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Music Grad Students

PhD Student in Cross-Cultural Musicology

Ontario Alexander (he/him) is a Cross-Cultural Musicology Ph.D. student at the University of California, Santa Cruz. His area of study includes historical musicology in the French Baroque period and the roles of colonial history and theory in music.

PhD Candidate in Cross-Cultural Musicology

As a student in the cross-cultural musicology program, I value contributions from multiple disciplines.

Interests: Italian-American communities, accordion, Neapolitan song, opera.

DMA Student in Composition
PhD in Cross-Cultural Musicology

Siamak Barghi is an Iranian musician, and composer, and is currently a Ph.D. student in Musicology/Ethnomusicology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He received his MA in Ethnomusicology in 2021 from the University of Tehran, Iran.

PhD Student in Cross-Cultural Musicology

Lydia Barrett is in the PhD program in cross-cultural musicology.

DMA Student in Composition

Rodrigo Barriga is a Mexican composer and performer.

His work explores ensemble interaction and communication through the use of openness and guided improvisation. His compositions include text scores for open instrumentation as well as works for chamber and rock instruments.

DMA Student in Composition

Nina Barzegar is an Iranian composer and actress, and is currently a DMA student in Composition at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She also has a Bachelor of Piano Performance and a Master of Composition from the University of Tehran in Iran.

DMA Student in Composition

Keshav Batish is a multi-instrumentalist music-maker, whose work expresses networks of sonic kinship through dialogue across cultures, with emphasis on Afro-Asian diasporic interrelationships. He is a hereditary practitioner of South Asian musics, trained by his father Pt. Ashwin Batish.

MA Student in Ethnomusicology
DMA Candidate in Composition
PhD Candidate in Cross-Cultural Musicology
PhD Student in Cross-Cultural Musicology
DMA Student in Composition

Ben Dorfan is a composer, pianist, and music teacher. With a B.A. in Music from Oberlin College, he is currently pursuing his M.A. in Music Composition at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

DMA Student

Christopher Everingham is a composer, bassoonist, bass guitarist, and improvisor. Originally from Missoula, Montana, Christopher performed as the contrabassoonist for the Missoula Symphony from 2009 to 2019. In 2019, Christopher moved to California to study music at CalArts.

PhD Student in Cross-Cultural Musicology

Joseph Finkel is a second year Ph.D. student studying musicology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He obtained his Bachelor of Arts at degree at Youngstown State University in Ohio and his Master of Arts degree at Arizona State University.

DMA Student

Michael is a composer, multi-instrumentalist and educator from Southern California. His work explores influences/collaborations from various musical cultures and musicians throughout the world, creating an engaging intercultural dialogue.

DMA Student in Composition
DMA Student
PhD Candidate in Cross-Cultural Musicology

Nelsen Hutchison grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area where he began playing guitar and developing an eclectic taste for music at a young age.

DMA Student

Vahid Jahandari is a dynamic transdisciplinary musician, educator, and scholar specializing in global music studies. Award-winning composer of acoustic and electronic music, Jahandari's works have been performed and recorded in North America, Europe, and Asia.

DMA Candidate in Composition
PhD Student in Cross-Cultural Musicology
PhD Student in Cross-Cultural Musicology

David Long has been an accompanist, music director, multi-instrumentalist, and music educator in the Santa Cruz County and greater Bay Area since 2002.

Postdoctoral Scholar 
PhD Student in Cross-Cultural Musicology

Ms. Nabatian is a PhD student at UCSC and a musician specializing in Balkan and Turkish folk music. Her current research focuses on issues in migration and belonging for Iranian musicians in Western Turkey

PhD Candidate in Cross-Cultural Musicology

Alexander (Alec) Nunes is a Ph.D. candidate in cross-cultural musicology. Until recently, his research examined Japanese American traditional music practices in California as its participants navigated tradition, gender, sexuality, white supremacy, and the legacy of anti-Asian sentiment.

DMA in Composition

Pierre Pouria Derieux Eghdami is a composer and sonic artist. He delves into the outermost boundaries of sound, music technology, and the forefront of experimental electroacoustic music, instrumental mechanisms, and physicality.

PhD Student in Cross-Cultural Musicology

Balakrishnan Raghavan is an accomplished musician, researcher, and educator. He is a doctoral student in cross-cultural musicology at the University of California Santa Cruz.

PhD Student in Cross-Cultural Musicology

Savanna is a 4th year on the cross-cultural musicology Ph.D. track. She has a B.S. in Psychology with a minor in Music from the University of California Davis. She is interested in teaching popular music courses specifically centered around rock n’ roll from the 1960’s in America.

PhD Student in Cross-Cultural Musicology

Wesley Somers is a PhD student in Cross-Cultural Musicology at UC Santa Cruz with a B.A. in Literature from the same institution.

PhD Student in Cross-Cultural Musicology
PhD Candidate in Cross-Cultural Musicology
PhD Student

Ashwin Suseendran is a PhD Student in Cross-Cultural Musicology, as well as a multi-instrumentalist, singer, and teacher.

PhD Student

Stephanie Valadez is the Artistic Director and Chair of the Board for Xicameri Productions, a 501(c)3 organization that uplifts the voices of under-represented communities and promotes justice and equal opportunity through its thought-provoking music and dance.  She enjoys collaborative and multi

DMA Candidate in Composition

Alex Wand is a composer interested in folk music, multispecies flourishing, social practice art, and dance/multimedia collaborations.