Faculty

Our unparalleled faculty is the cornerstone of the educational experience in the School of Music. Our faculty consists of internationally recognized scholars, musicians, and teachers, who bring their real-world experience directly into the classroom, rehearsal hall, and studio. With some of the most prominent musical experts in the Twin Cities--many members of the Minnesota Orchestra or the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra--our collaborative and creative faculty guide students as they develop into scholars, teachers, composers, and performers.

Strings

Kyle Motl playing the contrabass

Kyle Motl

he/him/his
Assistant Professor Double Bass and Contemporary Instrumental Performance

Specialties

Double Bass; Improvisation; Contemporary Music; Creative Music; Jazz

Woodwinds

Brass

Marissa Benedict

Marissa Benedict

Assistant Professor Trumpet

Specialties

Trumpet Performing; Classical, Jazz and recording Instruction; Chamber Music Coaching and Leadership; Masterclasses and instruction; Collaborations with Faculty and colleagues (see website)

Percussion

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Fernando Meza

Director of Percussion Studies, Professor, Spring '24 sabbatical

Specialties

Percussion literature, techniques, and pedagogy; Percussion; Orchestral and contemporary music; North Indian tabla drums; The folkloric marimba traditions of Costa Rica; Music technology as applied to education

Keyboard

Voice

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Samantha Laumann

Voice

Specialties

Vocal Pedagogy and Health; Bel Canto/Classical/Musical Theatre/Mix and Belt Technique; Accompanist; Composition; Musical Theatre Repertoire; Music Directing; Orchestration; Conducting

David Walsh profile photo

David Walsh

Associate Professor, Director of Opera Theatre

Specialties

Managerial abilities; Administration; Opera history; 20th-century contemporary operatic literature and design

Jazz and Improvisation

Sivan Cohen Elias during a performance on invented musical instrument

Sivan Cohen Elias

she/her/hers
Assistant Professor Composition and Music Technology

Specialties

Acoustical and Electroacoustic Music Composition; Improviser Performer with sound instruments and Electronics; Sound and multimedia Artist; Sound design software techniques including working with iZotope RX, and Ozone; Field and studio Recording techniques; Fixed media with any Digital Audio Workstation, including ProTools, Cubase, Reaper, Abelton Live, Logic Pro, Adobe Audition; Graphical programming with Max MSP and Jitter including MC and Gen; Classical and contemporary notation and orchestration techniques; Notation and graphical software include Finale, Sibelius, and Adobe Illustrator; Video editing with Adobe Premiere Pro, and Final Cut

Kyle Motl playing the contrabass

Kyle Motl

he/him/his
Assistant Professor Double Bass and Contemporary Instrumental Performance

Specialties

Double Bass; Improvisation; Contemporary Music; Creative Music; Jazz

Dean Sorenson Head Shot

Dean Sorenson

​Director of Undergraduate Studies, Director of Jazz Studies, Associate Professor

Specialties

Jazz; Music composition; Trombone

Conducting & Ensembles

Jerry Luckhardt

Jerry Luckhardt

Associate Director of Bands, Associate Professor

Specialties

Conducting

Betsy McCann

Betsy McCann

she/her/hers
Assistant Director of Bands, Director of Marching and Athletic Bands, Assistant Professor

Specialties

Contemporary Music, Concert Band, Leadership, Group Culture, Marching Band

Dean Sorenson Head Shot

Dean Sorenson

​Director of Undergraduate Studies, Director of Jazz Studies, Associate Professor

Specialties

Jazz; Music composition; Trombone

Emily Threinen

Emily Threinen

She/Her
Director of Bands, Associate Professor

Specialties

Conducting Pedagogy, Wind Band; Concert Art Music, Wind Band emphasis

David Walsh profile photo

David Walsh

Associate Professor, Director of Opera Theatre

Specialties

Managerial abilities; Administration; Opera history; 20th-century contemporary operatic literature and design

Composition and Electronic Music

Sivan Cohen Elias during a performance on invented musical instrument

Sivan Cohen Elias

she/her/hers
Assistant Professor Composition and Music Technology

Specialties

Acoustical and Electroacoustic Music Composition; Improviser Performer with sound instruments and Electronics; Sound and multimedia Artist; Sound design software techniques including working with iZotope RX, and Ozone; Field and studio Recording techniques; Fixed media with any Digital Audio Workstation, including ProTools, Cubase, Reaper, Abelton Live, Logic Pro, Adobe Audition; Graphical programming with Max MSP and Jitter including MC and Gen; Classical and contemporary notation and orchestration techniques; Notation and graphical software include Finale, Sibelius, and Adobe Illustrator; Video editing with Adobe Premiere Pro, and Final Cut

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Alex Lubet

Professor Composition

Specialties

Music composition; Disability Studies, Bioethics, Jewish & American Studies; Performance; Popular culture; music, theatre, film

Music Education

Akosua Addo

Akosua Addo

Associate Professor Music Education Music Therapy

Specialties

Elementary music methods; International music education; Play; World music; International teacher education; Arts Integration; African Music

Keitha Lucas Hamann smiles in a green shirt with striped jacket on a brown background.

