Catherine Provenzano’s scholarship focuses on voice, mediation and labor in contexts of popular music production, with a regional specialty in North America. Catherine has conducted ethnographic research with software developers, audio engineers, music producers and artists in Los Angeles, Nashville, Silicon Valley and Germany. In addition to an article in the Journal of Popular Music Studies, Catherine has presented research at meetings of the Society for Ethnomusicology, EMP PopCon, The New School, Berklee College of Music and McGill University.
At NYU and The New School, Catherine has taught courses in popular music, critical listening, analysis of recorded sound and music and media. She is also a singer, songwriter and performer under the name Kenniston.
In 2019, Catherine earned her Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology from New York University. Her dissertation, “Emotional Signals: Digital Tuning Software and the Meanings of Pop Music Voices” is a critical ethnographic account of digital pitch correction softwares (Auto-Tune and Melodyne), and their development and use in U.S. Top 40 and hip-hop.