The Hugh A. Glauser School of Music

Dr. Carruthers is Assistant Professor of Music and teaches Music as a World Phenomenon for non-music majors. She received a Master of Music degree in organ performance from Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, Illinois, and a Ph.D. in music theory from Kent State University. She has previously served on the faculties of both the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music and Hiram College.  In 1996, Dr. Carruthers received the first Term Faculty Award for Outstanding Teaching. This Award is sponsored by the Kent Alumni Association and University Teaching Council to recognize excellence in teaching at Kent State University.
Dr. Carruthers' doctoral dissertation on the music of the late 16th-century woman composer, Vittoria/Raffaella Aleotti, led to the publication of two critical editions of Aleotti's complete works and practical edition octavos of individual madrigals and motets as titles in the series, Nine Centuries of Music by Women.  Dr. Carruthers prepared the Study Guide to accompany a new music appreciation text, Understanding Music by Jeremy Yudkin (Prentice Hall, 1996), and later revised the Study Guide for both the 2d and 3d editions of the text.
In addition to her academic responsibilities, Dr. Carruthers has maintained a lifelong involvement with church music which began when she became a church organist at the age of 14 in her hometown of Murphysboro, Illinois. For the past 25 years, she has participated in the music program of Community Christian Church in North Canton, Ohio, currently serving as organist.

Kazadi wa Mukuna, ethnomusicologist, a native of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Zaire), is Professor of Ethnomusicology, and Director of the Center for the Study of World Musics at the Hugh A. Glauser School of Music, at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio, where he also served as Coordinator of Graduate Studies (2002-2006).  Professor Kazadi received his Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology from the University of California, Los Angeles and a Ph.D. in Sociology from the Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil.   He has taught at the Universidade de São Paulo, the Universidade Federal de Maranhão, and the Universidade de Rio de Janeiro (UNIRIO) in Brazil; The Université Nationale du Zaire, in Lubumbashi and Kisangani; The Institut National des Arts, in Kinshasa; Michigan State University, and Williams College.  Professor Kazadi serves as a Visiting Professor in the Programa de Pos-Graduação em Integração de America Latina (PROLAM) at the Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil, where he also advises graduate students, directs theses and dissertations.

Professor Kazadi is known throughout academic circles for his scrutiny on the influence of the traditional music of Africa on the musics of the Americas.  His publications in these subjects have appeared in various languages and countries.  Among his books are Characteristic Criteria in the Vocal Music of the Luba-Shankadi Children (Tervuren: Musée Royal de l’Afrique Centrale, 1972); African Songs for American Elementary Schools (Lansing: Michigan State University, 1980); Contribuição Bantu na Música Popular Brasileira: Perspectivas Etnomusicológicas, 3rd edition (São Paulo: Terceira Margem Editora, 2006); Interdisciplinary Study of the Ox and the Slave (Bumba-meu-Boi): A Satirical Music Drama in Brazil (New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 2003).

Among his most popular articles are “Toward the Quest for the Truth in Ethnomusicology” (2007); “Globalization of the Urban Music of the Democratic Republic of the Congo” (2005); “Slit Drum” (2003); “Congolese Music” (2001); “Ethnomusicology and the Study of Africanisms in the Music of Latin America: Brazil” (1999); “The Rise of Bumba-meu-Boi in Maranhão: Resilience of African Brazilian Cultural Identity” (1999); “The Evolution of Urban Music During the 2nd and 3rd Decades (1975-1985) of the Second Republic – Zaire” (1999); “Creative Practice in African Music: New Perspectives in the Scrutiny of Africanisms in Diaspora” (1997); “The Universal Language of all Time?” (1997).

Professor Kazadi is actively involved in research projects.  Two of his most current projects are “A Dictionary of Urban Music and Musicians in the Democratic Republic of Congo” and “The Evolution of the Urban Music of the Democratic Republic of Congo”. 

Born in Youngstown, Ohio, Dr. Seachrist is Associate Professor of Music at Kent State University Trumbull Campus in Warren, Ohio, where she teaches a variety of courses including:  Understanding Music, Music as a World Phenomenon, History of Jazz, and America’s Music.

She is also the director of the Kent Trumbull Community Choir, which under the direction of Dr. Seachrist, was reorganized in January 1996.  The choir joined with the Youngstown Symphony Orchestra and Symphony Chorus (1998) in a performance of Felix Mendelssohn’s great oratorio, Elijah.  They were invited back to join Maestro Isaiah Jackson (1999) in a performance of Gustav Mahler’s Second Symphony.  The choir joined with the Warren Philharmonic Orchestra and two choirs from the Cleveland area under the direction of Susan Davenny Wyner for performances of Gabriel Faure’s Requiem (2000), Franz Schubert’s Mass in G (2001), and Antonio Vivaldi’s Gloria (2002).

Dr. Seachrist is also the founder and coordinator of the Kent Trumbull Performing Arts Series, which brings both western classical and world music performances to the campus.  The Series was recognized in 1997, when it received the National Association of College Activities (NACA) Great Lakes Regional Award of Excellence – First Place Multicultural Program Award.

Earning a bachelor’s degree in vocal performance from Heidelberg College in 1982, Dr. Seachrist’s graduate degree, also in vocal performances, was awarded from the Dana School of Music at Youngstown State University in 1985.  In 1993, a Ph.D. in Musicology-Ethnomusicology was earned from the Hugh A. Glauser School of Music at Kent State University.  Her dissertation, “Snow Hill and the German Seventh-Day Baptists:  Heirs to the Musical Traditions of Conrad Beissel’s Ephrata Cloister” has created much interest among scholars in the areas of communal studies and utopian communities, and Dr. Seachrist is considered a specialist in the musics of both historical and living German religious communities in Pennsylvania.  In 2001, and again in 2003, Dr. Seachrist received the Dean’s Award for Leadership and Service at the Trumbull Campus.

In 1999, she was the recipient of the Kent State University Trumbull Campus Outstanding Service Award for Full-Time Faculty and was selected as one of four delegates to represent Kent State University in a seventeen-day educational exchange to China with the Guangming Daily.  She has served on the Warren Philharmonic Orchestra’s Board of Trustees since 1998, and is Past-Chair of the University Teaching Council.  She is the author of The Musical World of Halim El-Dabh, which was published by Kent State University Press in April 2003.

Emeritus Faculty
Dr. William Anderson
Dr. Terry Miller
Halim El-Dabh

Additional Faculty
Dr. Milagros Quesada
Associate Professor, Tuscarawas campus
Dr. Quesada, a native of Puerto Rico, earned her Ph.D. in Music Education at Kent State University. She teaches Music as World Phenomenon.

Professor Ted Rounds
Steel Band
Professor Rounds, who holds a Master of Music degree in percussion from Ithaca College, teaches and performas with the KSU Steel Band and teaches general percussion. He is also an active composer.

Dr. Andrew Shahriari
Adjunct Faculty, Kent Campus

Dr. Linda B. Walker
Dr. Walker is Associate Professor and Coordinator of the Music Education Division. She earned B.M.E. and M.M.E. degrees from Jackson State University and the Ph.D. and R.M.T. from the University of Kansas (with a minor in special education). Dr. Walker has taught public school choral/general music, and held faculty positions at the University of Kansas, American Conservatory of Music, and the University of Wyoming. At Kent State she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in music education
Dr. Walker's expertize is in the areas of elementary and secondary choral/general music, multicultural musics, and special learners in music. Her research is published in several scholarly journals and she is a contributing author to six books.
Dr. Walker is the director of the KSU Gospel Choir.