Recent Courses Taught:

Courses for Undergraduate Music Majors

History of Music I and II (Peabody Institute)

I taught History of Music II, Classical and Romantic Music (Spring 2022), and History of Music I, Medieval and Renaissance Music (Fall 2022 and Spring 2023). These are fundamental courses in the music history sequence for conservatory students, and I adapted them to emphasize skill-building. Students learned to: analyze primary source documents; describe their personal listening practices in detail using shared terminology; understand how history gets written, by whom, and for what purpose; analyze the complex relationships between music and text in texted vocal music.

Music in History 1750-present (Temple University)

I taught this course online in Spring of 2021 and was given permission to make changes to the existing course to make it more diverse and inclusive. Throughout the semester, students reflected on the act of creating music history, and especially about who is included and who is excluded from traditional narratives. Students were asked to co-create the syllabus, giving feedback on what was taught and how it was being taught. I strategically placed students into groups based on their self-reported skills and interests, and each group worked on a final presentation making a case for why a particular figure in music history had not historically been represented in textbooks and other narratives of music history and why they should be represented in such narratives in the future.  

Courses for Undergraduate and Graduate Student Music Majors

History of Opera (West Chester University, Temple University)

I have had the opportunity to serve as a semester-long replacement for professors of Opera History at West Chester University and Temple University. In my syllabi, I worked to include a mixture of well-known, standard repertoire that have been traditionally studied in the field and that students might be expected to know in the future, along with lesser-known works that serve to diversify the syllabus and showcase different aspects of opera as an art form. I supplemented the textbook (Parakilas’s The Story of Opera at West Chester and Abbate and Parker’s A History of Opera at Temple) with additional readings from scholarly publications, newspapers and magazines, and websites and social media. In addition, I crafted assignments that tap into student’s creativity and have them think about opera from different points of view. For example, students wrote their directorial vision for an opera scene, reviewed a live performance of an opera, and analyzed how an operatic aria is used in a televised commercial for a product.

Electives for Undergraduate Students

Music in Movie Epics (Temple University)

This course is an introduction to the art of film music through the lens of movie epics. At its inception, the course centered around three major movie franchises: Harry Potter, Star Wars, and The Lord of the Rings. I built a syllabus that still included films from these franchises but also represents different kinds of movie epics, from animated movies such as Disney’s Coco to superhero movies such as Black Panther and martial arts movies such as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Adding variety to the films on the syllabus meant that students are exposed to more diverse ways that soundtracks can manipulate audience expectations and reactions.

Mozart Operas (Peabody at Homewood Program at Johns Hopkins University)

This writing-intensive course aims to introduce students to Mozart Operas while reframing the common narrative of Mozart as a stand-alone musical genius. The course curriculum focuses on the collaborative nature of Mozart’s operas: his work alongside librettists, singers, and impresarios, and the support he gained from his family and friends. The course also addresses head-on the fact that many Mozart operas have misogyny, violence against women, and racism embedded into their plots and even their music. We think deeply about these subjects and the ethics of presenting Mozart’s operas today.

Powerful Women in Opera (Peabody at Homewood Program at Johns Hopkins University)

This course, cross-listed with Women and Gender Studies, seeks to counteract prevailing narratives of women as victims in opera. We explore together the different ways female characters, from queens to serving girls, exert their power with their voices and actions in operatic narratives. As we study repertoire from the 17th century through the present, we notice ways in which the representation of women in opera has stayed the same over time and ways in which they have changed. In addition, we think about the role of women in the opera industry and how female singers, composers, librettists, directors, and administrators have shaped and continue to shape opera.

Graduate-Level Seminars

The Business of Opera in 21st-Century America (Peabody Institute)

I developed this asynchronous, online course in partnership with Peabody’s Learning Innovation team, and it launched in Spring of 2023. For this course, I interviewed singer Davóne Tines, composer Lembit Beecher, dramaturge Cori Ellison, conductor Sean Kelly, Lee Anne Myslewski (Vice President of Opera and Classical Programming at Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts), Kristina Murti (Director of Marketing and Communications at Seattle Opera), and Veronica Chapman-Smith (Vice President of Community Initiatives at Opera Philadelphia) about their views on the state of opera in America today. These interviews formed part of the original course content that I developed with modules on the Operatic Canon, Updated Stagings, Alternate Venues for Opera, Composing New Repertoire, Recruiting Audiences, and Education and Community Engagement.

Exoticism on the Musical Stage (Peabody Institute)

This course focuses on musical works for the stage that contain representations of the “other,” examining how text, music, and staging all work in different ways to exoticize certain characters. Creators of musical works have been continually drawn towards the idea of the “other,” wanting to represent on the stage characters that they perceive as culturally different or outside the norms of their own society. Works discussed will include Rameau’s Les Indes galantes (1735), Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte (1791), Bizet’s Carmen (1875), Sullivan’s The Mikado (1885), and Bernstein’s West Side Story (1957), as well as more recent adaptations of these works such as Carmen Jones (1943), Carmen: A Hip Hopera (2001), and the upcoming new West Side Story film (2021). We address the historical contexts of these works, not to excuse them for their stereotyping practices, but to learn the social, economic, and aesthetic contexts that contributed to their original receptions. In addition, we examine our own responses to these pieces and discuss the ethics of performing these works today.

