It is hard to say if my life in music began sitting next to my mother on the piano bench watching her play Christmas carols by ear, seeing the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show, or with some other long-forgotten but equally catalytic event. In any event, I was behind the bass in a rock and roll band by the age of 13 and never looked back. My academic interest in music began with the study of music theory in college; at the time, it was an astounding revelation to me that there is a language one can use to describe sound and communicate with others about the structures of music. After graduating from college, for about a decade I played with blues, reggae, swing and jazz bands while gradually becoming more and more attracted to the music of Ireland, Brazil, and India. This led me in 1983 to vocal study with the renowned Indian flutist T. Viswanathan in Wesleyan University’s World Music Program, and to the discipline of ethnomusicology.

After finishing graduate coursework my wife and I spent a year in Chennai, South India researching the “padam” genre of dance music on a Junior Fellowship from the American Institute of Indian Studies. After completing my dissertation on padams I had my first opportunities to teach at Indiana University, Duke University, and the University of Oklahoma before coming to Wheaton in 1999.

As an ethnomusicologist my research has focused on the social history of performance in India; colonialism, nationalism and the arts; the musical life of diasporic communities; the guitar family of instruments; modernization discourses in music (especially in colonized countries in the early 20th century); and comparative and vernacular music theory.

I’ve written several articles and book chapters on the social history of Indian music and dance, and in 2004 co-authored, with T. Viswanathan, the book “Music in South India”, published by Oxford University Press in its Global Music Series. Currently I am revising my dissertation for anticipated publication by Manohar Publishers in New Delhi.

On sabbatical from Wheaton during spring semester 2002, a fellowship as a Fulbright Senior Scholar at University College Cork (UCC), Ireland, facilitated a research project on harmony in Irish music. While our family lived in Cork I also taught courses on Latin/jazz intersections and the “guitar in cross cultural perspective” at UCC. Living in Cork that year I was extremely fortunate to meet the great singer and storyteller Seán Ó Sé, best known for his long association with composer Seán Ó Riada in the ensemble Ceoltoiri Chualann and also a master of many performance contexts including variety concerts, cabaret, and ceili band. Seán and I are currently making a film documentary on his career in the Irish music business and hope to premiere the film in the autumn of 2011.

My primary professional affiliation is with the Society for Ethnomusicology, where I currently serve as Chair of the SEM Council. I also am an active member of the International Council for Traditional Music and the Society for Asian Music.

As a performer my main instrument is the guitar. I have also been known to attempt to sing, and to fool around with keyboards, bass, percussion, and that most frustrating and rewarding five dollar piece of metal, the Irish tin whistle.