Research Interests

• Microtonal music
• Video game music
• Film music
• Theme park music

Publications

Articles/Essays

• “Scoring, Sounding, and Silencing Death: Musical Depictions of Failure in Coherent and Incoherent Worlds—Part 2,” Music and the Moving Image 17, no. 3 (2024): 20–43. University of Illinois Press.

  https://doi.org/10.5406/19407610.17.3.02
  

• “Scoring, Sounding, and Silencing Death: Musical Depictions of Failure in Coherent and Incoherent Worlds—Part 1,” Music and the Moving Image 17, no. 2 (2024): 35–55. University of Illinois Press.

  https://doi.org/10.5406/19407610.17.2.03
  

• “Playful Listening for Performing Musicians,” Florida Music Director 77, no. 8 (2024): 24–28. Florida Music Education Association, Center for Fine Arts Education.

  https://issuu.com/cfaefl/docs/florida_music_director_may_2024/24
  

• “What is it Like to Be a Dolphin? Echolocation and Subjectivity in Video Games,” Journal of Sound and Music in Games 2, no. 3 (2021): 1–33. University of California Press.

  https://doi.org/10.1525/jsmg.2021.2.3.1

Book Sections/Chapters

• “Virtuosic Play in Super Mario Maker 2,” in Music and Sonic Environments in Video Games: Listening to and Performing Ludic Soundscapes, edited by Kate Galloway and Elizabeth Hambleton (2024): 86–103. Routledge.

  https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003275305-9

• “How Video Game Music Plays Us: Musical Topics, Modularity, and Compulsion Loops,” in The Oxford Handbook of Video Game Music and Sound, edited by William Gibbons and Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard (2024): 308–325. Oxford University Press.

  https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780197556160.013.11
  

• “Overlapping Gestural Zones and Modulation on the Fifteen-Tone Guitar,” in Proceedings of the 21st Century Guitar Conference 2019 & 2021, edited by Rita Torres, Amy Brandon, and Jason Noble (2023): 22–34. University of Denver Digital Commons.

  https://digitalcommons.du.edu/twentyfirst-century-guitar/vol1/iss1/4/

• “Performing Easley Blackwood’s Twelve Microtonal Etudes: An Open-Source Software Development Project,” coauthored with Richard Leinecker, in Mathematics and Computation in Music 2022, edited by Mariana Montiel, Octavio A. Agustín-Aquino, Francisco Gómez, Jeremy Kastine, Emilio Lluis-Puebla, and Brent Milam (2022): 331–339. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Springer Nature.

  https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-07015-0_27
  

Performances

• Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming

  • Arrangement for SATB chorus and string quartet (or organ) from the hymn by Michael Praetorius. Written for the Cathedral Church of Saint Luke Choir. Premiered December 24, 2023, Cathedral Church of Saint Luke, Orlando, Florida.

• A Cradle Song

  • For SATB chorus and chamber orchestra on a text by William Blake. Commissioned by VoxO and the Orlando Contemporary Chamber Orchestra. Premiered September 9, 2023, Through a Child’s Eyes, Alexis & Jim Pugh Theater, Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts, Orlando, Florida.

• Spirits of the Dead

  • For SATB chorus and chimes on a text by Edgar Allan Poe. Written for VoxO. Premiered October 30, 2022, Toil and Trouble, Cathedral Church of Saint Luke, Orlando, Florida.

• O quam dulcis

  • For SATB chorus, vibraphone, and cello on a text by Alcuin of York. Commissioned by VoxO and the Orlando Contemporary Chamber Orchestra. Premiered August 27, 2022, Let Me Be Peace, Harriett’s Orlando Ballet Centre, Orlando, Florida.

Conference Papers/Presentations

• “Forking Paths and Ludomusical Form in John Morris’s Score for Clue (1985)”

  • Music and the Moving Image Conference, New York University, New York City, New York, May 24, 2024.
  • North American Conference on Video Game Music, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, March 16, 2024.

