Presentations & Teaching

Conference Presentations

2024

• Harvard University Ph.D. Colloquium ("A Discipline for the Nation: Turkish Classical Music Choirs in History and Practice"), in collaboration with institutional host Orient-Institut Istanbul 

2023

• Co-organized panel “Patronage and Passage: Ethnomusicological Perspectives on Mobility In Patronage Relationships,” including own presentation “Singing and Bringing the Domestic Abroad: Mobility and Agency of State and Amateur Musicians in Turkish Classical Music Choirs,” Society of Ethnomusicology Annual Meeting, Ottawa, Canada

• “Professional Musician, Amateur Soul: Exploring Hierarchies of Respectability, Creativity, and the State in Turkish Classical Music Choirs,” presentation for “The Expertise of the Musical Amateur” conference, University of Music and Performing Arts, Graz, Austria

• “A Discipline for the Nation: Turkish Classical Music Choirs in History and Practice,” presentation for the 29th International Congress of the German Middle East Studies Association (DAVO) and the Fourth European Convention on Turkic, Ottoman and Turkish Studies (Turkologentag), University of Vienna, Austria

• “A Discipline for the Nation: Turkish Classical Music Choirs in History and Practice,” invited presentation at 13th International Doctoral Workshop in Ethnomusicology, Center for World Music at the University of Hildesheim and Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media, Germany 

2022

• “Cultural Diplomacy Despite the State: Mobility and Agency of State and Amateur Musicians in Turkish Classical Music Choirs,” presented at the Orient-Institut Istanbul

• “Turkish Classical Music Choirs and the Making of a Musical ‘Profession,’” presented at the British Forum for Ethnomusicology Annual Meeting, Milton Keynes, UK, the British Institute at Ankara, Koç University ANAMED, and the 21st Quinquennial IMS Congress, Athens, Greece

2021

• “The Zildjian Cymbal: Lineages of Blood and Alloy and the Reckoning of Modern Time,” presented at the 10th International Scientific Meeting for Sound, Music, and Musical Instrument Studies, ANIMUSIC, Portugal (virtual), and the Society for Ethnomusicology Annual Meeting (virtual)

• “A Choir of One: Virtually Transmitting Turkish Classical Music in the COVID-19 Era,” presented at Transformations of Musical Creativity in the 21st Century, Center for Advanced Studies in Music, Istanbul Technical University

• “Producing and Transgressing the Family: State, Surveillance, Kinship and China’s Uyghurs,” invited presentation at Workshop on Contemporary Scholarship of China’s Turkic Frontier Zone, University of Washington

2019

• “Communities of Respect: An Ethnography of Turkish Art Music Choirs in London,” presented at Global Musics and Musical Communities, UCLA, California and at the Northeast England Chapter of the Society for Ethnomusicology, Colby College, Maine

2017

• “Diasporic Identities, Symbolic Production, and the Avedis Zildjian Company,” presented at Entangled Encounters: Antiquity and Modernity in Armenian Studies, Harvard University

2015

• “Orientalism, Regionalism, Cosmopolitanism: Musical Manifestations of Cultural Hybridity,” presented at Creating Music across Cultures in the 21st Century, Istanbul Technical University, Turkey

Invited Talks and Teaching Experience 

• Guest Speaker, Madeleine K. Albright Institute for Global Affairs, Wellesley College

• Guest Lecturer, String Instruments in Global Contexts course led by Dr. Judith Haug, University of Münster, Germany

• Invited Speaker, “Cultural Diplomacy Despite the State: Mobility and Agency of State and Amateur Musicians in Turkish Classical Music Choirs,” Ethnomusicology Seminar, University of Cambridge

• Guest Lecturer, presented on fieldwork experiences in Ethnomusicology course led by Professor Kay K. Shelemay, Harvard University [online]

• Guest Lecturer, Music Sociology course led by Professor Ozan Eren, MEF University, Istanbul, Turkey 

• Guest Lecturer, Music and Migration course led by Professors Kay K. Shelemay and Kate van Orden, Harvard University, [online] 

• Teaching Fellow, Critical Listening course led by Professor Kay K. Shelemay, Harvard University [online] 

• Guest Lecturer, Music Sociology course led by Professor Ozan Eren, MEF University, Istanbul, Turkey 

• Guest Lecturer, Ethnomusicology and Instrumentality courses led by Professor Frederick Stubbs, University of Massachusetts, Boston 

• Guest Lecturer, “Makam and Beyond,” invited by Professor Ted Levin, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire

• Research Mentor, Indigo Research (Global)

• University Application Mentor, Senior Tutor, and Extracurricular and Leadership Consultant, Crimson Education (Global)

– Provide career coaching, mentoring, mock interviewing, and essay reviewing for applicants for US/UK universities, graduate programs, and national fellowships

– Students accepted to top universities including Stanford, Yale, Princeton, UPenn, Cornell, and University of California schools.

– Offer one-to-one and group teaching for 300+ students in twelve countries in person and online, consistently maintain 4.9/5 rating

– Teach subjects including ESL, TOEFL, IELTS, ACT, SAT I & II, ISEE, SSAT; created and administered curriculum for interdisciplinary creative writing and history courses, 1000+ hours of teaching experience

– Multiple speaking engagements on US university admissions, standardized testing strategies, and building a strong extracurricular profile at London’s National Portrait Gallery, UK high schools, and virtual webinars in New Zealand, Thailand, Taiwan, and Turkey