Keitha Lucas Hamann

she/her/hers
Associate Professor, Director of Graduate Studies Music Education Music Therapy
Director of Graduate Studies and Associate Director

Specialties

rural music education; arts assessment; history of music education; music teacher development; sight singing; middle level music education; choral music education

Shekela Wanyama, a Black woman with curly black hair, glasses, and a bright patterned shirt.

Shekela Wanyama

she/her/hers
Music Education

Specialties

Music Education; Conducting

Music Therapy and Health

white male, with dark colored hair, wearing glasses, a pink shirt, pink tie, and a grey suit jacket

Edward Todd Schwartzberg

he, him, his
Senior Teaching Specialist & Clinic Coordinator Music Education Music Therapy

Specialties

Music therapy with Autism Spectrum Disorder and related intellectual disabilities; Music therapy in Early Childhood and Special Education

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Michael Silverman

he, him
Director of Music Therapy, Professor

Specialties

Illness management and recovery; Evidence-based music therapy; Music therapy in adult mental health; Music therapy in addiction

Musicology & Ethnomusicology

Gabriela in Rome

Gabriela Currie

Professor, Musicology and Historical Ethnomusicology

Specialties

Global perspectives: historical ethnomusicology (pre- and early-modern); Eurasian music iconography and archaeology; Early ethnographic accounts of musical traditions in Eurasia and Africa; Intersections between musical and scientific thought in the early- and pre-modern eras; Music and culture of the Balkan Penninsula, Western and Central Asia

Kelley Harness, smiling

Kelley Harness

Associate Professor Associate Director Spring '24 sabbatical Musicology/Ethnomusicology

Specialties

Music and theater in Italian convents; 17th-century Italian opera; Musical intermedi in 16th-century spoken plays; Handel operas; African and Latin American music; 16th- and 17th-century musical patronage; Women and political legitimacy in early 17th-century Florence; Political imagery in Renaissance arts

Woman with short hair

Karen Painter

she/her
Professor, Musicology/Ethnomusicology

Specialties

music and politics, music criticism, Jewish studies, social history, German and Austrian history, implicit bias and racism, and Chinese music

Music Theory

Middle-aged white man with short brown hair

Matt Bribitzer-Stull

he/him/his
Professor Theory

Specialties

Richard Strauss; music theory; German Romantic music traditions; french horn; Richard Wagner; theory pedagogy; nineteenth-century theory and analysis; musical form and tonal structure; musical associativity; chromatic harmony; queer theory and subjectivity

Man taking photo of himself in round mirror with ornate frame

David Damschroder

Professor Theory

Specialties

Fortepiano performance and repertoire; Theories of harmony (18th – 21st centuries); Music of the nineteenth century; Analysis of tonal music (Schenkerian emphasis)

image of a South Asian American cis-man with short hair and a light beard, wearing a zipped-up black jacket.

Sumanth Gopinath

he/him/his
Associate Professor Theory

Specialties

Sound studies; Popular music; Musical hermeneutics; Music and politics; Avant-garde and experimental musics; Music after WWII; Music and globalization

Guerio Mazzola with painting by jakob Sollberger

Guerino Mazzola

Professor Creativity, Improvisation, and Mathematical Music Theory

Specialties

Classical symbolic thinking in music and performance theory; Transformational theory using category theory; Gestures in music; Software for musical analysis, composition, and performance; Free jazz

Affiliated Faculty

Michael Gallope

Michael Gallope

he / him
Affiliate Faculty

Specialties

Music and Sound Studies; Philosophy and Intellectual History; Music of the African Diaspora; Cultural History and Ethnography; Global Modernisms

photo of Charles Kronengold by Mark Nye

Charles Kronengold

he/him

Specialties

20th- and 21st-century music (including musics of the African Diaspora, Western art music, popular music of the Americas, experimental musics and avant gardes, electronic dance music); film and audiovisual media; aesthetics (especially in relation to ethics); poetry and poetics; comparative modernisms; theories of genre

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Elliott Powell

He/him/his

Specialties

American popular music and culture; Comparative race and ethnic studies; Feminist and queer studies; Afro-Asian studies; Black cultural studies; Afro-diasporic popular music; Inter-/cross-cultural music making; Sound studies

Professors Emeriti