• “Listening to Recursive Translations of Easley Blackwood’s Twelve Microtonal Etudes”

  • American Musicological Society/Society for Music Theory, Denver, Colorado, November 10, 2023.

• “A Magical Moment Made Just for You: Playful Design and Sensations of Wonderment in the Looping Music of Walt Disney World Attractions”

  • North American Conference on Video Game Music, Stetson University, DeLand, Florida, February 4, 2023.

• “Reframing Post-Tonal Pedagogy for the Twenty-First Century”

  • Society for Music Theory, New Orleans, Louisiana, November 12, 2022. Organized and chaired special session. Supported by UCF Travel Award for Recognition of Faculty Excellence.

• “Performing Easley Blackwood’s Twelve Microtonal Etudes: An Open-Source Software Development Project”

  • International Conference on Mathematics and Computation in Music, Georgia State University, Atlanta, Georgia, June 23, 2022.

• “Examining Agency in the Music of the Protomen”

  • North American Conference on Video Game Music, Louisiana Tech University, Ruston, Louisiana, Virtual Presentation, April 2, 2022.

• “Virtuosic Play in Super Mario Maker 2”

  • North American Conference on Video Game Music, Virtual Conference, June 13, 2021.

• “Music without the Moving Image: The Soundtrack for Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire”

  • Music and the Moving Image Conference, Virtual Conference, May 29, 2020.

• “A Theory of Music as Distraction in Video Games”

  • North American Conference on Video Game Music, Virtual Conference, June 13, 2020.
  • South Central Society for Music Theory, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, March 1, 2020. Poster presentation.
  • Film and Multimedia Interest Group Meeting, Society for Music Theory Annual Meeting, Columbus, Ohio, November 8, 2019. Paper presented as “Grasso’s ‘Oh-Shit Moment’ and Music as Distraction in Video Games.”

• “Overlapping Gestural Zones and Modulation on the Fifteen-Tone Guitar”

  • International 21st-Century Guitar Conference, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, August 24, 2019.

• “What is it Like to Be a Dolphin? Echolocation and Subjectivity in Video Games”

  • North American Conference on Video Game Music, University of Hartford, West Hartford, Connecticut, March 31, 2019. Supported by UCF Travel Award for Recognition of Faculty Excellence.

• “Gesture and Transformation in Joel Mandelbaum’s Thirty-One-Tone Keyboard Miniatures”

  • Society for Music Theory, San Antonio, Texas, November 2, 2018. Supported by UCF Travel Award for Recognition of Faculty Excellence.
  • Music Theory Midwest, Western University, London, Ontario, May 18, 2018.
  • Music Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic, William Paterson University, Wayne, New Jersey, March 23, 2018.
  • Music Theory Southeast, University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina, March 3, 2018.

• “Microtonality and Transformation: Analyzing Easley Blackwood’s ‘19 Notes’ with a Modified Tonal GIS”

  • European Music Analysis Conference, Strasbourg, France, June 28, 2017.
  • Music Theory Society of New York State, Hobart & William Smith Colleges, Geneva, New York, April 1, 2017.

• “Musical Depictions of Failure in Coherent and Incoherent Worlds”

  • North American Conference on Video Game Music, Davidson College, Davidson, North Carolina, January 16, 2016.

• “Analyzing Narrative in Video Game Music: Topic Theory and Modular Design”

  • Society for Music Theory, St. Louis, Missouri, October 31, 2015.
  • North American Conference on Video Game Music, Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, Texas, January 17, 2015.

• “Recomposition of Chopin and Narrative Design in Double Fine’s Stacking”

  • Music and the Moving Image Conference, New York University, New York City, New York, May 31, 2014.
  • North American Conference on Video Game Music, Youngstown State University, Youngstown, Ohio, January 18, 2014.
• “Borrowed Hymn Tunes, Polychordal Sonorities, and Melodic Scale-Degree Qualia in ‘At Sea’ by Charles Ives”
  • Music Theory Southeast, Appalachian State University, Boone, North Carolina, April 5, 2013.
  • South Central Society for Music Theory, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, March 15, 2013.

Courses

• Fall 2025