Executive Director
Kendra Preston Leonard (she/her)
Director@sfsma.org

SFSMA founder Kendra Preston Leonard is a musicologist whose work focuses on women and music in twentieth century America, France and Britain; music and screen history; and music and disability.  She is the author of  Music for Silent Film: A Guide to North American Resources; Louise Talma: A Life in Composition; The Conservatoire Américain: a History and Shakespeare, Madness, and Music: Scoring Insanity in Cinematic Adaptations; and is the editor of Buffy, Ballads, and Bad Guys Who Sing: Music in the Worlds of Joss Whedon. She is the co-editor, with Mariana Whitmer, of Relocating the Sounds of the Western. Her current book project is titled Gender and Race in Silent Film Music.

Finance Director
Mariana Whitmer (she/her)

Mariana Whitmer is a specialist on the music of the film Western and the author of Jerome Moross’s The Big Country: A Film Score Guide and Elmer Bernstein’s The Magnificent Seven: A Film Score Guide. She is currently the musicological advisor for Jerome Moross’s centenary. She is the co-editor, with Kendra Preston Leonard, of Relocating the Sounds of the Western. Her current book project is on music for silent Westerns.

Board
James M. Doering (he/his)

James M. Doering is Professor of Music and Chair of the Department of Arts at Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, Virginia, where he teaches music history, music theory, and organ. Doering’s research interests include film music and the American orchestra, and his work has appeared in American Music, Journal of the Society for American Music, The Musical Quarterly, and Notes. Recently, he wrote and performed original music to accompany Yasujirō Ozu’s 1929 comedy short Tokkan kozo (A Straightforward Boy). The film was screened with benshi narration (in English) in June at Randolph-Macon College for the Virginia Governor’s Japanese Language Academy. A recording of the performance was then featured in December at the Toy Film Museum in Kyoto as part of its celebration of Ozu’s birthday. The Toy Film Museum (https://toyfilm-museum.jp/) holds one of the few (and longest) surviving prints of Tokkan kozo.

Brent Ferguson (they/their)

Brent Ferguson (stage name: Dr. B.A. Ferguson) is an assistant professor at Brunel University in London. During their PhD studies, Brent started to do archival work with SFSMA. They primarily research interactions between music and multimedia. Recently, they released a co-written article on the weaponization of music in the video game Omega Quintet with the Journal of Sound and Music in Games, and they have published a resource outlining music theory concepts in video game music for the Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy. Additionally, Brent is an active performer with two nationally touring tribute groups (covering Led Zeppelin and Queen, respectively), composer of music for the concert hall and video games, and video game designer attempting to create interactive and educational experiences.

Stanley C. Pelkey II (he/his)

Stanley C. Pelkey II currently serves as Director of the School of Music at the University of Kentucky.  His publications on film and television music include his edited collection, Anxiety Muted: American Film Music in a Suburban Age ; entries for Movies in American History: An Encyclopedia, including the article on film music; his chapter, “Still Flyin’? Conventions, Reversals, and Musical Meaning in Firefly” in Buffy, Ballads, and Bad Guys Who Sing: Music in the Worlds of Joss Whedon; a chapter on music and Cold War politics in Doctor Who: “The Gunfighters” for Relocating the Sounds of the Western.

Paul Allen Sommerfeld (he/his)

Paul Allen Sommerfeld is a Reference Specialist in the Music Division of the Library of Congress. His research focuses on film music and fandom studies, with particular emphasis on franchises and the creation of multi-media universes. His dissertation focused on the music branding, the re-purposing of musical texts, and the creation of layered meaning(s) within the Star Trek franchise.

Carlos Peña (he/his)

Carlos Peña is Assistant Music Librarian at the Theodore M. Finney Music Library at the University of Pittsburgh, and led the project there to digitize the Mirsky Collection of Salon Orchestra and Silent Film Music, which contains more than 3,500 sets of orchestral parts for music for film accompaniment and other uses.