Search Results for: black studies
“Now what a time”
An installment in the Library of Congress’s American memory series, “Now what a time”: Blues, gospel, and the Fort Valley Music Festivals, 1938–1943 presents approximately 100 sound recordings—primarily African American blues and gospel songs—and related documentation from the folk festival … Continue reading
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Filed under North America, Resources
Dagomba dance-drumming
Created by the ethnomusicologist David Locke, Dagomba dance-drumming presents sound recordings, staff notation, and text materials on the dance drumming of the Dagomba people of northern Ghana. The recordings and historical narratives—including a personal narrative of training in drumming—were collected … Continue reading
Asian American music teachers’ experiences
Asian Americans hold distinct positions across various professions, experiencing both significant underrepresentation in some fields and notable overrepresentation in others. The Asian population in the United States has grown substantially–an 88% increase over the last two decades. Despite this growth, … Continue reading
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Filed under Music education, North America, Pedagogy, Politics, Theory
William Grant Still sounds African American life in the early 20th century
The U.S. composer and conductor William Grant Still, whose maternal grandmother had been a slave on a plantation in Georgia, attended Wilberforce University in Ohio from 1911 to 1915 after attending high school in Little Rock, Arkansas, where his mother … Continue reading
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Filed under 20th- and 21st-century music, Black studies, Film music, Performers, Politics
Katherine Dunham’s African diasporic dance aesthetics
African American dancer, choreographer, and anthropologist Katherine Dunham used ballet and African diasporic movement traditions to develop a dance methodology that subverted the white patriarchal gaze and forever changed the aesthetics of the Broadway stage. Early in her career as … Continue reading
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Filed under Africa, Black studies, Dance, North America
Anna Moffo, the versatile soprano
Born in Wayne, Pennsylvania to an Italian American couple in 1932, the opera singer Anna Moffo began her formal music studies at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia in 1951. Initially intending to pursue a piano course, she found that the … Continue reading
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Filed under Opera, Performers, Voice
Labor’s troubadour
The musician and union educator Joe Glazer, known as “labor’s troubadour”, made significant contributions to work and union songs through his composition, performance, study, and recording from the 1940s to the 2000s. Although not as widely recognized outside labor circles … Continue reading
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Filed under Labor, