Alumni

Name: Robert Winokur
Email: MingusMiles@charter.net; Rwino001@ucr.edu
Website: myspace.com/oldstarking
Graduating Year: 2011

Robert Winokur is a performing musician and a composer. He received his Ph.D. in music composition from UCR in 2011. In 2007 he earned his MA in music composition from UCR and in 2005 he earned a BA in Music composition from Cal State San Bernardino. His pieces Arch of Time (for chamber orchestra) and Thomas and Linden (for piano and string quartet), inspired by the science fiction/fantasy writings of Stephen R. Donaldson, were premiered at UCR in 2007. In 2008, his tone poem for large orchestra, A=A, was premiered by the UCR orchestra under the baton of Dr. Ruth Charloff. Revolutions was premiered by the Frances Moore string quartet in 2009, and in 2010 the group Old Star King, under Robert's leadership, premiered the pieces Grand And Useless Gestures and Of Two Minds (an art song with text by the composer). His chamber symphony, The World Has Moved On, a three movement work for reduced orchestra and marimba, was premiered at UCR in 2010. His dissertation composition integrated a rock band into an expanded orchestra for a large five-movement work centered programmatically on the nature of human divinity à la Friedrich Nietzsche and Ayn Rand. Robert performs with and is the primary composer for the group Old Star King, an ensemble that mixes free improvisation with highly detailed arrangements of all-original music. The group has performed on PBS and around California, and has recorded 3 CDs of music and filmed a DVD.

Name: Shawn Mollenhauer
Email: smollenh@mscd.edu
Graduating Year: 2011

Shawn Mollenhauer received his B.A. in Music History and Theory from Cal State Fullerton, his M.A. in ethnomusicology from UCR in 2007, and his Ph.D. in ethnomusicology from UCR in 2011. His research interests include Ethiopian and Oromo music, music and political violence, music and ethnicity and Afro-Latin music. He has done research abroad in Xalapa, Mexico as well as in Ethiopia. His M.A. thesis was titled "Memory and Identity: The Sacred Music of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church in Diaspora." His dissertation research in Ethiopia was funded by a grant from Fulbright IIE, and focused on the music of the Oromo people of Ethiopia in relation to ethno-nationalist politics, resulting in a dissertation titled "Dynamics of Oromo Musical and Ethnic Performativity." Shawn received the Gluck fellowship grant numerous times, and performed regularly with UCR's Taiko and Mayupatapi ensembles. He is currently a lecturer at the Metropolitan State College of Denver.

Name: Robert Giracello
Email: c7music1@yahoo.com
Graduating Year: 2010

Robert Giracello received his PhD from UCR in Fall 2010, where he studied principally with Dr. Tim Labor and Dr. Paulo Chagas. His topics of study included theatrical and motivic relationships in the works of Stephen Sondheim, the compositions and writings of Arthur Farwell, and computer music programming, specifically using the ChucK music programming language. He received a Distinguished Dean's Fellowship, Teaching Fellowships in the departments of Music and Media/Cultural Studies, and the Friends of Music Scholarship while attending UC Riverside.

A prolific composer, Robert has composed and arranged hundreds of works that have been performed throughout the United States and Europe. A dedicated composer of theatrically oriented music that challenges the relationship of performer and audience, as well as conventional concert ritual, he founded the UCR Laptop Ensemble in 2009 to further the application and appreciation of computer generated composition and performance. He also assisted in the production of several concerts in the Riverside area as a critical member of the UCR Composers' Collective.

As a conductor, director, and performer, Robert has more than 10 years experience as a cantor, organist, accompanist, and music director in service of the Diocese of San Diego. He currently works as Director of Music for Church of the Resurrection in Escondido, California, where he directs four ensembles, and conducts choirs in English, Spanish, and Tagalog.

Robert and his wife, Rebecca, currently live in Perris, CA, where they await with hope and excitement the birth of their first child.

Name: David Kendall
Email: davikend@gmail.com
Graduating Year: 2010

David Joseph Kendall graduated with his Ph.D. in Musicology from UCR in 2010, focusing on sacred church music in the Philippines during the Spanish colonial era in a dissertation entitled "Spanish Colonial Liturgical Music in the Philippines: Inventing a Tradition." David earned a B.Mus. in Brass Performance (2002) and a Performer's Certificate (2005) at La Sierra University, as well as an M.A. in Musicology at UCR (2007), with a thesis on the "Bach" trumpet and its role in the late nineteenth-century Baroque revivals in Europe and the United States.

