In-Person at MIT Building 4, Classroom 231, Cambridge, MA.

FEATURED PRESENTERS
DR. MELISSA BILAL, Associate Director, Armenian Music Program, UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music

UCLA VEM ENSEMBLE, UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music

Melissa Bilal is the Associate Director of the Armenian Music Program and Lecturer in the Department of Ethnomusicology. Previously a Distinguished Research Fellow at CNES, before UCLA, she was an Assistant Professor in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at the American University of Armenia, where she continues serving as a core team member developing the Gender Studies minor program.

Dr. Bilal studied Sociology (BA and MA) at Boğaziçi University, Istanbul and received her Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology from the University of Chicago. She taught at the University of Chicago’s Departments of Music and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Boğaziçi University’s History Department, and the Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies Department at Columbia University, where she also held a two-year Mellon postdoctoral teaching fellowship in the Department of Music.

In residence at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music and under the artistic leadership of Founder/Director Movses Pogossian, the VEM Ensemble consists of the VEM String Quartet and mezzo-soprano Lena Marandi. The VEM Ensemble has worked with such musicians as David Starobin, Nickolas Kitchen, Kim Kashkashian, Seth Knopp, and Tigran Mansurian. The Ensemble has performed at various venues in Los Angeles including Zipper Hall, Bing Theater, Schoenberg Hall, the Hammer Museum, as well as in New Mexico, Colorado, and the Incontri in Terra di Siena Festival in Italy.

CO-SPONSORS
MIT Music and Theater Arts
MIT History
MIT Women's and Gender Studies Program
National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR)
Tekeyan Cultural Association
UCLA Armenian Music Program