Current Projects

The Mourning Belles

The Mourning Belles is an Asheville-based country trio playing original murder ballads, laments, and lonesome honky-tonk numbers composed by vocalist Alma Hartley. Rounding out the group are Jonathan Watterson on guitar and Jenny Walls on fiddle, who also lend their voices to the haunting harmonies that characterize the band's unique sound. @themourningbelles

Pictured: Jonathan Watterson (left), Alma Hartley (center), Jennifer Walls (right) (2024)

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The Jenny Jons

Irish-Celtic inspired folk trio based in Asheville, NC. This trio consists of multi-instrumentalist and composer Jon Snead (of Jon Snead Music), violinist/fiddler and music educator Jennifer Walls (of Jennifer Walls Music), and multi-instrumentalist Jonathan Waterson.

Having met at the various Irish Music sessions held in WNC, this trio of friends bonded over a love for the magic, melodies and deep history these tunes hold.

Pictured: Jonathan Watterson (left), Jennifer Walls (center), Jon Snead (right) (2024)

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Leading Through Performance

Presently, I am working on the development of leadership development and education program specifically designed for music and performing arts students as a portion of, and/or addendum to my anticipated master's thesis through the Johns Hopkins University M.S. in Organizational Leadership program of study. My anticipated completion date is May 2025.

The link between performing arts education and the development of crucial leadership skills is well researched, however seldom combined to specifically aide students of the performing and musical arts in the application of their leadership outside of the context in which they are learned. My fascination with leadership, and the passive way in which my own leadership skills developed through orchestral, chamber, and solo music performance has been a driving force in my completion of this research.

Details, methodology, and curriculum structure TBA upon research and thesis completion.

Pictured: Jennifer Walls (2021)

Past projects

The Circle of Bonn: Examining Beethoven's Relinquishment and Return to Classical Aesthetics Using Sonata Form

Recorded Presentation for The UNC Asheville Undergraduate Research Symposium (Fall 2020). Presented in partial requirements for the degree of Bachelors of Arts, Music, in the Department of Music, The University of North Carolina at Asheville. Research advised by Dr. Jonathan "Toby" King.

Abstract:

Ludwig van Beethoven’s creative, expressive use of Sonata-Allegro form has been traditionally cast as unique, visionary, and heroic. In this paper, I will explore how Beethoven interacted with and influenced sonata form in historical, biographical, and musical contexts. I present a historical and biographical context for the composer and aesthetic consideration of the role of the form in Beethoven's musical expression. His utilization, throughout his compositional life, of the aesthetic frameworks collectively known as "Sonata-Allegro form”, is a specific way of describing Beethoven’s aesthetic biography. His early compositions comprise formal aesthetic experiments in the early years of his career in Bonn and Vienna. But they also mark the relinquishments of traditionally classical compositional ideology, especially during the latter years of his career. This personal transition served as a creative apex for the man, but also as a more socially relevant door-opening for others’ aesthetic experimentation. I also propose further research opportunities in this direction.

Music used within this academic presentation is defined under fair use by Section 107 of US copyright law as outlined: "Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright." For full law please visit: https://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#107

The Psychic Red: Predicting Taylor Swift's Rebranding

Recorded Presentation for The UNC Asheville Undergraduate Research Symposium (Fall 2020). Presented in partial requirements for course MUSC 340 Advanced Topics in Music Theory: Value, Popularity and Taste, in the Department of Music, The University of North Carolina at Asheville. Research advised by Dr. Christine Boone

Abstract:

Taylor Swift broke into the music industry as a country artist in 2006, with her self-titled debut album. In the years following, her music underwent a seemingly natural progression from country to pop, as did her personal brand and media persona. Reputation (2017) is where we did see this rebrand completed. In this paper, I will explore how the musical and lyrical themes in her previous album, Red (2012), not only begins this transition of her musical style, but predicts some of the drastic changes that we see during Reputation in her media persona and personal brand.

"Quartet Satz": Intertextualization of Minimalism with Hegemonic Traditions

Recorded Presentation for The UNC Asheville Undergraduate Research Symposium (Fall 2020). Presented in partial requirements for course MUSC 368: Ethnomusicology Ⅱ, in the Department of Music, The University of North Carolina at Asheville. Research advised by Dr. Jonathan "Toby" King.

Abstract:

Philip Glass’s “Quartet Satz” is commonly understood as an example of minimalist western classical music, specifically within the western string quartet genre. In many ways, “Quartet Satz” is a great example of a work in the overarching genre of minimalist string quartet music, but on the other hand, “Quartet Satz” exists outside of this musical genre and begins to overlap with other genres of more traditional classical string quartet music. The western classical string quartet genre is very socially constricted to the voices that exist within the genre itself and is not commonly referred to by the annotative voices that would commonly be found within more mainstream musical genres. My analysis of three specific moments within the score of this piece demonstrates that though the textural sound is very typical of minimalism, there is a notable shift into more traditional string quartet techniques. These moments within the score, though claiming to be minimalist and mono-textual, are in fact used intertextually multiple times. Calling “Quartet Satz” a proper example of the greater western classical string quartet genre is actually breaking what is perceived as traditional western string quartet music and helping dismantle the hegemonic environment that many western classical string quartet players experience while growing up within the genre.