Alyssa Michaud, PhD

Alyssa Michaud is a musicologist who works at the intersections of music, technology, and culture in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. A Calgary native and alumna of Ambrose University, she also holds an M.A. from the University of Ottawa and a Ph.D. from McGill University. Michaud's work has recently appeared in Popular Music and Keyboard Perspectives, and she is at work on her book project, Automatic Artistry: How Technological Anxiety Fuels the Cycle of Creativity. This project takes a century-long perspective on the recurring cultural fears that creative music-making will be displaced by automation, and shows how these very anxieties can serve as lenses through which we can better understand the prevailing values of a certain time and place. Currently, she and her research assistants are also working on a SSHRC Insight Development Grant, studying the relationship between today’s digital technology and live musical performance, in order to reveal the dynamics between audiences and artists in today’s technologically mediated society.