College of Music, with additional teaching roles at Boston College and the Longy School of Music, where he has contributed to developing a more inclusive music theory curriculum. A versatile performer trained in violin, trombone, and oud, he has performed at Jazz at Lincoln Center, Birdland, and the Caramoor Jazz Festival with ensembles including the Ayn Inserto Jazz Orchestra and Mehmet Ali Sanlikol's WhatsNext?. His research interests center on historical, cognitive, and cross-cultural approaches to music education, and he is currently completing his Ph.D. in Educational Studies at Lesley University.

In this episode, I chat with Professor Evan Ziporn. Professor Ziporyn is a composer, clarinetist, and cross-cultural innovator whose music bridges Balinese gamelan, contemporary classical, and experimental traditions. He is the Kenan Sahin Distinguished Professor of Music at MIT, where he serves as Inaugural Director of the Center for Art, Science and Technology (CAST) and founded the gamelan ensemble Gamelan Galak Tika. A former founding member of the Bang on a Can All-Stars, he has received a Grammy for his work with the Steve Reich Ensemble and has been commissioned by leading ensembles such as Yo-Yo Ma’s Silkroad Ensemble, Kronos Quartet, and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project. His projects range from the opera A House in Bali to the Blackstar Concerto and the large-scale multimedia work EV6, underscoring his commitment to genre-defying, globally engaged musical creation.

In this episode, I chat with Dr. Elena Ruehr. Dr. Ruehr is a composer, Guggenheim Fellow, and award-winning faculty member at MIT, where she has taught since 1992. A graduate of the University of Michigan and the Juilliard School, her music (described by The New York Times as "sumptuously scored and full of soaring melodies" and by Gramophone as "unspeakably gorgeous") spans opera, orchestra, chamber music, and choral works. She has written five operas and five cantatas, with major recordings on BMOP Sound, Avie, and Albany, and her works have been commissioned and performed by ensembles including the Borromeo, Cypress, and Shanghai String Quartets. Currently composer-in-residence with the Lincoln Symphony, Dr. Ruehr brings to all her work a guiding artistic principle: "the idea is that the surface be simple, the structure complex."

In this episode, I chat with Professor Gareth Dylan Smith. Professor Smith is a drummer, scholar, and educator whose work spans the worlds of popular music performance and academic research. A professor whose scholarship focuses on drum kit studies, popular music education, and philosophical themes such as eudaimonia and punk pedagogies, he is the author of numerous books including I Drum, Therefore I Am, Magical Nexus: A Philosophy of Playing Drum Kit, and co-editor of The Routledge Research Companion to Popular Music Education. He is founding co-editor of the Journal of Popular Music Education and has served as President of the Association for Popular Music Education. As a drummer, Professor Smith brings the same depth to his performing life, with over two decades of recording and touring experience across punk, rock, and theatre.

In this episode, I chat with Professor Peter B Child. Professor Child is Professor of Music and a MacVicar Faculty Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. A composer whose mentors include William Albright, Arthur Berger, and Jacob Druckman, Professor Child earned his Ph.D. in composition from Brandeis University. His music has received awards and commissions from organizations such as the Fromm Foundation, Tanglewood, the New England Conservatory, and the League/ISCM, and has been recorded on the New World, Albany, CRI, Centaur, and Neuma labels. Recipient of the 2004 Levitan Prize in the Humanities at MIT, Child’s work spans orchestral, chamber, vocal, and cross-genre compositions characterized by their intricate structure and expressive clarity.

In this episode, I chat with Professor Roger Matthew Grant. Professor Grant is a music theorist and cultural historian specializing in eighteenth-century music, affect theory, and the history of music theory. He is the author of Peculiar Attunements: How Affect Theory Turned Musical and Beating Time and Measuring Music in the Early Modern Era, both of which have received major scholarly awards. A Guggenheim Fellow, Professor Grant currently serves as Deputy Provost and Dean of Arts and Humanities at Wesleyan University. His current research explores mission music in eighteenth-century Bolivia, and his work has appeared in leading journals including Critical Inquiry, Representations, and the Journal of the American Musicological Society.

