Sheridan Zahl (he/him) is a PhD candidate in historical musicology whose research interests are focused on the philosophies of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, subjectivity, ethico-aesthetics, nature, and music. Combining Deleuze/Guattari’s understandings of subjectivity with their contentions of what art does, his work explores the potentialities of modern and contemporary music based on/in nature. He explores the possibilities art engenders to create something new, particularly in the construction of relational subjectivity and humanity’s relationship to nature.

His scholarship stands at the intersection of ecomusicology and post-humanist aesthetics while maintaining an eye towards ethics in the anthropocene. He has presented work at meetings of the American Musicological Society in regional and national conferences and his writing has been nominated for a number of awards. Sheridan earned a BA in music and a BA in applied mathematics from the University of California at Berkeley in 2014. After years teaching mathematics to underserved student populations on the west coast, he moved to New York and earned an MM from the Eastman School of Music in classical guitar performance before enrolling in the musicology PhD program. He currently teaches music history courses at the Eastman School of Music as well as the Eastman Community Music School. Besides music, he loves bicycles.