Music History Faculty : Department of Music and Dance : UMass Amherst

Benjamin Court

Lecturer, Music History

Benjamin is a Lecturer in Music History at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He grew up in Western New York and received his Ph.D. in Musicology, with certification in Experimental Critical Theory, from UCLA in 2017. His research explores the politics of musical “amateurism” – music by individuals who claimed not to know how to play music, but nevertheless become musicians. He has published articles about the semiotics of punk in the UK, racial formation in rap and punk in New York City during the 1970s, and the Scratch Orchestra’s politics of music education, among other topics, in numerous international journals including Music & Letters, Popular Music and Society, and Third Text. He previously taught at UCLA and Woodbury University and currently serves as the Grants Manager for Berkshire Pulse, a nonprofit center for dance and creative arts. As a musician, Benjamin has performed and recorded as a guitarist and multi-instrumentalist in a number of punk, rock, and experimental groups. He continues to compose ambient music and music for contemporary dance as FKA Muddytooth. As an active DJ and producer of Chicago Footwork, he releases music as DJ Ben; he is also a Chicago Footwork dancer and member of the Creation Global footwork crew.

Erinn E. Knyt

Professor, Music History

Knyt specializes in nineteenth- and twentieth-century music, aesthetics, music history pedagogy, performance practice issues, and Bach reception, and has written extensively about Ferruccio Busoni. Her articles have appeared in numerous journals, including American Music, Eighteenth Century Music, Journal of Musicology, Journal of Music History Pedagogy, Journal of Musicological Research, Journal of the Royal Musical Association, Musicology Australia, Music and Letters, 19th-Century Music, Nineteenth-Century Music Review, and Twentieth Century Music.

Evan A. MacCarthy

Five College Visiting Associate Professor, Music History

Evan A. MacCarthy is Five College Visiting Associate Professor of music history in the Department of Music and Dance at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. His research focuses on the history of fifteenth-century music and music theory, late medieval chant, German music in the Baroque era, as well as nineteenth-century American music.

Olabode Omojola

Five College Professor, Ethnomusicology

Omojola’s research focuses on African music, with emphasis on West African, Nigerian, and Yorùbá traditions. His work has explored indigenous and modern musical traditions, and addressed themes including: performance practice; creative ethnomusicology; music, identity, and social dynamics; music and politics; diasporic perspectives; and intercultural aesthetics.

Emiliano Ricciardi

Associate Professor, Music History

Emiliano Ricciardi is associate professor of music history at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. His main research area is the late Italian madrigal, with an emphasis on the settings of Torquato Tasso’s poetry. Ricciardi has published articles and reviews in journals such as Early Music, Journal of Musicology, Cambridge Opera Journal, and Renaissance Quarterly.

Marianna Ritchey

Associate Professor, Music History; Area Coordinator

Marianna Ritchey is Associate Professor of Music History at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She spent much of her young adulthood in Portland, Oregon, playing and touring in various indie rock bands, before going to UCLA for a PhD in Musicology. She has written about Berlioz, comedy, the dies irae, the films of Guy Maddin, music history pedagogy, and operatic representations of Steve Jobs.