As Associate Professor of Music at Bergen Community College in Paramus, New Jersey, Dr. Krikun teaches a variety of courses including music business, music history, pop/rock ensemble, and songwriting. At Bergen, he has been active in curriculum development and created master classes for students with notable musical guests that include Philip Glass, Suzanne Vega, Bill Miller, Garland Jeffries, Vaneese Thomas (Tribute to Stax Records), Eddie Brigati (Rascals), June Millington (Fanny), and Steven Bernstein (Tribute to Sly and the Family Stone).
Krikun received his MA in Ethnomusicology from the University of California, Los Angeles, researching the music of Nepal and performing with the Balinese, Javanese, Ghanaian, Ugandan, and Afro-American ensembles. In 2006, he was awarded a Teaching Excellence Award from the University of Texas, National Institute for Staff and Organizational Development.
He received his Ph.D. in Music Education at the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, Culture, and Human Development at New York University in 2014. His dissertation, “Teaching the ‘People’s Music’ at the ‘People’s College’: Popular Music Education in the Junior College Curriculum in Los Angeles, 1924-1955,” shed light on the important role of community colleges in transforming the music curriculum in American higher education.
His articles have appeared in the International Journal of Community Music, the Journal of Popular Music Studies, the Journal of Historical Research in Music Education, Diversity Digest, and The Beat. His book chapters have appeared in seminal collections on the role of community music and popular music in education. He has presented at professional conferences in the U.S. and China, which include the College Music Society, the International Society for Music Education, the Music Educators National Conference, the International Association for the Study of Popular Music, and the Association for Popular Music. He served as an executive board member of the Association of Popular Music Education from 2010-2019.