AUDREY
ANN
CULLEN
FLUTIST, TEACHER, & MUSICOLOGIST
Carson City, NV
ABOUT
Audrey is a flutist and musicologist based in Carson City, NV. She earned a Master of Arts in Musicology, Master of Music in Flute Performance, and Graduate Certificate in Digital Humanities at Arizona State University. Her main areas of research interest are algorithm-generated playlists, music as a means of self-realization, philosophy, critical theory, and the intersection of perception and agency in performance. Her Masters thesis, “‘The Debate Starts Here’: Pharma Bros, Crypto Bros, and Discourses of Musical Value Surrounding Once Upon a Time in Shaolin,” is available on ProQuest. It focuses on the Wu-Tang Clan’s seventh studio album of which only one single CD copy was released with a strict 88-year commercialization ban.
At ASU, she served as a graduate teaching assistant in the flute studio and the musicology area. Before her graduate studies, Audrey was a student of Professor Donna Shin at the University of Washington where she earned her Bachelor of Music degree. Her notable flute teachers include Dr. Elizabeth Buck, Viviana Cumplido-Wilson, Brian Gordon, Karla Flygare, and Gemma Goday. She has won awards in competitions held by the Montana Flute Association and Arizona Flute Society. Audrey currently also plays with the Carson Valley Pops Orchestra.
TALIESIN WEST
Audrey’s digital humanities capstone is a three-part podcast that explores the intersection between acoustic ecology and the built environment, specifically the Phoenix metropolitan area known as the Valley of the Sun, located in the unique ecosystem of the Sonoran Desert. The main theme of the project is to bring attention to the audible aspects of the environment and how they connect to Frank Lloyd Wright’s ideas of democratic architecture. Listen and learn more here.
In 2023, Audrey presented a collaborative project, Invisible Borders, Sonic Footprint, at the National Flute Association’s 51st annual convention with ethnomusicologist Cameo Flores. The initial research involved extensive field recordings from the US-Mexico border which were used in the composition of Radiance for flutes, found percussion, and fixed electronics by Laura Brackney. The session included a lecture on the field recording and artifact collection process and the premiere of Radiance. The instruments used included panpipes and flutes made from reeds from Lake Mittry outside Yuma, AZ. Upcoming is an interactive sound map of field recordings. So far, Cameo and Audrey have collected over 11 hours of field recordings from the borderlands. The project strives to challenge popular perceptions about border security and immigration.
MUSIC BEYOND BORDERS
Select Research Projects
