A Select Bio of Juniper Hill

Education • Professional Employment • Areas of Specialty • Interests • Grants, Honors, and Awards • Field Research • Performance Background

Education

Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology, University of California, Los Angeles, 2005

Fulbright Fellow and visiting student, Folk Music Department, Sibelius Academy, Helsinki, Finland, 2002-2004

M.A. in Ethnomusicology, University of California, Los Angeles, 2001

B.A. High Honors in Music and Latin American Studies, Wesleyan University, 1998

Professional Employment

Lecturer (Irish equivalent of tenure-track Assistant Professor), starting January 2009
Department of Music
University College Cork
Cork, Ireland

Alexander von Humboldt Postdoctoral Research Fellow, 2007-2008
Ethnomusicology/Folk Music Department
University of Bamberg
Bamberg, Germany

Lecturer, Spring 2007
Women's Studies Program
University of California, Irvine

Lecturer, Fall 2006
Music Department
Pomona College
Claremont, California

University of California Postdoctoral Faculty Fellow, 2005-2006
Music Department
University of California, Santa Barbara

Teaching Assistant/Associate, 2000-2003
Ethnomusicology Department
University of California, Los Angeles

Areas of Specialty

Nordic/Baltic music (especially contemporary folk music in Finland)
American vernacular music (especially old-time, contradance, acoustic rock, and female singer-songwriters)
South American music (especially indigenous music of the northern Andes)

Interests

creative processes, improvisation, social barriers to creativity, artistic freedom
institutionalization, pedagogy of creativity
transnationalism, intercultural relationships, cross-cultural fusions
protest music, music and social movements, musical propaganda
gender and sexuality
modern dance, folk dance, music and dance relationships

Grants, Honors, and Awards

Postdoctoral Humboldt Research Fellowship, Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Germany, 2007-2008

Postdoctoral Faculty Fellowship for research and teaching in Ethnomusicology
Music Department, University of California, Santa Barbara, 2005-2006

Travel Grant for international research presentation, 2005
Center for European and Eurasian Studies, University of California, Los Angeles

Travel Grant for international research presentation, 2005
Quality of Graduate Education, University of California, Los Angeles

Fellowship for Dissertation Writing, 2004-2005
Ethnomusicology Department, University of California, Los Angeles

Fulbright IIE Fellowship for field research on folk music in Finland, 2003-2004

Summer Research Grant for field research on folk music in Finland, 2004
Quality of Graduate Education, University of California, Los Angeles

Sibelius Academy Grant for research on folk music education in Finland, 2004

Lois Roth Endowment Fund Grant for research in Finland, 2003

Federal Language and Area Studies Fellowship Title VI, 2002-2003
for study of Finnish language and culture

Predissertation Field Research Grant for research in Northern Europe, 2002
International Studies and Overseas Program, University of California

Will Rogers Memorial Scholarship, 2002

Gluck Fellowships (2) for public performances, 2001, 2002

ArtsBridge Scholarships (3) for world music education outreach, 2000, 2001
School of the Arts and Architecture, University of California, Los Angeles

Departmental Fellowship, 1999-2000
Ethnomusicology Department, University of California, Los Angeles

High Honors, Wesleyan University, 1998

Leavell Memorial Prize in Music, highest award in music, 1998
Wesleyan University

Thorndyke Fellowship for honors thesis writing, 1997
Wesleyan University

Dana Grant for field research in Ecuador, 1997

Field Research

Finland, plus research trips to Sweden and Estonia (22 months, 2002-2004, 2007-2008)

Ecuador (9 months, 1996-1997)

US (intermittently 1999-2007)

Hungary/Romania/Bulgaria (short research trips in summers of 2000 and 2005)

Performance Background

Juniper started studying music at the age of seven. Growing up in Los Angeles, she trained in Western art music on the clarinet, studying with Deborah Baker, Yehuda Gilad at the USC/Colburn School of Music, and Curt Blood, and performing with the Pacific Youth Symphony, the Pasadena Youth Symphony Orchestra, and various All-State and honor bands and orchestras. As an undergraduate at Wesleyan, she became heavily involved in free jazz and experimental music, studying and recording with Anthony Braxton. She then delved into various types of world and folk musics, including South Indian Carnatic vocal music (with T. Viswanathan), Arabic nai (with Ali Jihad Racy), West African singing and dancing, klezmer clarinet (with Hankus Netsky), Irish pennywhistle, and pan pipes. Initially self-taught and improvising her own music on the pan pipes, she went to the Andes where she learned traditional pan pipe techniques from mestizo and indigenous musicians in the Ecuadorian Highlands, and returned to the US to teach and lead her on pan pipe ensemble. Moving back to Los Angeles, Juniper became heavily involved in American traditional musics, particularly old-time (on tin whistle, banjo, and voice) and shape note singing, and in Bulgarian singing, studying and performing with Tsvetanka Varimezova in the SuperDevoiche Bulgarian Women's Choir. Her next passion became Nordic music, and she went to Finland where she studied Finnish contemporary folk music on traditional flutes with Leena Joutsenlahti and on voice with Anna-Kaisa Liedes at the Folk Music Department of the Sibelius Academy. She recently took jodeling lessons from Ingrid Hammer in Berlin. Currently, she is especially interested in the use of the voice as an instrument, both in extended vocal techniques and diddling/lilting/mouth music traditions. She also enjoys Nordic and American folk dancing as well as modern dance and contact improv.