Congratulations to Tes Slominski, W&M '96!
Here is a short bio summarizing her accomplishments:
After graduating from William and Mary in 1996 (BA, Literary and Cultural Studies), where she was a member of the Middle Eastern Music Ensemble and a balladeer in ColonialWilliamsburg, Tes Slominski spent nearly a decade chasing fiddle tunes in Ireland and on the East Coast.In 1999, she co-founded the Blue Ridge Irish Music School in Charlottesville, served as the school's executive and artistic director, and led the group on its first two study trips to Ireland in 2000 and 2004. She spent the 2001-2002 academic year at the University of Limerick, where she earned an MA in Ethnomusicology. Tes began doctoral work at NYU in 2004 and just successfully defended her doctoral dissertation, "Music, Gender, and the Public Sphere in Twentieth Century Ireland." Recipient of a Mellon/ACLS Recent Doctoral Recipients Fellowship and an honorary Alvin H. Johnson AMS 50 Fellowship, Tes will be a visiting postdoctoral fellow at Smith College's Kahn Liberal Arts Institute during the 2010-2011 academic year.