In this episode, I chat with Professor Alexandre Abdoulaev. Professor Abdoulaev is a pianist, conductor, researcher, arranger, and band leader based in Baltimore, Maryland. He has been studying pianosince 1985, and has been teaching piano, music theory, and music history professionally for over fifteen years. Professor Abdoulaev studied both classical and jazz piano under such noteworthy teachers as Radoslav Kvapil, Teofils Biķis, Thomas Mastroianni, Lewis Porter, and Joshua Rifkin. As a professional musician, Professor Abdoulaev has experience in classical solo and chamber music, jazz piano, and musical theatre vocal coaching and conducting. Most recently, he was seen in Washington, D. C. with the Trinity Chamber Orchestra, performing George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" under the baton of Maestro Jeffry Newberger. Additionally, Professor Abdoulaev is also the artistic director and pianist with the jazz-cabaret quintet "Ghosts of Weimar." In 2014, Professor Abdoulaev graduated with a Ph.D. in Historical Musicology from Boston University, where he completed his dissertation titled "Savoy: A Portrait of the World's Finest Ballroom, 1926-1958." Currently, Professor Abdoulaev maintains a busy schedule as a jazz pianist, ballet accompanist, a professor of music history at West Chester University, and a lecturer at Boston University, where he maintains a full schedule of teaching and research duties. His current research interests include the role of blues as a tool of social protest in modern society; development of cinema and video game music; and a variety of ethnographic and musicological topics in jazz.

In this episode, I chat with Professor Emily Richmond Pollock. Professor Pollock is an Associate Professor of Music at MIT whose research explores twentieth-century opera, musical institutions, and cultural politics. A graduate of Harvard University and the University of California, Berkeley, she is the author of Opera after the Zero Hour: The Problem of Tradition and the Possibility of Renewal in Postwar West Germany (Oxford University Press, 2019). Her scholarship has appeared in leading journals such as The Journal of Musicology and Twentieth-Century Music and has earned recognition including the Kurt Weill Prize. Professor Pollock’s current project, “Opera on Uncommon Ground,” investigates the history and aesthetics of American opera festivals. Alongside teaching and research, she continues to perform as an oboist with ensembles in the Boston area.

In this episode, I chat with Mr. David Deveau. Mr. Deveau is an acclaimed American pianist, chamber musician, and educator who has performed internationally with major orchestras and ensembles for over four decades. A Juilliard-trained artist and recipient of the SHASS Levitan Award for Excellence in Teaching, he served on MIT’s Music and Theater Arts faculty from 1988 to 2020 and continues as an Affiliated Artist. Former Artistic Director of the Rockport Chamber Music Festival, Mr. Deveau has received wide critical praise for his recordings on the Steinway & Sons label and remains an influential figure in the classical music world.

In this episode, I chat with Mr. Jeffrey Snyder. Mr. Snyder is a composer, improviser, and instrument designer based in Princeton, New Jersey. As founder of Snyderphonics, he creates original electronic instruments such as the Manta and JD-1 Keyboard/Sequencer, used by musicians worldwide. His music bridges experimental electronics, improvisation, and reimagined early music, often performed on his own inventions. Mr. Snyder performs with groups including exclusiveOr, The Federico Ughi Quartet, The Mizries, and Sideband, and leads the electro-country project Owen Lake and the Tragic Loves. He co-founded Carrier Records in 2009 and currently serves as Director of Electronic Music and Director of PLOrk (Princeton Laptop Orchestra) at Princeton University.

In this episode, I chat with Professor David Kechley. Professor Kechley is an American composer whose music spans orchestral, chamber, and solo genres, blending influences from classical, contemporary, and vernacular traditions. Known for his dynamic contrasts of lyricism and virtuosity, Professor Kechley’s works have been performed by major ensembles such as the Minnesota Orchestra, Boston Pops, and Kronos Quartet. A Guggenheim Fellow and recipient of multiple NEA grants, he has held residencies at Yaddo, MacDowell, and the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center. His music is published by Pine Valley Press and released on Liscio, Albany, and Reference Recordings.

In this episode, I chat with Ms. Nina Fukuoka. Ms. Fukuoka is a Japanese and Polish composer and performer based in New York City. Her work brings together instrumental and computer music with multimedia art, exploring the intersections of sound, technology, and identity. Drawing from horror aesthetics, video games, and feminist scholarship, she examines the contemporary world through layers of cultural and emotional meaning. Her compositions have been presented at major festivals across Europe, North America, and Japan, and performed by ensembles such as the International Contemporary Ensemble, Mivos Quartet, and Talea Ensemble. A doctoral graduate of Columbia University, Nina continues to create cross-disciplinary projects and performs on shō with the Columbia Gagaku Ensemble.website: https://ninafukuoka.com/

