I am a retired professor of ethnomusicology (music and anthropology). I taught at the University of Rochester's Eastman School of Music for forty years. My disciplinary interests focus on the relationships between music and cultural identity. I have published three books and many articles on Hasidic music within the Lubavitcher Jewish community and on music and gender. My most recent book, Bittersweet Sounds of Passage: Balinese Gamelan Angklung Cremation Music was just released from the University of Illinois Press (2025). I have also edited a number of books, including "The United States and Canada" volume of the Garland Encyclopedia of Music (2000).