Reenacting Orpheus (Peabody Institute)

This course focuses on Orpheus operas: from Claudio Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo of 1607, considered one of the first true operas ever written, to Anaïs Mitchell’s 2010 folk opera Hadestown, currently playing on Broadway. We develop analytical tools for exploring operas, learning how text, music, and production elements such as costumes and scenery interact to tell the story of Orpheus. Through the course of the semester, students become experts not only in the Orpheus myth, but also in issues of translation, adaptation, and reenactment. We consider how different Orpheus operas present the same story to different audiences, changing the myth in various ways to make Orpheus continue to appeal to listeners around the world and throughout the centuries.

Performance Ensembles

Rodin Opera Scenes Ensemble (University of Pennsylvania)

This ensemble, which was in existence from 2014-2018, was a training and performance program for University of Pennsylvania undergraduate and graduate students. The program’s mission was to serve all students, regardless of their previous experience with opera or classical singing, and repertoire was chosen to best suit individual singers’ voices and levels of experience. A performance was held at operations as well as its artistic vision. I auditioned singers, coached singers musically, staged scenes, and put together the performance program, working collaboratively with the program’s mix of paid and volunteer staff.

Courses in Development

Shakespeare and Music

Mental Health on the Musical Stage

Comparative Arts

Opera Translation and Adaptation

Communicating Through Music

Cultural Representation on Broadway

Audience Engagement Lectures

2022     “A Biblical Opera: Rossini’s Moses in Egypt,” Hillcrest Jewish Center Sisterhood

2022     “What Can Opera Add to Shakespeare: Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette,” Opera Philadelphia, Lifelong Learning at Waverley Heights

2022     “Shakespeare Two Ways: The Otellos of Rossini and Verdi,” Opera Philadelphia, Lifelong Learning at Waverley Heights

2022     “Music, Magic, and Merriment: Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” Opera Philadelphia, Lifelong Learning and Waverley Heights

2022     “Seductive and Sinister: The Complex Characters of Rigoletto,” Opera Philadelphia, Between the Notes Lecture for Donors

(Also given at the Athenæum of Philadelphia)

2022     “Introduction to Rigoletto,” Opera Philadelphia, Opera Overtures Lecture

2022     “(Re-)Reading Rigoletto,” Opera Philadelphia, VIVACE Lecture

2022     “Opera Translation and Audience Engagement,” Opera NextGen Webinar

2022     “Absorption and Distance: Oedipus Rex and Lilacs,” Opera Philadelphia, Between the Notes Lecture for Donors

2022     “Introduction to Oedipus Rex and Lilacs,” Opera Philadelphia, Opera Overtures Lecture

2022     “Denial in Oedipus Rex,” Opera Philadelphia, VIVACE Lecture

2020        “Paris in the Belle Époque,” Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Pre-performance Lecture for General Audience

2020        “The New European Map,” Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Pre-performance Lecture for General Audience

2017        “Die Zauberflöte, Gender Dynamics, and Silent Film,” Opera Philadelphia, Between the Notes Lecture for Donors

2017        “Social Hierarchies in Disguise in Le nozze di Figaro,” Opera Philadelphia, Between the Notes Lecture for Donors

2017        “Introduction to Le nozze di Figaro,” Opera Philadelphia, Opera Overtures Lecture for General Audience

2011        “Zoom in on Zefferelli with La bohème,” Metropolitan Opera Guild, Pre-screening Lecture for General Audience

2011        “Putting New Magic in The Magic Flute,” Metropolitan Opera Guild, Pre-screening Lecture for General Audience

 Curriculum Consulting

2022     Curriculum Consultant, Opera Philadelphia, Student Guide for Verdi’s Rigoletto

2022     Curriculum Consultant, Opera Philadelphia, Student Guide for Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex

2021     Curriculum Consultant, Opera Philadelphia, Sounds of Learning Workbook for Verdi’s La Traviata

2021     Curriculum Consultant, Opera Philadelphia, Sounds of Learning Workbook for Henze’s El Cimarrón

2020     Curriculum Consultant, Opera Philadelphia, Sounds of Learning Workbook for Puccini’s Madama Butterfly

2020     Curriculum Consultant, Opera Philadelphia, Sounds of Learning Workbook for Verdi’s Requiem

2017     Curriculum Consultant, Opera Philadelphia, Sounds of Learning Workbook for Written on Skin

2016     Course Developer, Opera Philadelphia, Massive Open Online Course for Cold Mountain

2011     Curriculum Consultant, Metropolitan Opera Guild, Pathways for Understanding Study Guides