Brendan Gillis began studying violin at the age of five, before switching to viola in 1996. He has studied with Paul Silver, Jeff Irvine, and Marcus Thompson. Brendan has received numerous awards for his musical achievements including the Pittsburgh Tuesday Musical Club Scholarship, the Frank J. Furina Fine Arts Scholarship, a New England String Ensemble Fellowship, and the Wendell Irish Viola Award for the North Eastern US.

Brendan is an active chamber musician, working with coaches including Daniel Stepner, Yehudi Wyner, Robert Levin, members of the Ying quartet, and jazz great Jim Hall. He has appeared as a soloist with the Harvard Bach Society and Mozart Society Orchestras. In addition, he has performed with the Bob Nieske 3 in a concert of modern jazz, and joined Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Project in a performance of Persian classical music. While pursuing his research for an MPhil in Historical Studies at Cambridge university, Brendan performed with Cambridge University Music Society (CUMS), CUVE (a viola quintet), and the Goh-Gillis Duo. Since returning to the USA he has been playing principal viola for the Bloomington Symphony Orchestra. Brendan studied History at Harvard University and obtained his bachelor’s degree, magna cum laude, in 2006. He then spent a year at Downing College, Cambridge, doing an MPhil in History, which he completed in 2007. Returning to the USA, from the Autumn of 2008 to the Spring of 2010 he worked in the History Department of the University of Indiana, in Bloomington, as a graduate Associate Instructor for courses in early American, post-1945 world, and modern European history. He was awarded a travel grant and a Hill Fellowhip for Pre-dissertation research, by Indiana University in 2009. In September 2010 Brendan passed his PhD Qualifying Exams with distinction, and he is now working for a PhD in modern British history at Indiana University. He was awarded a Brown-Gillian Scholarship in 2011. His research focuses on the comparative study of justices of the peace operating in domestic and imperial spaces across the long eighteenth century. He is particularly interested in exploring how a focus on the cultural and ideological bonds uniting local legal/administrative personnel decentres narratives of state development while integrating law and empire into the analysis of administrative and political change. Since July 2010 he has also been working as an Editorial Assistant for the American Historical Review. http://brendangillis.wordpress.com/