Research Interests
Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century music, transnationalism, historical anthropologies of sound, opera studies, ludomusicology, comedy, material culture
Projects
My interests come together in my dissertation, which identifies an Anglo-Italian musical culture that emerged in the years immediately following the Napoleonic Wars. Drawing on theories of cultural mobility, networks, and assemblages, I investigate the movement of musical products and individuals (singers, instrumentalists, pedagogues, dilettante composers, expatriate music enthusiasts, and tourists) between Britain and Italy. A secondary research project is a comparative ethnography addressing the use and reception of contrafacted melodies in the services of various Modern Orthodox synagogues throughout the US, UK, and Israel.
Personal Statement
I am currently a Visiting Research Fellow at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. I joined the department at UC Berkeley after completing my BA in Music at the University of Pennsylvania and my MPhil in Music Studies at Gonville & Caius College, University of Cambridge. Originally from Baltimore, MD, I received an Advanced Certificate in Violin Performance from the Peabody Institute, and studied piano as well. At Penn, I studied violin with Min-Young Kim of the Daedalus Quartet.
Teaching
At Berkeley, I’ve taught courses in music history and in musicianship skills. I especially enjoyed developing and teaching a seminar on “Music and Play.”
Instructor of Record: Music and Play (R1B); Musicianship I (20A); Musicianship II (20B)
Graduate Student Instructor: Introduction to Western Music (27)
Conferences and Invited Talks
2021 “Digital archives and historical research methods in 2021,” colloquium talk at the Department of Music, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (May 25)
2021 “Cicadas, Rossini, Epidemic Airs, and the Anglo-Italian: Anthropologies of Sound in Tuscany, 1814-1830,” colloquium talk at the Department of Music, Bar-Ilan University (May 11)
2020 “Il filo: The Circulation of Anglo-Roman Musical Products, 1798-1832”
- Annual Meeting of the American Musicological Society, Virtual (November 7-8, 14-15)
- 21st Biennial International Conference on 19th Century Music, University of British Columbia , Vancouver (June 18-20) [canceled due to COVID-19]
2019 “Imperious Gut” accepted to the Sixth Biennial North American Conference on Nineteenth-Century Music, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (July 10-12) [unable to attend]
2016 “ ‘The situation…is no joke’: The Buffo Experience at the King’s Theatre, 1817- 1820” presented at Theatre in the Regency Era: Plays, Performance, Practice 1795-1843, Society for Theatre Research, Downing College, University of Cambridge (July 29- 31)
2015 “‘The house was kept in continual laughter’: Understanding Rossinian Humour in London, 1818-1830”
- 10th Biennial International Conference on Music in Nineteenth-Century Britain, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Glasgow (July 8-10)
- 1st Transnational Opera Studies Conference (TOSC@), University of Bologna (June 30-July 2)
Email: alehmann@berkeley.edu