Research

My primary research explores how music reflects and shapes larger socio-cultural trends. In my dissertation, I examined the cultural significance of the creative genius and expressions of heroic masculinity in Franz Liszt’s symphonic poems Tasso: Lamento e Trionfo and Mazeppa. I explore how Liszt connects program music (and the complexity within that genre), Romantic heroism, and cultural expressions of masculinity. My doctoral research was supported by a Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship (CGS-D) from SSHRC along with other provincial and institutional funding.

When I’m not engaging in the fascinating world of Liszt, I research topics related to music and music-making in Canada. I am particularly interested in the ways landscape can serve as a marker of Canadian identity: the harbours of the maritimes, the lake country of Ontario, the vast openness of the prairies, the pines of the west coast, and the frozen tundra of the north.

I’m also interested in female arts patronage in early prairie settlements, especially in Edmonton. Currently, I’m preparing an article and a book on the role of the affluent Annie York Secord in arts patronage at the turn of the twentieth century. By recreating her letters, diaries, and scrapbooks, I am able to gauge what life and society was like as a settler in urban prairie settlements.