Maria Arko Klemenc completed her Ph.D. in Music, specializing in Ethnomusicology, at the University of California, Berkeley in 2004. Her dissertation, Arranging the Nation: Slovenian Folk Song Arrangements and National Perception, focused on the repertoire of choral arrangements of folk songs and the popular practice of choral singing in Slovenia. Her research addresses understandings of nationalism, conceptions of folk music in constructing a musical nationalism, and questions of musical boundaries along the folk-popular-art continuum. Additional areas of interest include folk revivals, the musical practices of immigrant communities in the United States, and the history of American vernacular musics.

Klemenc completed her bachelor’s degree in music at the University of Chicago. Her graduate studies and field research were supported by Fulbright, IREX, and various other grants. She has presented at the national meetings of the Society for Ethnomusicology and the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, and parts of her dissertation have been published in the ethnographic journal Traditiones (2005) with additional articles forthcoming.