Education

• B.A. (Music), Wisconsin Lutheran College, 2007
• M.M. (Jazz Performance and Musicology), Western Illinois University, 2009
• Ph.D. (Historical Musicology), University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2016

Background

My journey in music began in earnest when I received a beat-up guitar from my grandpa at the age of 12. I was hooked immediately and spent all of my time learning the instrument and studying my favorite rock and jazz guitar players. I began playing professionally in rock bands at the age of 15 and was active in my high school choir and band, where I learned to read music and play the clarinet. In college I learned music theory and became especially interested in the study of music history. I spent two years at Western Illinois University sharpening my jazz guitar skills while soaking up as much music history as I could, culminating in a thesis concerning the history of jazz guitar before 1942. I then pursued a Ph.D. in historical musicology at the University of Wisconsin, focusing on the music of the late-19th and early 20th centuries, especially opera. I taught as an adjunct lecturer at the University of Wisconsin and at Wisconsin Lutheran College before receiving a full-time call in Fall 2017. I love teaching all facets of music history, theory, and performance to undergraduates. My wife Janel, my sons Harvey and Isaac, and I live in Jackson, Wisconsin, and attend Christ Evangelical Lutheran Church in Pewaukee, where I lead worship on Wednesday evenings.

Teaching

• MUS 063/64, Class Guitar 1-2
• MUS 105, History of American Popular Music
• MUS 163/263, Guitar Lessons
• MUS 210/220, Music Theory III & IV
• MUS 302/303, Music History I & II
• MUS 370, Counterpoint
• MUS 420, Opera
• MUS 440, Music Composition

Research Interests

My research interests are rather diverse. My doctoral work focused especially on the economics and aesthetics of the early twentieth century German Künstleroper, or "Artist-Opera." In my dissertation I sought to understand and explain why there was a small explosion of these idiosyncratic operas that used the creation of a musical composition or artwork as the focus of the plot. Over the course of this work I examined operas by Richard Strauss, Franz Schreker, Hans Pfitzner, and Ernst Krenek. My master's thesis centered on race, class, and trans-Atlantic identity in jazz guitar before 1942 and allowed me to interact with a number of notable guitarists, including Django Reinhardt and Charlie Christian. I continue to be interested in canon formation and historiography in jazz and representations of "whiteness" within the genre. I’m currently working on a book project that stems from my dissertation work that will use the genre of the artist opera as a prime example of musical and artistic responses to the complex and occasionally chaotic economic, critical, and aesthetic environment of the Weimar period.

Selected Publications or Scholarly Works

Publications

• “The Composer.”  In Richard Strauss in Context, edited by Joseph Jones and Morten Kristiansen. Cambridge University Press, 2020.

Presentations

• “A first-class funeral”: Musical Politics, Modernism, and the Critical Reception of Franz Schreker’s Der singende Teufel. Presentation given at the conference of the Institute for Austrian and German Musical Research, Surrey, England (online), 2021.
• “The comedy is over:” Franz Schreker’s Christophorus and the Dangers of Modernity. Presentation given at the AMS-Midwest/SEM-Midwest conference, online, 2021.  
• Composing the Audience: Music Education Reform and the Reformation of the Composer in Weimar Germany. Presentation given at the Midwest Chapter of the American Musicological Society, online, 2020.
• “No Profession So Hopeless”:  The Economic and Social Challenges of Composition During the Weimar Republic. Presentation given at the annual meeting of the American Musicological Society/Society of Music Theory, San Antonio, TX, 2018.
• Kultur vs. Zivilisation:  Ernst Krenek’s Jonny spielt auf as Composer-Opera. Presentation given at the Midwest Chapter of the American Musicological Society, Chicago, IL, 2017.
• Richard Strauss's Intermezzo: A New Look at the German Artist-Opera. Presentation given at the Midwest Chapter of the American Musicological Society, Chicago, IL, 2013.
• "Instant Classics":  Visualizing and Sounding Authenticity in the "Relic" Guitar. Presentation given at the Mid-America American Studies Association, Madison, WI, 2011.
• "Le Roi Invisible":  Oscar Alemán in Paris, 1933-1940.
• Presentation given at the Midwest Chapter of the American Musicological Society, Iowa City, IA, 2010.

Service

Professional Memberships

• American Musicological Society
• AMS-Midwest
• College Music Society
• Music Teachers' National Association

Other

• Coordinator of the WLC Jazz Festival
• Worship leader at Christ Evangelical Lutheran Church, Pewaukee