Professional Title/s
Assistant ProfessorFaculty Credentials
Ph.D. University of PittsburghBiographical Information
Hannah Standiford is an ethnomusicologist whose work focuses on the role of women as singers in a repertoire of Indonesian music called langgam Jawa. This repertoire is played mainly in three genres of music, namely kroncong, campur sari, and gamelan. Her first exposure to langgam Jawa was in 2014 when she spent a year living in Surakarta, Java with the support of a Darmasiswa scholarship. When she returned, she cofounded a kroncong group called Rumput with Dr. Andy McGraw. Rumput performs internationally and collaborates with master artists from Java and Bali. In 2017, Hannah returned to Java to study this music more deeply with the support of a Critical Language Enhancement Award and a Fulbright Student Research Fellowship. In 2022-2023, she returned to Surakarta for her dissertation fieldwork with the support of a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Award.
Hannah’s research on langgam Jawa and kroncong is forthcoming in Mathematical Approaches to World Music and Yearbook for Traditional Music. Hannah also conducted prior research on issues of consent with the Pittsburgh swing dance community, the results of which were published in Dance Chronicle (2023).
She teaches the brand new gamelan ensemble at Allegheny College and has already had the opportunity to bring a master guest artist from Indonesia, Peni Candra Rini, to campus. Peni Candra Rini led workshops in dance and gamelan, giving students a chance to learn these traditions firsthand. In 2019, Hannah facilitated guest artist visits with Endah Laras and Danis Sugiyanto, two outstanding musicians from Surakarta, Indonesia.
Hannah also plays American roots music. She has independently released two EPs featuring herself singing ballads and playing clawhammer banjo, a solo EP called For the Birds (2024) and a release with her group Howling Mob called The Moon (2022). Howling Mob now mostly plays as a honky tonk ensemble and they just released an album in May 2024 called The Sun.