Céleste Pagniello holds a Bachelor of Music degree from McGill University (2018), and two Master of Philosophy degrees from the University of Cambridge (2020, 2021), where her research, supervised by Professor Marina Frolova-Walker and Dr. Rory Finnin, focused on Boris Asafyev and The Fountain of Bakhchisarai ballet, and the role of Soviet Belarusian poetry on the establishment of Belarusian national identity. She also holds a Master of Arts in Music from Princeton University (2023).
Céleste has spent time studying in Saint Petersburg, Russia, and Minsk, Belarus, and is currently undertaking a PhD in musicology at Princeton University, where her dissertation, supervised by Professor Simon Morrison, is focused on the Georgian National Opera and Ballet Theatre in Tbilisi, Georgia, and its role in Russian and Soviet rule of Georgia. Her research interests include everything Tchaikovsky, music in the Soviet republics, Russian and Soviet ballet, socialist theories of art, and the intersection of philosophy, politics, and music.
Céleste holds a Doctoral Fellowship from the Government of Canada’s Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).