In this episode, I chat with Professor Craig Wright. Professor Wright is the Henry L. and Lucy G. Moses Professor Emeritus of Music at Yale University, where he has taught since 1973 and chaired the Department of Music from 1986 to 1992. A leading scholar of medieval and Renaissance music, his research spans from early polyphony to Bach, while his later work explores Mozart and the concept of genius. He is the author of influential books including Music and Ceremony at Notre Dame of Paris, 500–1550 and The Maze and the Warrior: Symbols in Architecture, Theology, and Music. Wright’s popular undergraduate course “Listening to Music” is among Yale’s most celebrated offerings, and his interdisciplinary class “Exploring the Nature of Genius” has reached audiences worldwide. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he has received the Dent Medal, the Einstein Prize, and the Kinkeldey Award for his scholarship.

In this episode, I chat with Professor Dmitri Tymoczko. Professor Tymoczko is a composer, theorist, and scholar whose work bridges music, mathematics, and philosophy. He is Professor of Music at Princeton University and an external faculty member at the Santa Fe Institute. A Rhodes Scholar and Guggenheim Fellow, Professor Tymoczko’s research revolutionized music theory through his geometrical approach to harmony, articulated in his acclaimed book A Geometry of Music (Oxford University Press). His compositions (described as polystylistic and dynamic) have been performed by leading ensembles such as the Brentano Quartet, Third Coast Percussion, and Synergy Vocals. He has also published Tonality: An Owner’s Manual (2023) and numerous articles exploring the mathematical and philosophical dimensions of music. Through both his scholarly writing and celebrated recordings (including Beat Therapy and Rube Goldberg Variations) Professor Tymoczko continues to redefine the dialogue between artistic expression and theoretical inquiry.

In this episode, I chat with Professor David Berezan. David Berezan is Professor of Electroacoustic Music Composition at the University of Manchester. He is the founder of the Electroacoustic Music Studios and the MANTIS (Manchester Theatre in Sound) concert series. Originally from Canada, he studied history and composition before completing his PhD in Electroacoustic Composition at the University of Birmingham. Berezan’s award-winning work has been recognized internationally, receiving honors from competitions such as Bourges, Luigi Russolo, Klang, and Música Viva, and has been broadcast by the CBC and BBC. His compositions are informed by an immersive engagement with sound and space, often developed through residencies at leading electroacoustic studios including Ina-GRM (France), ZKM (Germany), EMS (Sweden), and The Banff Centre (Canada).

In this episode, I chat with Dr. Emmanuela Wroth. Dr. Wroth is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the University of Cambridge whose research explores nineteenth-century French music theatre, celebrity, and the intersections of race, gender, sexuality, and class. Her current project, Diasporic Divas: Racialized and Gendered Celebrity in Western Europe, 1715–1925, recovers the overlooked contributions of Black women performers and Afrodiasporic performance traditions in shaping European divadom from its eighteenth-century origins. She earned her PhD from Durham University (in collaboration with the Bowes Museum) and previously held a Postdoctoral Fellowship in French Music at the University of Toronto. Her forthcoming monograph, Courting Celebrity: Creating the Courtesan on the Popular Parisian Stage and Beyond, 1831–1859, examines gender and class politics in nineteenth-century performance culture. Actively engaged in public scholarship, Dr. Wroth collaborates with institutions such as the National Gallery and Tate, and is an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

In this episode, I chat with Professor Jennifer Iverson. Professor Iverson is a musicologist whose research explores the intersections of music, technology, and culture. A leading scholar of electronic and experimental music, she is the author of Electronic Inspirations: Technologies of the Cold War Avant-Garde (Oxford, 2019), which examines the pioneering WDR studio in postwar Germany. Her upcoming book, Synthesizing Ourselves: The Black Box That Changed Music Forever, investigates the cultural and technological impact of the synthesizer through archival research and interviews. At the University of Chicago, where she has taught since 2016, Iverson also engages deeply in disability activism and inclusive pedagogy, co-teaching “Disability and Design” and leading a long-term social music partnership with City Elementary, a school for neurodiverse children. Her scholarship bridges humanistic inquiry and technological innovation, revealing how electronic sounds and creative practices shape both music and society.

