In September, we excitedly welcomed four new Postdoctoral Fellows to the Western Music community. Alberto Acquilino, Alyssa Cottle, Natalie Miller and Rena Roussin joined Kristin Franseen (postdoctoral fellow 2024-26) making an impressive total of five junior scholars conducting research through funding from Western's Postdoctoral Fellowship program.

Recently, we caught up with our five postdocs to learn more about their research areas and upcoming projects:

Alberto Acquilino under the supervision of adam bell is conducting a project titled "Generative AI and Disability-Led Design for Inclusive Music Learning." Acquilino notes, “I am developing AI-driven tools that create adaptive and accessible learning materials for musical instruments, with the goal of making music education more inclusive and better suited to the diverse needs of learners.”

Alyssa Cottle under the supervision of Emily Abrams Ansari is conducting a project titled "Music, Memory, Gender, and the Cold War in Latin America.” Cottle notes, "I'm working on my book, provisionally titled Music, Memory, and the Democratic Path to Socialism in Chile, 1967–1973, which examines music and sound in and beyond Chile in the years leading up to and during Salvador Allende’s Popular Unity government (1970–73). I'm also co-organizing a 3-day festival-symposium, called Music, Craft, and the Fibre Arts: Textures in Conversation, which will take place at Western in September. The event will gather an international group of visual artists, crafters, musicians, and scholars to explore intersections between music, craft, and the fibre arts."

Kristin Franseen under the supervision of Edmund Goehring is conducting a project titled “The Intriguing Afterlives of Antonio Salieri: Gossip, Fiction, and the Post-Truth in Musical Biography.” Franseen notes, "My research uses Antonio Salieri's highly sensationalized semi-fictional reception history to explore the spread of gossip, anecdote, misinformation, and conspiratorial thought in composer biography and biographical fiction. I'm particularly excited to have the opportunity to publicly share my archival research later this summer, as a guest speaker at the Shaw Festival in conjunction with their upcoming production of Peter Shaffer's play Amadeus."

Natalie Miller under the supervision of Jonathan De Souza is conducting a project titled "The Dynamics of Musical Immersion: Attention, Mediation, and Listening Experience." Miller notes, "My research assesses how music guides listeners' attention across media contexts, including live concert performances, television, and shortform content like TikTok. In an ongoing project, I surveyed over 1,100 concertgoers who attended live concerts of music from the video game 'Stardew Valley.' I am currently developing a series of articles that analyze how attendees became absorbed in the audiovisual experience, and how their degree of absorption shaped their attention, feelings of social connection, post-concert behaviour, and music-evoked imaginings."

Rena Roussin under the supervision of Emily Abrams Ansari is conducting a project titled "Positioning Opera in Canada: Identities, Indigeneities, and Intersectionalities.” Roussin notes, "I am currently working on research and fieldwork for my in-progress book, which shares the same title as my project, and in which I analyze how equity-deserving communities have been constructed, reflected, and represented in opera productions and the opera industry in Canada since 2010. I'm also working on an article about Indigenous-led opera in Canada and looking forward to doing some extensive fieldwork with the Canadian Opera Company as they prepare their production of Ian Cusson's and Cherie Dimaline's opera Empire of Wild in the upcoming 2026-27 season."