OSU Ethnomusicology: Recent Grads

Joan Titus

Joan is a Ph.D. candidate here at OSU, in musicology. Her specialty is Russian 20th century music, with a focus on the film music of Dmitri Shostakovich. Joan wrote her Master's thesis on Shostakovich and 1920s era film techniques, entitled, Montage Shostakovich: Film, Popular Culture, and the Finale of the Piano Concerto No.1 and presented versions of this thesis at national and international conferences. Joan recently received two grants, the Alumni Grant for Research from the Graduate School and the Office of International Affairs Grant for Dissertation Research, that allowed her to spend the summer of 2004 in Russia researching her dissertation on his early film music. Joan is currently in the writing stage of her dissertation.

Joan also has interests in film studies, and in ethnomusicology, specifically the popular music of the Native American Southwest. In May 2003, Joan was awarded the OSU Ethnomusicology Area Research Grant for fieldwork in Tucson, Arizona on the 15th Annual Waila Festival. In February 2004, Joan presented a paper on her Waila fieldwork at the Hayes Graduate Research Forum here at OSU. In November 2004, at the Society for Ethnomusicology National Conference in Tucson, Arizona, Joan presented a different version of that paper entitled, Identity Construction in Tohono O'odham Waila : A Perspective of the 2003 Waila Festival in Tucson, Arizona. Though currrently engaged in writing her dissertation, Joan looks forward to future fieldwork in Tucson that will focus on current practices and contexts of Waila tradition on the Tohono O'odham Reservation, in comparison with festival contexts throughout Southern Arizona.

Ben Koen

Primary Field:: Ethnomusicology
Cultural areas:: Tajikistan, Badakhshan, Iran
Secondary Field:: Cognitive Ethnomusicology, Jazz Studies: performance, improvisation, theory and composition
Secondary cultural areas:: North American Indian, African-American, China
Additional Areas of Study:: Cultural and Medical Anthropology, Comparative and Religious Studies, Tai Chi, Chi Gong

Ben Koen's primary research concerns the use of music and prayer for the purpose of healing. He has conducted field research in rural and urban environments in Asia and the U.S., most recently, in Badakhshan, Tajikistan.

He lived in northeast China for one year where he studied the xiao bamboo flute, tai chi and chi gong. He also plays the Persian and Badakhshani ney, Lakota cederwood flute, and various other traditional flutes as well as African and Middle Eastern drums.

As a jazz musician (saxophone, flute, bass clarinet), Ben has performed in over thirty countries, has been a member in the bands of, among others, David Murray, Cecil Taylor, William Parker, Billy Bang, and D.D. Jackson. Ben has published recordings as a leader and sideman and leads various original ensembles.

Excerpt from OSU Today, the latest news and information from The Ohio State University for the week of Monday, June 28:

KOEN WINS NATIONAL DISSERTATION AWARD

The Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations recently awarded David Benjamin Koen one of only two international awards for innovative use of software in creating an electronic thesis or dissertation. Koen recived his Ph.D. in congnitive ethnomusicology from Ohio State in 2003 and is now an assistant professor at Florida State University. Koen's dissertation, which can be viewed at http://www.ohiolink.edu/etd/view.cgi?acc_num=osu1059673277,examines current practices of music and prayer in healing amonge the people of Badakhshan, Tajikistan. Ohio State is recognized as a leader in the worldwide electronic theisis and dissertation movement.

Florida State Pages

Eric T. Berg

Master's thesis title: An analysis of the perception of rhythmic structure in music in free rhythm with a focus on North Indian classical alap (2004)

Randall Joseph Zidones

Master's thesis title: The role of music in constructing identity among the youth of transition-era Slovakia (2003)

Thomas Barone Beardslee