In this episode, I chat with Dr. Richard Whalley. Dr. Whalley is a composer and pianist based in Manchester, where he serves as Senior Lecturer in Composition at the University of Manchester. His music draws inspiration from time, memory, visual art, geopolitics, and the natural world- ranging from glacial landscapes to microscopic biological structures. Performed widely across Europe and the United States, his works have been featured in events such as the ISCM World Music Days and the Milan Expo, and have earned recognition from the BASCA British Composer Awards. As a pianist, Dr. Whalley is an active interpreter of both classical and contemporary repertoire, frequently premiering new works. His compositions are published by Composers Edition and can be heard on major recording platforms including YouTube and SoundCloud.

In this episode, I chat with Ms. Nina Shekhar. Ms. Shekhar is a composer, producer, songwriter, and multimedia artist whose work explores identity, vulnerability, and human connection through bold, emotionally charged sound worlds. Hailed by The New York Times as “tart and compelling” and by the LA Times as an “orchestral supernova,” she is one of the most celebrated composers of her generation, with commissions and performances by ensembles such as the New York Philharmonic, LA Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and JACK Quartet. A recipient of the ASCAP Foundation Leonard Bernstein Award and the Rudolf Nissim Prize, Ms. Shekhar’s music spans genres and media—from orchestral works and film collaborations to solo multimedia performances. She serves on the composition faculty at the Mannes School of Music, mentors for Luna Composition Lab, and co-founded Project Beacon with Brightwork newmusic. A Detroit native and first-generation Indian American, Ms. Shekhar is completing her PhD in Music Composition at Princeton University.

In this episode, I chat with Professor Paul Phillips. Professor Phillips is a conductor, composer, pianist, and author who serves as Professor of Music and Gretchen B. Kimball Director of Orchestral Studies at Stanford University. He directs the Stanford Symphony Orchestra, Stanford Philharmonia, and Stanford Summer Symphony, and has conducted over 80 orchestras, opera companies, and ballet troupes worldwide, including the San Francisco Symphony, Detroit Symphony, and Netherlands Radio Chamber Orchestra. A champion of contemporary music, Professor Phillips has received 11 ASCAP Awards for Adventurous Programming and has collaborated with major composers and artists such as Steve Reich and Itzhak Perlman. His diverse career also includes acclaimed publications on composer and novelist Anthony Burgess, including A Clockwork Counterpoint and The Devil Prefers Mozart (2024). Trained at Eastman, Columbia, and Cincinnati and mentored by Leonard Bernstein and Seiji Ozawa, Professor Phillips continues to bridge performance, scholarship, and composition in his global career as an innovative conductor and educator.

In this episode, I chat with Professor John Rink, who is Emeritus Professor of Music at the University of Cambridge and Fellow in Music at St John’s College. A leading scholar of performance studies and nineteenth-century music, he is particularly renowned for his research on Chopin. Educated at Princeton, King’s College London, and Cambridge, his influential works include Chopin: The Piano Concertos and Music in Profile: Twelve Performance Studies (2024). He directed the AHRC Research Centre for Musical Performance as Creative Practice and serves as Editor-in-Chief of The Complete Chopin – A New Critical Edition. His contributions to digital musicology include projects such as Chopin’s First Editions Online and the Online Chopin Variorum (ver-eee-o-um) Edition. A member of juries for three International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competitions, he has held numerous international appointments and received the Bene Merito honorary distinction from the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs in recognition of his contributions to Polish cultural scholarship.

In this episode, I chat with Professor Esther Kurtz from Washington University of St. Louis Arts & Sciences. Professor Kurtz is an Assistant Professor of Ethnomusicology and Director of Undergraduate Studies, affiliated with the Performing Arts Department and the Department of African and African-American Studies. Trained at Eastman, the Utrecht School of the Arts, and Brown University, she specializes in Afro-Brazilian music, sound, movement, and dance practices. Her forthcoming book, A Beautiful Fight: The Racial Politics of Capoeira in Backland Bahia, examines the racial and political dynamics of capoeira as both a site of antiracist resistance and a contested cultural space. Her current research extends to jazz musicians in St. Louis, exploring how they navigate issues of race, labor, and value under late capitalism. Professor Kurtz’s work has appeared in leading journals such as Women & Music, Ethnomusicology, and Journal of the Society for American Music, and she is an active voice at major international conferences on music, dance, and the African diaspora.

In this episode, I chat with Professor Elizabeth Eva Leach. Professor Leach is a distinguished musicologist and music theorist at the University of Oxford, specializing in medieval music and poetry - particularly from the fourteenth century. Her award-winning scholarship ranges from detailed manuscript studies to broader cultural and philosophical contexts, with notable works including Medieval Sex Lives (2023) and the prize-winning Guillaume de Machaut (Gee-yum de Ma-show): Secretary, Poet, Musician (2011). She has received multiple prestigious awards for her research on topics including medieval song, gender in music theory, and the trouvère tradition. Beyond her prolific publications, she co-edits the journal Early Music and serves on the councils of several major musicological societies, while continuing to supervise graduate students and lecture on medieval music history at Oxford.

In this episode, I chat with Professor Tom Collins. Professor Collins is an Associate Professor of Music Engineering Technology at the Frost School of Music and Principal Investigator of the Music Computing and Psychology Lab. His research focuses on developing and applying machine learning techniques for music-analytical and music-generative tasks, leading to collaborations with GRAMMY Award-winning artists on AI-cocreated songs, as well as projects in extended reality audio, AI for podcasting and game audio, and pattern discovery in coordinated movement. He has a distinguished record supervising Ph.D. students who have joined companies like ByteDance and Sony Interactive Entertainment, and teaches courses on electronic production technologies, research methods, and music artificial intelligence.Please check out Professor Colin's entry Silent N[AI]ght by Auditory Nerve!aisongcontest.com 

In this episode, I chat with Dr. Frederick Harris. Dr. Harris is Director of Wind and Jazz Ensembles at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he leads the MIT Wind Ensemble, MIT Festival Jazz Ensemble, and jazz chamber music programs. He founded It Must Be Now!, a multimedia project addressing racial justice through music and visual art, and co-leads an initiative linking Brazilian music with environmental research on the Amazon rainforest. A two-time recipient of MIT’s Levitan Award for Excellence in Teaching, he has commissioned and premiered over one hundred new works and collaborated with artists including Jacob Collier, Chick Corea, and Don Byron. Also an author and percussionist, Dr. Harris continues to inspire through his dedication to education, creativity, and community-centered music making.

In this episode, I chat with Mr. Erik Ulman. Mr. Ulman is a Lecturer in Music at Stanford University whose compositions have been performed by renowned interpreters, including the Arditti Quartet, Claire Chase, and the Formalist Quartet. He studied composition with Brian Ferneyhough at UCSD and Helmut Lachenmann at the Stuttgart Musikhochschule, and has received distinctions including a Fromm Foundation commission and a Hewlett Fellowship at the Djerassi Program. Beyond composing, Mr. Ulman is a published writer on music and the arts, and co-organizer (with Marcia Scott) of the Poto Festivals since 2004.

In this episode, I chat with Mr. Robert Clendenen. Mr. Clendenen is a composer, performer, and educator whose work spans experimental music, jazz, and rock. He has collaborated with Grammy-winning bassist Charlie Haden and opened for artists ranging from Frank Black to various jam bands, while studying composition with notable figures including Brian Ferneyhough, John Harbison, and Morton Subotnick. A faculty member at California Institute of the Arts, he has received commissions from ensembles such as the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble and California E.A.R. Unit, and has produced over 5,000 concerts throughout his career.

In this episode, I chat with Professor Andrei Pohorelsky. Professor Pohorelsky is a musicologist specializing in nineteenth- and twentieth-century music, with a focus on American vernacular traditions and materialist approaches to musicology. His current book project, In Search of Ragtime, examines the genre’s role in shaping and reflecting American industrial capitalism from the Gilded Age through the twentieth century. His broader research explores topics such as sound in cinema verité and the cultural meanings of love songs during times of social change.

In this episode, I chat with Dr. Keith Dodson. Dr. Keith Dodson is Director of Orchestral Activities and Assistant Professor of Conducting at Central Michigan University, where he leads the Symphony Orchestra and mentors future string educators. He is the founding Music Director of the Chamber Orchestra of the Smoky Valley and has guest conducted ensembles across the United States. A passionate advocate for new music, his repertoire includes works by leading contemporary composers, and in 2025 he will premiere Kirt Mosier’s LIFT OFF with Central Michigan University and Summer Creek High School.

In this episode, I chat with Professor Jesse Rodin. Professor Rodin is a musicologist and performer dedicated to bringing the sound world of the Renaissance to life through scholarship and performance. A professor at Stanford University, he directs the vocal ensemble Cut Circle and the Josquin Research Project, combining historical study with digital innovation. His books and recordings explore composers such as Josquin des Prez and Guillaume Du Fay, and his recent work includes The Art of Counterpoint from Du Fay to Josquin, published by Cambridge University Press.