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allison.chu [at] vanderbilt.edu

Teaching

Currently, I am an Assistant Professor of Musicology at Vanderbilt University's Blair School of Music. Beyond the academy, I've applied my pedagogical practice to workshops and lecture series with arts festivals and in my work with the Midnight Oil Collective.

Courses Taught

Music of the 20th and 21st Centuries

Blair School of Music, Vanderbilt University,  Fall 2025

This required sophomore-level undergraduate lecture course is designed for majors in music studies. The course’s primary goal is to have students learn to engage productively with art music composed since 1900. By the end of the semester, students will be able to:

  1. Listen critically to different repertoires.

    1. Identify musics of different geographical regions and cultural movements of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

    2. Recognize primary features of different styles.

  2. Conduct basic score (and visual, if applicable) analysis of different repertoires.

  3. Situate musics and musicians in relevant cultural and historical contexts, and discuss the relationships of historical, cultural, philosophical, technological, institutional, and economic contexts to these musics.

  4. Articulate and critique the canon and canon-formation processes.

  5. Write in styles and tones appropriate for both academic and non-academic audiences.

American Opera Today: Explorations of a Burgeoning Industry

Co-Instructor of Record, taught with Prof. Gundula Kreuzer, Yale University Fall 2024

This upper-level undergraduate seminar is designed for majors in music and/or theater studies. The seminar introduces students to the rich and vibrant world of American contemporary opera, addressing the broad socio-political and economic currents underlying these recent changes in the American opera industry. Covering a range of performances that challenge stylistic and generic boundaries and the widening spectrum of creators have been reaching to opera as a medium to center and (re)present stories of historically marginalized communities, the seminar explores the aesthetic, political, and technological issues of creating and performing opera in the contemporary climate.

McDougal Teaching Fellow

Yale Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning, 2022 - 2025

As a McDougal Fellow, I supported the teaching of my fellow graduate and professional school students both in my department and beyond. I worked with a cohort of Fellows to develop teaching resources, lead intermediate and advanced workshops on instructional skills, and provide classroom observations and individual consultations. 

Workshops Led:

  • Fundamentals of Music

  • Fundamentals of Equitable Teaching

  • Mental Health in the Classroom

  • Preparing and Delivering Effective Lectures (delivered virtually)

  • Politics in the Classroom

  • Building the Anti-racist Syllabus

  • Anti-racist Pedagogy

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