Associate Professor of Music / Musicology

Year Joined RCNJ: 2010

Contact Information

• Phone: (201) 684-7293 (use email instead)
• Email: mgidal@ramapo.edu
• Office: BC-323
• Office Hours: Mon and Thurs 1:00-2:00 PM, Wed 12:00-1:00 PM
• Department Website

Education:

• Ph.D., Music/Ethnomusicology, Harvard University
• M.A., Music/Ethnomusicology, Tufts University
• B.S., Religious Studies, University of Oregon

Courses Offered:

• MUSI 203 - MUSIC IN LATIN AMERICA
• MUSI 237 - HISTORY OF JAZZ
• MUSI 255 - MUSIC, HISTORY AND CULTURE
• MUSI 316 - MUSIC, TECHNOLOGY AND MEDIA
• MUSI 365 - CONTEMPORARY PERSPECTIVES ON MUSIC
• MUSI 450 - CAPSTONE SEMINAR IN MUSIC

Research Interests:

• Afro-Brazilian and Brazilian religious music
• Brazilian music in New York
• Jazz and Brazilian jazz fusions
• Music and symbolic boundary studies
• Music and globalization, cosmopolitanism, and transnationalism
• Music and multiculturalism/interculturalism

Publications:

• Books:
  • SamBop NYC: Brazilian Jazz in New York City during the New Millennium (Oxford University Press, forthcoming November 2024)
  • Spirit Song: Afro-Brazilian Religious Music and Boundaries (Oxford University Press, 2016)
• Journal Articles:
  • “Musical Fusion as Contextualized Boundary-Play: Samba Jazz in New York City,” Americas: A Hemispheric Music Journal, vol. 29, “Borders/Boundaries/Fronteras” (2020), 52-72
  • “Transnationalising Brazilian ritual music: Quimbanda in Argentina and Charismatic Catholicism in the USA,” Civilisations, vol. 67, “Sounding religious transnationalism” (2018)
  • “Catholic Music in Lusophone New Jersey: Circum-Atlantic Music, Intergroup Dynamics, and Immigrant Struggles in Transnational Communities,” American Music, vol. 34, no. 2 (2016)
  • “Musical Boundary-Work: Ethnomusicology, Symbolic Boundary Studies, and Music in the Afro-Gaucho Religious Community of Southern Brazil,” Ethnomusicology, vol. 58, no. 1 (2014)
  • “Musical and Spiritual Innovation, Participation, and Control in Umbanda and Quimbanda Religions of Brazil,” Ethnomusicology Forum, vol. 22, no. 2 (2013)
  • “Contemporary ‘Latin American’ Composers of Art Music in the United States: Cosmopolitans Navigating Multiculturalism and Universalism,” Latin American Music Review, vol. 31, no. 1 (2010)
• Book Chapter:
  • “From Brazilian Worship Houses to a U.S. College: Recontextualizations of Afro-Brazilian Religious Music and Movement,” in Navigating Stylistic Boundaries in the Music History Classroom: Crossover, Exchange, Appropriation, 157-178, edited by Esther M. Morgan-Ellis (New York: Routledge, 2024)
• Encyclopedia Articles:
  • “Symbolic Associations” and “Spiritualism and Spiritism” in The SAGE Encyclopedia of Music and Culture, ed. by Janet L. Sturman (SAGE Publications, 2019)
• Reviews:
  • Jazz Worlds/World Jazz edited by Bohlman, Philip V. and Goffredo Plastino (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2016) in Jazz and Culture, vol. 3, no. 1 (2020)
  • Afro-Brazilian Music: a Bibliographic Guide by John Gray (African Diaspora Press, 2014) in Fontes Artis Musicae, vol. 63, no. 3 (July-September, 2016)
  • Making Samba: A New History of Race and Music in Brazil by Marc A. Hertzman (Duke University Press: 2013) in Notes: Quarterly Journal of the Music Library Association, vol. 71, no. 3 (March 2015)
  • “Review Essay: YouTube.com for Ethnomusicology,” Yearbook for Traditional Music, vol. 40 (2008)