David was a recipient of a Chancellor's Fellowship at UCR and also received a Gribbon Award from the American Musical Instrument Society (2007) as well as scholarships for student travel from the Historic Brass Society. He was also able to present his research at local and national conferences of the American Musicological Society, Society for Ethnomusicology, and the National Conventions of Church Cultural Heritage Workers (Philippines).

David served as an English and Music teacher in Pingtung, Taiwan from 2002-2003, and has from 2003 served as an Adjunct Professor of Music at La Sierra University, teaching a two-year music theory sequence. He also serves as the Adjunct Professor for Low Brass, teaching Tuba, Trombone and Euphonium. David was also the Director of Recording Services (Music Technology Program) at La Sierra from 2004-2009. Additionally, he serves as Music Minister at Immanuel Lutheran Church, assistant conductor of the La Sierra University Church Chancel Choir, and Brass Instructor at Loma Linda Academy. David lives in Riverside with his wife Shiela and daughters Carmina and Mikaela.

Name: Miles Shrewsbery
Email: milesshrewsbery@gmail.com
Graduating Year: 2009

WebSite: http://www.milesshrewsbery.net

Miles Shrewsbery’s ongoing study of the tabla began at the age of nineteen with his guru Abhiman Kaushal Ji. With Abhiman Ji’s professional support, Miles immersed himself in the musical culture of India, studying in Hyderabad from Pandit Nandkumar Bhatlouande (Abhimanji's late guru) for 6 months in 2001. In 2004 Miles earned a B.A. in ethnomusicology from the University of California, Los Angeles and, in 2009, an M.A. in ethnomusicology from the University of California, Riverside. In addition to playing the tabla, Miles is an accomplished percussionist who incorporates in his performances rhythms and knowledge from different musical practices from around the globe. With many renowned musicians such as Ustad Shujaat Khan, Yusef Lateef, Adam Rudolph, Bennie Maupin, and Hassan Hakmoun, Miles has performed all over the world. Currently, he performs regularly with many artists, teaches privately, and is an Artist-Teacher in Residence for the Center for World Music in San Diego, California.

Name: Meghan Askins
Email: meg242@hotmail.com
Graduating Year: 2006.

Meghan Askins completed an M.A. in ethnomusicology in 2006. She entered UCR planning to study Western Art Music from an ethnographic perspective, but her research interests shifted when she joined the Multi-Ethnic Star Orchestra (MESTO) as a cellist in 2004. Based in West Los Angeles, MESTO combines professional classical musicians with Arab, American, and Armenian folk instrumentalists. It is conducted by Dr. Nabil Azzam, a Palestinian American composer and violinist.

Meghan became interested in Arabic music and Arab American identity, and she expanded her knowledge by taking a graduate seminar, "Music in the Arabic Speaking World," with Dr. A.J. Racy at UCLA. She also participated in UCLA's Near East Ensemble in 2005. Her M.A. thesis, "Hitting the 'Red
Notes': Arab/American Encounters and Musical Citizenship in the Multi-Ethnic Star Orchestra," examined MESTO's social and political implications in a post-9/11 climate.

Currently, Meghan works as a grant-writer and librarian for MESTO, as well as a freelance writer. She recently contributed an article about Arab American hip hop called "Arabs on the Mic" to the online magazine WireTap. She is applying to Ph.D. programs for the Fall of 2007, and her interests include intercultural communication, Arab and Jewish American identities, critical theory, and whiteness.

Name: Jeff Packman
Email: jeffpackman@earthlink.net
Graduating Year: 2001

Jeff began a transition from the LA music scene to scholarship by earning his Master’s degree in ethnomusicology from UCR in 2001. Working closely with René Lysloff, Deborah Wong, and anthropologist Paul Gelles, he completed a thesis that explored discourses of “Latin Music” along with broader issues related to the institutionalized instruction of popular music at a popular music conservatory in Los Angeles. In preparation, Jeff pursued coursework on the politics of ethnographic representation, the African diaspora, technoculture, and the “new musicology” to compliment the core ethnomusicology curriculum. To enhance his classroom activities, Jeff performed with the UCR Gamelan and Jazz Bands, for which he received a Gluck Fellowship. He also had the opportunity to TA for courses on music fundamentals, world music cultures, popular musics of the world, and American popular music.

Following completion of his MA, Jeff earned a Ph.D. in ethnomusicology from UC Berkeley in 2007. His dissertation examined the processes and cultural politics of earning a living as a musical performer in Salvador da Bahia, Brazil, a city notable for its music, complex race/class relations, and high unemployment. Fieldwork for this project was funded by FLAS and the J. William Fulbright Program and has been the basis for articles published in Black Music Research Journal, Latin American Music Review, and Ethnomusicology.

The support and instruction Jeff received and continues to receive from UCR faculty provides important intellectual foundations and inspiration for his current endeavors. In addition to writing his book about professional musicians in Salvador, Jeff has been conducting more fieldwork in Brazil in collaboration with dance researchers Danielle Robinson (Ph.D., UCR 2004) and Eloisa Domenici (Ph.D., PUC 2004). With the support of Canada’s Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, they are developing a book project on the “roots” sambas of Bahia, focusing on the relationships between dance and music, dancers and musicians, and samba participants and changing cultural contexts.

Jeff has taught at the University of Toronto since 2007 and has also led graduate seminars on dance research at the Universidade Federal da Bahia. In 2009-2010, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Harriet Tubman Institute for the Global Migrations of African Peoples at York University.

Name: Ioana Sherman
Email: missioana@yahoo.com
Graduating Year: 2002, 2005

Ioana learning a piece for fluier from Ion Costache in Merisani, Romania, 2005

Ioana began her music studies at Riverside Community College in 1997. She graduated from UCR with a B.A. in Music in 2002 and a M.A. in Musicology in December of 2005. While at UCR, Ioana played clarinet in the UCR Orchestra and recorder in the Collegium. She received Arts Bridge and Gluck fellowships to promote music education in the community.

In 2004, Ioana was awarded a Fulbright IIE grant to go back to her native country and study music in Romania.  Ioana focused on how Romanian wind instruments, specifically the fluier and caval, were affected by communist ideology. She examined the role and function of the instruments in the community, and how playing techniques and the skill of crafting the instruments were impacted throughout the 20^th century. Her research combined musicological and ethnomusicological approaches and contributed to her master’s thesis entitled, Transformation and Totalitarianism: The cases of the Romanian Caval and Fluier.

Currently (2005-07), Ioana has relocated to North Carolina where her husband is completing an M.P.A. at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She is volunteering at the Duke University Music Instruments Collections as well as applying to Ph.D. programs for Fall of 2007. Her research interests include Romanian music, music and ideology, and organology.

Name: Elizabeth Macy
Email: lizmacy@gmail.com
Graduating Year: 2005

Liz graduated from UCR with an M.A. in ethnomusicology in 2005. Her research interests include music and tourism, music of Bali, music of New Orleans, issues of gender and representation, and popular music.

While pursuing her B.A. in music (with an emphasis on ethnomusicology) from Colorado College, Liz first traveled to Bali and New Orleans. After graduation in 2000, and several years in the service industry, she began her work at UCR in 2003. Her M.A. thesis research was supported by UC a Pacific Rim Research Program mini-grant, which allowed her to conduct research in Bali on the commodification of Balinese culture, resulting in a thesis entitled "Current Trends in Balinese Music: Commodified Culture and the Influence of Westernization." While at UCR she performed with the gamelan and the Latin American ensembles and presented Balinese music and culture workshops to elementary schools as a participant in the Gluck Fellows Program.

Liz completed her Ph.D. in ethnomusicology at UCLA in 2010. Her dissertation, titled "Music and Tourism in Post-Disaster Economies: A Comparative Study of Post-Katrina New Orleans and Bali After the 2002 and 2005 Bombings," is based on substantial field and archival research in Indonesia and Louisiana. It draws upon existing tourism scholarship while addressing the need for increased attention to the role of music in shaping heritage activities and cultural production; in particular, it focuses on the function of music tourism in the recovery and rebuilding of Bali and New Orleans. She has presented several conference papers and invited lectures drawn from her research.

In addition to research and writing, Liz has been active in the field of ethnomusicology. In 2008 she helped design, organize, and carry out a conference, "Cultures of Rebuilding in Post-Katrina New Orleans." She also served for several years as the Student Concerns Representative for the Society of Ethnomusicology, Southern California Chapter, and worked as a member of the Pacific Review of Ethnomusicology editorial board. Liz has taught in the music department at Colorado College and the ethnomusicology department at UCLA.

Name: Mark Fish
Email: mark@markfish.com
Home Address: 604 Hiller St., Belmont, CA 94002
Graduating Year: 1997 M.A. in Music
WebSite: http://wwww.markfish.com

Mark Fish earned his MA in composition at UCR in 1997, where he studied composition with Byron Adams, and viola with Lucille Taylor. Since then, he has received commissions from groups including Asian American Dance Performances, the Del Sol String Quartet, the Magic Flutes, Music at the Mission, the Palo Alto Chamber Orchestra, the Newport Symphony (in Oregon), the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, and Wild Basin Winds. Four of his works have been recorded on compact disc; his most recent recording, "Ferdinand the Bull and Friends," includes "Ferdinand the Bull," his musical setting of the children's story about "the little bull who liked to sit just quietly and smell the flowers," narrated by actor David Ogden Stiers. It also includes his cello/piano arrangements of Saint-Saens' "Carnival of the Animals" and Ravel's "Mother Goose Suite." The latter of these was published in 2007 by Editions Durand (in France).

As a violinist and violist, he has performed with the San Francisco Opera, Monterey Symphony, Berkeley Symphony and San Jose Symphony. He also conducts string orchestra and choir at Hillsdale High School in San Mateo, California; he also holds a BA from UC Berkeley (member, Phi Beta Kappa) and a music teaching credential from San Francisco State University.

Name: Dylan Beck
Email: shndyln@juno.com
Home Phone: (909) 784-0366
Graduating Year: M.A. in music composition (2002), B.A. in music (1999)

He recently completed his thesis, titled Bette Davis Suite, under the supervision of Byron Adams after studying composition with Adams, Ethan Nasreddin-Longo, and René T.A. Lysloff. Bette Davis Suite, like most of his compositions, juxtaposes, arranges, and assembles disembodied dialog, cycling & interlocking melodic lines, and random digital and analog noise. Presently, Beck teaches both guitar and digital music composition at a local academy. He lives in Riverside with his wife Shondell and continues to compose electronic music in his home studio, collaborating with area performers and other electronic music artists.

Click here to hear a 30-second mp3 sample from the third part of Dylan’s thesis, “Fanfare for Bette Davis.”

Name: Michael Cienfuegos, Jr.
Email: germanicus@earthlink.net
Home Phone: (619) 447-4734
Home Address: 1345 Craigmont Street, El Cajon, CA 92019-3108
School Phone: (573) 771-0600
School Address: 132 Cramer Hall-UMC, 911 Hitt Street, Columbia, MO 65201
Graduating Year: 1997 UCR Music and History Graduate

Michael is presently a MA/PhD student in history at University of Missouri-Columbia.

Name: Abraham Fabella
Email: cross_soundman@yahoo.com
WebSite: http://www.pargman.com

Abe Fabella graduated with a M.A. degree in Composition in 2001. His thesis was in two parts: a piano quintet and an essay discussing theories of dissonance formulated by John of Garland as it relates to a piano etude by William Bolcom. He is extremely grateful to his advising committee, Byron Adams, Ethan Nasreddin-Longo and Renee Coulombe for molding his approach to composing and analyzing music.

Although Abe writes in a tonal style, his music is frequently colored by pungent dissonances and non-functional harmony. His interests include Ravel, Prokofiev, Berg, cabaret, Latin American composers, American exotica of the 1950s and 60s, gendered and postcolonial discourse in music, film music, and Filipino art music.

Currently, he is attending the San Francisco Conservatory of Music where he is on a rather large fellowship. He studies composition with Conrad Susa and hopes to earn a Master of Music degree.

He is currently writing an oboe concertino for Robert Presler, a flute, violin, cello and piano chamber piece, and his first orchestral piece. Abe is also Director of Music at Transfiguration Episcopal Church in San Mateo.

Name: Steve Pargman
Email: cross_soundman@yahoo.com
Home Phone: (650) 344-8173
Home Address: 1479 El Camino Real, #205
Graduating Year: Graduated in 1975 with a BA in Music
WebSite: http://www.pargman.com

Married 27+ years, 2 sons and a daughter. Met my wife through a UCR jazz band concert in '76. Have been working in public social services 25 years. Taught instrumental music in public schools in Southern Cal '76-'79. Charter member of the Redlands 4th of July band in the 80s. Played bugle calls for Civil Air Patrol events in the 90s. I play in church occasionally. Most recently played trumpet at a coffee house with a tenor sax player. Son Joel is finishing a Masters in violin performance at USC and is in his 2nd summer as a Fellow of the Tanglewood Music Center. Daughter Cara has been playing the harp for more than 10 years. Son Randy is into computer programming and plays the pennywhistle with his wife.

Name: Robert Keith Presler, Jr. 
Email Address: ReyalpeobO@aol.com 
Graduating Year: 2002, 2004 

Robert graduated with a BA Music/BS Mathematics and a Computer Science minor in 2002 and with an MA Music Composition in 2004.  He played oboe in the UCR Orchestra, Wind Ensemble, Chamber Music, and various other ensembles throughout his career at UCR. Robert recently completed his thesis, which includes his first Symphony, just in time to be able to help with the final preparations for his wedding on December 18 to his fiance Berenis.  (His thesis committee included Byron Adams, Renee Coulombe, and Tim Labor, to whom he is eternally grateful for their support, instruction, and patience.) He is also currently in a teaching credential program at Cal State San Bernardino and plans to be a high school music teacher. 

