Music History

Aaron Allen

Aaron AllenAaron S. Allen, Assistant Professor of Musicology, joined the UNCG School of Music faculty in 2007. His research is primarily in the field of Beethoven reception, specifically in nineteenth-century Italy. In addition, he is also interested in studies of music and nature (a.k.a. “eco-musicology”). Dr. Allen received his Ph.D. and A.M. in 2006 from Harvard University, where he was also Lecturer in Music and Core Post-Doctoral Fellow before coming to UNCG. At Harvard, Dr. Allen was recognized with numerous awards from Harvard’s Derek Bok Center for Teaching & Learning, and his year of research in Italy was funded by the Oscar S. Schafer Fellowship for excellence in undergraduate teaching. As a graduate student, Dr. Allen was asked to serve on the pedagogy working group of the Harvard College undergraduate Curriculum Review Committee, and he was for three years the assistant dean of one of Harvard’s undergraduate colleges. His bachelor degrees (B.A. in music and B.S. in environmental studies) are from Tulane University in New Orleans, and although having lived in various southern states, he originally hails from West Virginia. 336-256-0165 or email: asallen@uncg.edu

Lorena Guillén

Lorena GuillenLorena Guillén, lecturer, joined the UNCG faculty in 2007. She received a Ph.D. in Historical Musicology and Music Theory and a M.M. in Vocal Performance from the State University of New York at Buffalo. Her research interests encompass issues of text perception in vocal music with special emphasis in repertoire of the 20th and 21st centuries and Latin American popular music. Her dissertation research, funded by a Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship of the College of Arts and Sciences of the SUNY Buffalo, readapts the concept of “poetic mode of perception” from the field of linguistics to explain how we perceive words set into music. Guillén has written about issues of authenticity in Latin American popular music and conducted study abroad classes with direct immersion in the carnival preparations of Rio de Janeiro and San Salvador de Bahia, comparing different samba styles (Brazil) and studying tango and candombe in Buenos Aires and Andean music in the Argentine NW high-plateau. Guillén keeps an active career as a singer of contemporary music (Stockhausen-Kursen-Germany, June in Buffalo-SUNY at Buffalo, New Music New Haven-Yale Univ., Music at the Forefront-Bowling Green State Univ.) and is a member of the interdisciplinary ensemble Musica Aperta of Washington DC. From 2003 to 2006 she was a Resident Artist at Hartwick College, in Oneonta, NY. Previously she taught at SUNY at Buffalo. 336-334-5852 or email: l_guille@uncg.edu

Elizabeth L. Keathley

Elizabeth KeathleyElizabeth L. Keathley, Assistant Professor, Historical Musicology, teaches the music history sequence for music majors and graduate seminars in twentieth-century music and music and gender. Keathley received the PhD and MA in Music History, as well as an Advanced Certificate in Women’s Studies, from the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Her research addresses issues raised by musical modernism, gender, ethnicity, and other forms of “difference.” She has published both in the U.S. and in Europe on the works of Arnold Schoenberg and Leonard Bernstein, and she has presented scholarly papers on Alma Mahler, Christine de Pisan, and the vocal music of Milton Babbitt, as well as on the gendered dimensions of rap and electronic pop music. Keathley’s current project is a book on the ways that women influenced musical modernism in capacities other than composer. She is active in the American Musicological Society, the College Music Society, the Society for American Music, and the International Alliance for Women in Music, and she is co-chair of Gender Research in Music Education,. 336-334-5911 or email: elkeathl@uncg.edu.

Kailan Rubinoff

Kailan RubinoffKailan Rubinoff, Assistant Professor of Musicology, joined the UNCG faculty in 2007. She holds a B.A. in Music from the University of Pennsylvania, a Performance Certificate and Second Phase diploma in historical performance (Baroque and Classical flute) from the Conservatorium van Amsterdam, and a Ph.D in Music from the University of Alberta, Canada. Her doctoral research, which focused on the Early Music movement in the Netherlands, was supported by grants from the Fulbright Program and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Her other interests include the history and reception of 20th-century art music, ethnography of western musical cultures, performance practices of the Baroque and Classical periods, French Baroque music, critical theory, and popular music. She has presented her research at the national meetings of the American Musicological Society and Society for Ethnomusicology, and the Canadian chapter of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music. Previously, she taught music history, world music and popular music studies at the University of Western Ontario, Wilfrid Laurier University, and Mount Allison University. 336-334-9859 or email: krrubino@uncg.edu

Joan Titus

Joan TitusJoan Titus, Assistant Professor in Musicology, joined the UNCG faculty in 2007. She holds an M.A. and Ph.D. from the Ohio State University, a B.A.M. from the University of Arizona in Music History. Her research interests include Russian music, twentieth-century music, film music, and Native American popular music of the Southwest. As a Lecturer and Teaching Assistant at Ohio State, she taught a diverse range of courses, including music of the world, Western art music, and rock. Her dissertation and forthcoming publications center on issues of modernism and socialist realism in the early film music of Dmitry Shostakovich. Dr. Titus’ book, currently underway, analyzes Shostakovich’s early film scores and their symbiotic relationship with socio-cultural film and musical practices during early Stalinism. Her work has been supported by multiple research and language study trips to Russia generously funded by several Department of Education Foreign Language Area Studies fellowships (FLAS), the Ohio State Presidential Fellowship, and other university grants, awards, and fellowships. Dr. Titus has given numerous presentations at national and international conferences on Russian music and film, including the annual meetings of the American Musicological Society and the Society for Ethnomusicology, and the International Shostakovich Centenary Conference. A former Arizonan, Dr. Titus also performs fieldwork and has given various presentations on Waila, the social dance music of the Tohono O’odham in Southern Arizona. 336-334-3589 or email: j_titus@uncg.edu