Alumni

Rob Simms, playing the Kurdish tanbur, Walter Hall 2019

Our program has produced many distinguished ethnomusicologists over the years. Among them…

    • Beverley Diamond, Professor Emerita at Memorial University of Newfoundland, formerly President of the Society for Ethnomusicology
    • Gordon Smith, Professor of Musicology & Ethnomusicology at Queen’s University, Kingston, and Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Arts & Science   
    • George Dimitri Sawa, master of the Eqyptian Qanun, and author of Theories of Rhythms in Arabic Writings, 750-950 AD 
    • Louise Wrazen, Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Music, York University
    • Rob Simms, Associate Professor, World Music Performance, York University
    • Jeff Hennessey, formerly Dean of Arts and Professor of Theory and Musicology at the School of Music, Acadia University, Nova Scotia, and now Provost and Vice-President Academic and Research at Mount Allison University
    • Margaret Walker, Professor of Ethnomusicology, former Director of the School of Music, Queen’s University, Kingston
    • Lowell Lybarger, Music/Multimedia Librarian, Arkansas Tech University
    • Mark Laver, Associate Professor of Music, Jazz Studies & Ethnomusicology, Grinnell College, Iowa
    • Carolyn Ramzy, Associate Professor of Ethnomusicology, Carleton University, Ottawa
    • Meghan Forsyth, Assistant Professor of Ethnomusicology, Memorial University, Newfoundland
    • Kate Galloway, Lecturer, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
    • Yun Emily Wang, Assistant Professor of Ethnomusicology, Duke University
    • Polina Dessiatnitchenko, Assistant Professor of Ethnomusicology & Musicology, Waseda University, Tokyo

Below we list our doctoral graduates since 1996, and provide links to some very fine dissertations and associated publications.

PhD Dissertations in Ethnomusicology

Nate Renner, 2022: T-space link to Nate’s dissertation will be provided soon.

Allison Sokil, 2022: T-space link to Nate’s dissertation will be provided soon.

Alia O’Brien, 2020: “Faithful Listening: On Sound, Survival, and Becoming in Muslim Toronto.” (T-space link) … (Alia’s website)

Yun Emily Wang, 2018: “Sonic Poetics of Home and the Art of Making Do in Sinophone Toronto.” (T-space link)

Vanessa Thacker, 2017: “Adapting Voices: The Musical Lifeworld of Sean-nós Singing in Carna, Ireland.” (T-space link)

Polina Dessiatnitchenko, 2017: “Musical and Ontological Possibilities of Mugham Creativity in pre-Soviet, Soviet, and post-Soviet Azerbaijan.” (T-space link) … (Polina’s website)

Gabriela Jiménez, 2017: “Versioning Mexico City: Musical Performances, Gender, Sexuality, and the Musical Production of Place.” (T-space link)

Chris Wilson, 2015: “Commerce, Culture and Creativity: Songwriter Practice and Tactics in Nashville, Tennessee.” (T-space link)

Carolyn Ramzy, 2014: “The Politics of (Dis)Engagement: Coptic Christian Revival and the Performative Politics of Song.” (T-space link)

Catherine Gauthier-Mercier, 2013: “Interpreting Brazilianness: Reception and Representation in the Brazilian Music Scenes of Toronto and Montreal.” (T-space link)

Parmela Attariwala, 2013: “Eh 440: Tuning into the Effects of Multiculturalism on Publicly Funded Canadian Music.” (T-space link) … (Parmela’s website)

Andy Hillhouse, 2013: “Touring As Social Practice: Transnational Festivals, Personalized Networks, And New Folk Music Sensibilities.” (T-space link) … (Andy’s website)

Sean Bellaviti, 2012: “Negotiating Musical Style in Panama: Nationalism, Professionalism and the Invention of Música Típica Popular.” (T-space link) This research subsequently appeared as Musica Tipica: Cumbia and the Rise of Musical Nationalism in Panama (OUP 2020). … (Sean’s website)

Stephanie Conn, 2011: “Carn Mor de Chlachan Beaga, A Large Cairn from Small Stones: Memory and Multivocality in Cape Breton Gaelic Singing.” (T-space link)

Meghan Forsyth, 2011: “’De par chez nous:’ Fiddling Traditions and Acadian Identity on Prince Edward Island.” (T-space link)

Mark Laver, 2011: “Jazzvertising: Music, Marketing, and Meaning.” (T-space link) This research subsequently appeared as Jazz Sells: Music, Marketing, & Meaning (Routledge 2015).

Kate Galloway, 2011: “’Sounding Nature, Sounding Place’: Alternative Performance Spaces, Participatory Experience, and Ritual Performance in R. Murray Schafer’s Patria Cycle.” (T-space link)

Jeff Hennessy, 2008: “Fiddle Grooves: Identity, Representation, and the Sound of Cape Breton Fiddle Music in Popular Culture.” (T-space link)

Graham Freeman, 2008: “Percy Grainger: Sketch of a New Aesthetic of Folk Music.” (T-space link)

Leanne Fetterley, 2007: “Give me real, don’t give me fake : Authenticity, Value, and Popular Music.”

Margaret Walker, 2004: “Kathak Dance: A Critical History.” This research was subsequently developed further, and has been published as India’s Kathak Dance in Historical Perspective (Ashgate Publishing, 2014).

Michelle Bozynski, 2003: “Considering Canadian Filmmusic: The Toronto Filmmaker, and Music as a Site For Negotiating Meaning Within Canadian Feature Films.”

Lowell Lybarger, 2003: “The Tabla Solo Repertoire of Pakistani Panjab: an Ethnomusicological Perspective.”

David Montgomery, 2002: “The Concept Album: Context and Analysis.”

Norma Vascotto, 2000: “A Musical Family: Song, Transmission, and Oral History in a Netsilik Family.”

Rob Simms, 1996: “Avaz in the Recordings of Mohammed Reza Shajarian.” This research formed the basis of The Art of Avaz and Mohammad Reza Shajarian: Foundations and Contexts, and Mohammad Reza Shajarian’s Avaz in Iran and Beyond, 1979-2010 (Lexington Books, 2012).