Gillian Irwin will conduct research entitled “A Moral Music Education: Indonesian National Values in Javanese Music Classrooms” which take place in Jakarta and Yogyakarta. Gillian has been a student of ethnomusicology at UC Davis since Fall 2014. Before coming to Davis, she studied music and English at Muhlenberg College (Allentown, PA) and served as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant in Yogyakarta, Indonesia.

At Davis, Gillian specializes in Indonesian music with interests in educational and cultural policy, national identity formation, and the relationship of the region to the nation of Indonesia. During her research which will be completed in September 2018, she is supported by Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia (UPI) in Bandung. 

Gillian has presented her work at various conferences, including meetings of the Society for Ethnomusicology, the College Music Society, the Southwest Conference on Asian Studies, and the International Musicological Society’s Music and Media Study Group. She also enjoys performing Javanese karawitan and early music of the viola da gamba.