Teaching
I teach undergraduate courses in music, media, creativity, and the creative industries. My classes combine critical inquiry with listening, discussion, experimentation, and project-based learning.
Teaching approach
Creative practice and critical inquiry
My teaching centres on creative practice, critical listening, and the development of individual artistic voices. I create accessible and collaborative learning environments in which students can experiment, connect ideas across disciplines, and build confidence through making.
Across music, media, and creative-industries courses, I combine project-based learning, discussion, listening, research, and reflective practice. Whether teaching a large lecture course, a creative studio, or an individual mentorship, I seek to make complex ideas approachable without simplifying their possibilities.
Current appointment
Canadian University Dubai
Assistant Professor of Music · 2025–present
I design and teach undergraduate courses across music, creativity, media, and the creative industries for an international student community in Dubai.
MUSMusic Appreciation & CommunicationFall 2025 · Spring 2026 · Summer 2026 · Fall 2026
Explores music, sound, and listening across history, culture, media, and everyday life through discussion, creative practice, and critical reflection. Students develop skills in contextual listening, musical analysis, reflective writing, field recording, and creative audio production.
Areas of study
- Critical and contextual listening
- Music, identity, and culture
- Field recording and soundscape practice
- Creative audio projects
CRI 301The Creative ProcessFall 2026
A studio-based undergraduate course exploring creativity through making, experimentation, research, and reflective practice. Students develop original creative work while investigating the processes that underpin innovation, collaboration, artistic research, and sustainable creative practice.
Areas of study
- Creative process and idea development
- Freedom, constraint, and experimentation
- Creative research and documentation
- Critique, collaboration, and exhibition
CRIFandom & Popular CultureFall 2026
Explores fandom as a form of creativity, identity, community, labour, and cultural participation across music, film, television, sport, gaming, and social media. Students examine fan production, online communities, participatory culture, representation, activism, and relationships between audiences and media industries.
Areas of study
- Fan identity and community
- Remix, cosplay, fanfiction, and participation
- Platforms, industries, and cultural labour
- Gatekeeping, belonging, and representation
CRI 340Global Entertainment MarketplaceSpring 2026
Introduces the global media landscape and examines how entertainment industries, media technologies, platforms, and cultural markets develop and converge. The course connects histories and theories of media with contemporary creative-industry practice.
Areas of study
- Global entertainment industries
- Media convergence and platforms
- Digital, interactive, and traditional media
- Culture, technology, and markets
Selected courses
University of California, San Diego
Associate-In Lecturer · 2023–2025
MUS 15Music of Australia: Place, Politics & PowerSummer I 2024 · Summer I & II 2025
This course uses music as a lens through which to explore place, history, spirituality, law, politics, and collective memory. Moving from Aboriginal traditions and settler histories to contemporary popular, experimental, country, folk, and classical music, students examine how sound has represented, contested, and shaped ideas of Australian identity.
MUS 4Introduction to Western MusicWinter 2024 · Fall 2024 · Summer 2025
A broad survey of Western music from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century, focused primarily on notated concert traditions. Students consider musical works as both sonic experiences and social objects, examining relationships between style, politics, institutions, technology, patronage, and historical change.
MUS 1AFundamentals of Music IFall 2023
A beginner-level introduction to musical literacy for students with little or no previous experience. Through notation, listening, singing, rhythm, analysis, dictation, and practical exercises, students develop foundational skills in reading, writing, hearing, and thinking about music.
Teaching Assistant
Additional UC San Diego courses
2018–2025
Guest lecture
Stanford University
Student feedback
Selected course evaluations
Anonymous student feedback · University of California, San Diego
His passion for teaching and commitment to student growth make him an invaluable asset to the UC San Diego community.
Prof. de Filippo is just overall a great person to learn from. He is very excited to teach the material and seems genuinely passionate about it, which carries over to students.
He is incredibly engaged with the material at hand and capable of expressing it in a way that students are able to understand and follow along with.
He is very passionate about the music. Even though I did not have much previous experience, the material became more interesting because he cares about what he is teaching.
Mentoring
Creative development beyond the classroom
As a New Music / New Communities mentor at the Composers Conference, I worked with young musicians from underserved communities as they developed, rehearsed, and presented their first compositions.
My broader experience includes individual composition instruction, senior-secondary portfolio mentorship, curriculum review, and assessment of student creative work.
Assessment & educational service
Digital Arts Category Judge
Scholastic Art & Writing Awards — Maine Chapter
Assessed digital artwork submitted by students in grades 7–12 across Maine.
Music Fellowship Reviewer
Kimmel Harding Nelson Foundation Center for the Arts
Reviews music residency applications and participates in fellowship selection.
Experimental Category Judge
West Australian Music Awards — Song of the Year
Evaluated submissions in the experimental music category.
Music Curriculum Panelist
Western Australian School Curriculum and Standards Authority
Reviewed senior-secondary music curriculum with attention to access for rural students.
Composition Portfolio Examiner
Western Australian School Curriculum and Standards Authority
Assessed senior-secondary composition portfolios for final certification.
Public teaching
Lectures, talks, workshops, and presentations
Guest lectures6
Artist talks and workshops8
Conference presentations6
Teaching history