Additional Info: Personal Note:
I'd like to thank the UCR Music Department for making my experience at UCR a wonderful and enriching one.  In this department, I've had the opportunity to study with some of the finest scholars, performers, conductors and composers.  Not only was I able to take their classes, but I also received much individual instruction and was able to actually get to know my professors a little.  This highly personal atmosphere between faculty and students remains one of the most impressive elements of this department, in my opinion. I am also thankful for the many opportunities that were provided for me in my seven years at UCR.  Since I was in high school, I've maintained a list of goals which included perfoming certain solo and orchestral works, conducting ensembles, and writing music.  I didn't realize, however, that a majority of them would be realized so soon.  In various campus ensembles, I've been exposed to an incredible amount of great literature, performed with many great musicians, and had original compositons premiered by small ensembles, the UCR Wind Ensemble, and the UCR Orchestra.  I encourage all students to be active in this department and take advantage of all of the opportunities and experiences that it has to offer.

Robert's MP3 Samples:

First Movement of Symphony No. 1 [Clip 1 | Clip 2]

Second Movement of Symphony No. 1 [Clip 1 | Clip 2]

Solemn Prelude for Wind Ensemble [Clip 1 | Clip 2]

Name: Michael H. Smith
Email: barigoodsinger@yahoo.com
Home Phone: (760) 242-3708
Home Address: 19458 Shasta Road Apple Valley, CA 92307-4727
Graduating Year: 1992

After graduating with an M.A. in Performance Practice, Mike found a job as an elementary school library/media specialist in Victorville, CA. He directs the Hi-Country Harmonaires barbershop chorus, and sings in a local junior college community chorus, two adult church choirs, a church men's quartet and two barbershop quartets. He also plays in a church handbell ensemble.

Name: Eric Martin Usner
Email: eric.usner@gmail.com
Graduating Year: 1999

Eric was the first student in the music department's graduate program in ethnomusicology (1997-99). For his M.A, he completed coursework in musicology, ethnomusicology, and dance history and theory at UCR and at UCLA.

While at UCR, Eric received a Humanities Research Grant for research into the role of Viennese Jewish faculty at the Hochschule für Musik in Vienna, work he had begun while on a Fulbright prior to graduate school. As fellow at the Center for Ideas and Society, he was part of a group exploring interdisciplinary and ethnographic applications of late Wittgenstein. He also served as editorial assistant for the Newsletter of the Society for Ethnomusicology, performed with the gamelan ensemble and the choral society, and was a Gluck Fellow. Eric's thesis, an ethnographic study of the late 1990s swing dance revival in southern California, viewed the subculture as a reaction of White youth to multiculturalism.

UCR did not have a Ph.D. at the time, so Eric left the West Coast for New York University. While in New York, Eric worked as a sound archivist, field worker, and videographer at the Center for Traditional Music and Dance [www.ctmd.org] and spent three years as guest faculty at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, NY. At SLC, he offered seminars in music and cultural studies and developed and led community collaborative experiential education trips to Western Nicaragua. He conducted the fieldwork for his dissertation, “Cultural Practices of Classical Music in 21st Century Vienna,” as an IDRF Fellow of the Social Science Research Council and while there, taught on music of the U.S. in the music department at the University of Vienna.

Eric has presented at national and international conferences, among them the Society for Ethnomusicology, the Society for American Music, the Society of Dance History Scholars, the I.A.S.P.M., the Experience Music Project Conference, Austrian Studies, and the International Council for Traditional Music. He has published on swing dance, applied ethnomusicology and community service learning, classical music in Vienna, and, soon, music at Starbucks. He has co-edited a volume on multi-part singing in the Mediterranean and is co-editing a volume on applied ethnomusicology. His current projects include a piece on the ethics of academic and intellectual praxis, the subculture of auctions within the Pennsylvania Dutch in southeastern PA, an ethnohistorical investigation of interracial amateur baseball in the early 20th century PA, and an epistemological critique of musicology using the analytic of critical whiteness studies.

Within SEM, Eric has served as a co-chair of the Student Concerns Committee, as the Vice President of the Mid-Atlantic Chapter of the SEM, and as member and chair of the Committee for Professional Development. Within the ICTM, he is currently a founding officer of the Study Group on Applied Ethnomusicology. Most recently, Eric was the Postdoctoral Fellow in ethnomusicology at The University of Chicago where he developed a graduate seminar on engaged ethnomusicology and worked within Southside communities on racial justice and food justice initiatives.