RESEARCH

My research interests began with a curiosity for the origins of music notation and how a tool that aided a reproduction of sound came to be used by musicians around the world. 

As an avid  pianist who adored Chopin in my teenage years, I hadn't thought much about the history of music notation until I learned how our current music notation developed in medieval Europe. 

It fascinated me. 

In my main area of research, I investigate the history of music theory through music treatises written in England at the turn of the fourteenth century. My current book project, Sweet Consonance: Musical Discourse in England, 1280–1370, explores what was considered foundational knowledge to musicians in fourteenth-century England, and includes the first critical study of how the English rationalized the third as a consonant interval.

I also research the presence of Western music in Japan and currently serve as co-Chair of the American Musicological Society Global East Asian Music Research study group. In college, I recall asking my piano teacher if I could choose a composer from my own upbringing to include in my senior piano recital in 2007. Stumped by my question, the best solution my professor could offer me was Claude Debussy's impression of an Indonesian gamelan in his "Pagodes" from Estampes. Not having the authority to say that I was referring specifically to Japanese composers, I reluctantly agreed to perform the token "Asian" sample by a white, European composer to represent my Japanese heritage. This and other similar experiences have led me to bring composers of East Asian decent into the spotlight and give them a place among the highly complex global musical world of the twentieth century. I currently teach a course that explores the presence of Western music in Japan and regularly speak on the subject at national and international conferences.