BIO

I am a music and sound studies scholar with a strong focus on Canada. Currently, I hold the Helmut Kallmann Chair for Music in Canada at Carleton University where I am founding director of Music, Sound, and Society in Canada, an interdisciplinary research centre exploring the complex ways that music and sound are shaped by, and help to shape, our pluralistic society. The MSSC is committed to community-engaged scholarship and research-creation for social transformation.

I work across ethnographic and community-engaged research-creation methodologies, most often in collaboration with other scholars, artists, and community groups. One of my keen interests is ecology theory in relation to theorizing arts ecosystems. I have roots in experimental music through my early research on acoustic ecology and environmental performance with R. Murray Schafer, and through my comparative study of experimental music festivals across Canada between 2003 and 2019. Since 2004 I’ve helped to build the field of critical improvisation studies with the International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation and was a founding co-editor of the journal Critical Studies in Improvisation/Etudes critiques en improvisation. Along with other concerned music academics across Canada, I’m working on the urgent issue of reforming postsecondary music studies for greater accessibility, diversity, equity, and inclusion. Some of this work is found in my 2019 co-authored article with Inuk music educator Kendra Jacque. One project I especially value participating in is the International AUMI Consortium, founded by Pauline Oliveros (1932-2016) to develop, test, and make freely available adaptive use musical instruments for people with exceptionalities. The Consortium’s book Improvising Across Abilities: Pauline Oliveros and the Adaptive Use Musical Instrument is forthcoming in 2023 on the Social Justice Series of University of Michigan Press. Currently, I’m the primary investigator for two research projects on music, equity, and co-creation funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

My musical practice in creative improvisation blends flute and vocalization and I’ve performed at national and international festivals and venues including Open Ears Festival of Music and Sound, Guelph Jazz Festival, Suoni Per Il Popolo, and the Onassis Stegi in Athens. I’ve also participated in artist residencies including the Sound Travels Festival (Toronto), the Chicago Creative Music Workshop (Chicago Jazz Festival), and Koumaria (Sellasia, Greece). My current projects include the improvisation duo Pama with Michael Waterman (theremin and invented instruments).