Education

• PhD (Candidate): Urban Scenography and Performance, Queer Geographies, Musicology - Concordia University

• Master of Arts: Musicology - University of Ottawa
• Bachelor of Music: Education - Acadia University

Research & creative activity

• Queer Performance Studies, Queer Phenomenology, and LGBTQ+ creative practices
• Human Geography and Institutional Performance
• Performance of living Canadian QTBIPOC composers and artists
• New music and composition for winds
• Multidisciplinary and immersive performances 
• Placemaking through archiving, ephemera collection, story and collective mapping 

Website

www.classicalqueer.com

Jacob Caines is a conductor, musicologist, and performer based in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Jacob is a faculty member at Dalhousie University where he conducts the Dalhousie Wind Ensemble and teaches musicianship and theory. As a researcher, Jacob is honoured to have his doctoral research funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC). Via Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec, Jacob studies Urban Scenographies, Queer Geography, and the role Queer phenomenology plays in the structures and hierarchies of music institutions, orchestras, and the cities in which they exist. Jacob is also a research fellow with PULSE Montreal studying 'Gaybourhoods', lost and emerging Queer neighbourhoods, and how performance and the arts play a part in the archiving and memorialization of Queer spaces. An active writer, Jacob has been invited to speak at conferences and write for publications across Canada and internationally including Toronto, Montreal, Lucerne, and Helsinki. 

​He is founder of ClassicalQueer.com, a project dedicated to interviews with Queer+ performers, writers, musicians, administrators and artists. The CQ project has also created the Canadian Database of Queer+ Classical Musicians as well as the CQ Podcast which interviews musicians from around the world with co-host Sammi Jane Smith - an astrophysicist and Queer+ music specialist in northern Sweden. 

Interdisciplinary approaches to research are a vital part of Jacob's work and he has taught courses on performance topics through the Dalhousie School of Architecture, Lesley University School of Creative Writing, and Concordia University Faculty of Fine Arts. 

​As a performer, Jacob was the music director for the award-winning national tour of Hedwig and the Angry Inch. He is also a founding member and clarinetist of the ALKALI Collective which performs, and commissions works by living Canadian queer and BIPOC composers. The group is proud to be funded by the Canada Council, Arts Nova Scotia, and the City of Halifax. Jacob is an enthusiastic adjudicator and clinician and has worked with the Canadian Music Competition, Atlantic Band Festival, New Brunswick Music Festival, and dozens of ensembles and arts groups across Canada.