Featured Faculty
Yunn-Shan Ma
College of Liberal Arts
Both on and off stage, Ma is committed to bringing new light to existing musical works. She is equally eager to present live performances in an interdisciplinary manner, incorporating new media, visual content, and special themes to interact with musicians and audiences. At the RIT, Ma has collaborated with specialists from the fields of AR/VR, Audio Engineering, Film and Animation, Illustration, Game Design, Modern Languages, and Museum Studies.
Her article “The Chorus as a Dramatic Force in Wagner’s Operas” was published by the Choral Journal, an international journal of the American Choral Directors Association since 1959. The research focused on the comparison of the role of Wagner’s choral passages in his operas before and after his publication, Opera and Drama (1851), while exploring Wagner’s intricating compositional style for choruses and his three-dimensional stage design to heighten the theatrical impact of his Gesamtkunstwerk. In addition, Ma frequently presented papers on national conferences studying on innovative music pedagogy for STEM majors, including “Integrating Video Game Music in Orchestral Concert Programs” and “Interdisciplinary Project Based Music Theory Pedagogy for STEM majors,” Her other current research areas include incorporating video game music in music theory education and analyzing undervalued orchestral works by Asian composers.
With a passion for orchestral, operatic, choral, and contemporary repertoire, Ma has guest conducted select performances across Europe, Asia, and North America. Under her astute leadership, the RIT Philharmonic Orchestra was awarded an Honorable Mention in Orchestra Performance at the American Prize 2021, while Ma herself has been a finalist in the Conducting Competition and a semifinalist for the Vytautas Marijosius Memorial Award for Conductors' Orchestral Programming.
Ma received her Doctorate of Musical Arts from the Eastman School of Music following conducting, piano, and violin performance education at the National Taiwan Normal University.
Yunn-Shan Ma
Department of Performing Arts and Visual Culture
College of Liberal Arts