Two new Faculty — Assistant Professor of Musicology Michael Carlson and Assistant Professor of Voice Jeni Houser — are joining the University of Notre Dame’s Department of Music this fall.
“The department is excited to welcome two accomplished and promising colleagues who will enrich its offerings in musical performance and musicological scholarship,” Berthold Hoecker, chair of the Department of Music, said.
Carlson is an accomplished scholar who has presented his research at national and international conferences, including the American Musicological Society, the Renaissance Society of America, and the Society for Seventeenth-Century Music. He earned his Ph.D. in musicology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Before coming to Notre Dame, he served as a lecturer of musicology at Texas A&M University–Kingsville.
“As a scholar who spends much time considering the connections across sacred and secular experiences in early modernity, it is hard to imagine a place where my work naturally fits more than at Notre Dame,” Carlson said. “I am most excited to be a companion on the way with my students as we learn to listen for hope-filled futures from our engagements with the past.”
Houser has performed on operatic stages across the country, including the Metropolitan Opera, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Madison Opera, Charlottesville Opera, Austin Opera, the Glimmerglass Festival, Virginia Opera, and Fort Worth Opera. Some of her favorite roles include Zerbinetta in Ariadne auf Naxos, Olympia in Les contes d’Hoffmann, Johanna in Sweeney Todd, La Charmeuse in Thaïs, Amy in Little Women, Anne Egerman in A Little Night Music, and Susanna in both Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro and Marcos Portugal’s The Marriage of Figaro.
“It is the honor of a lifetime to join the outstanding faculty at Notre Dame,” Houser said. “I look forward to exploring vocal music with the bright and engaged students while helping them discover their unique voices as both artists and scholars.”