Marie Comuzzo (she/they) studies how sound mediates the relationship between humans and whales, and how the recognition of their vocal expression as song has shifted humans’ perception of them. Her specializations also include the role that beauty standards have in the careers of women and gender queer instrumental performers – for which she was awarded the Sagan Family Graduate Research Grant – and the effect that capitalism had on the representations of women in the Western music canon. Most recently, her article “Singing with Whales: Exploring Human and Non-Human Musicalities” was published by SEM Student News.
Marie is a PhD student at Brandeis University in Musicology and a Publishing Associate at Brandeis University Press. She hold a Masters in Musicology from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst; a Masters in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from Brandeis University; a Graduate Performance Diploma in Violin from Boston Conservatory at Berklee; and a Violin Diploma from the Arrigo Boito Conservatory in Parma, Italy. Additionally, she is a professional violinist; she has premiered many original works by US-based composers in the Boston and Amherst areas, has served as Concertmaster for operas and symphonic concerts both in the US and in Italy, and has toured with orchestras in Italy, Switzerland, and Eastern Europe.