My primary research focus is contemporary art music in Indonesia, there called musik kontemporer. In addition to my dissertation, completed in 2014 for the PhD in ethnomusicology at Wesleyan University, I have given numerous conference papers on this topic, and published a chapter in a volume on Performing Arts in Postmodern Bali. I also convened a symposium on New Music in Southeast Asia, in conjunction with a performance by the Momenta Quartet.

I am also interested in how traditional Javanese gamelan music shapes one’s perception of the passage of time. I initially explored this topic for my MA thesis, also completed at Wesleyan, and am currently returning to it. Other publications and presentations include a reflection on composing for gamelan in North America, a review of recordings of Javanese gamelan by John Noise Manis, and a paper on the “radical traditionalism” of Liu Sola and Yuji Takahashi.

Paper Presentations

2014 "The Sound of Stretched Time: The Modulation of Phrase, Pattern, and Attention in Central Javanese Gamelan Music." Paper presented to the joint meeting of the Third International Conference on Analytical Approaches to World Music (AAWM 2014), and the Annual Conference of the British Forum for Ethnomusicology (BFE 2014), London, UK, 1 July.
2013 “The Sound of Stretched Time: Meter and Hypermeter in Central Javanese Gamelan Music.” Paper presented to the Society for Ethnomusicology, Indianapolis IN, 16 November.
2013 “A Different Kind of Modernism: The Sound Exploration of Pande Made Sukerta.” Paper presented at Performing Indonesia, Smithsonian Institution, 2 November.
2012 “Modernist Impulses, Post-(Pre-) Modern Conditions: the Sound Exploration of Pande Made Sukerta.” Paper presented at the Cornell University Southeast Asia Program Brown Bag Lecture Series, 8 November.
2012 “A Post-(Pre-)Modern Modernism: The Sound Exploration of Pande Made Sukerta.” Paper presented at Bali in Global Asia: Between Modernization and Heritage Formation, special conference of the International Institute for Asian Studies, Denpasar, 18 July.
2011 “Becoming Cosmopolitan, Going Nativist: The Project of Indonesian Musik Kontemporer.” Paper presented at the joint conference of the Association for Asian Studies and the International Convention of Asia Scholars, Honolulu HI, 3 April.
2010 “Indonesian Experimentalisms, the Question of Western Influence, and the Cartography of Aesthetic Authority.” Paper presented at Beyond the Centres: Musical avant gardes since 1950, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, 2 July.
2008 “Indonesian Experimentalisms, the Question of Western Influence, and the Cartography of Aesthetic Authority.” Paper presented to the Society for Ethnomusicology, Wesleyan University, 28 October.
2008 “In the Face of Industri: Alternative Populisms in Indonesian Musik Kontemporer.” Paper presented at the Cornell University Musicology Colloquium, 18 September.
2008 “In the Face of Industri: Alternative Populisms in Indonesian Musik Kontemporer.” Paper presented to the Columbia Music Scholarship and CUNY Graduate Students in Music Conference, New York, 8 March.
2007 “In the Face of Industri: Alternative Populisms in Indonesian Musik Kontemporer.” Paper presented to the Society for Ethnomusicology, Columbus OH, 25 October.
2006 “Indonesian ‘Musik Kontemporer’ and the Question of ‘Western Influence’.” Paper presented to the Society for Ethnomusicology, Honolulu HI, 19 November.
2006 “Indonesian ‘Musik Kontemporer’ and the Question of ‘Western Influence’.” Paper presented to the Northeast Chapter of the Society for Ethnomusicology, Trinity College, 8 April. Awarded the James T. Koetting Prize.
2004 “‘Radical Traditionalism’: Reconfigured Connections between the Experimental and the Traditional in East Asian Music.” Paper presented to the Northeast Chapter of the Society for Ethnomusicology, Wesleyan University, 17 April.
2002 “The Sound of Stretched Time.” Paper presented at the New England Gamelan Weekend, Wesleyan University, 23 April.

Other Presentations and Participation in Panels

2012 “‘Time and Tune’: Structures and Melodies in Javanese Gamelan.” Introductory explanation preceding performance by the Boston Village Gamelan, Brandeis University,21 March.
2011 Introductory explanation preceding performance by Gamelan Kusuma Laras for the What Makes it Great? series, Walter Reade Theater, Lincoln Center, New York, 14 November.
2011 Discussant for panel on ethnomusicology, State of Indonesian Studies, Cornell Modern Indonesia Project, Cornell University, 30 April.
2011 “Practice, Performance, Embodied Knowledge, and Creative Connections.” Performance with commentary, State of Indonesian Studies, Cornell Modern Indonesia Project, Cornell University, 30 April.
2011 Introduction to symposium New Music in South East Asia, Cornell University, 30 March.
2009 “The Sound of Movement: Gamelan and Vocal Accompaniment to Javanese Dance.” Lecture at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, 10 December.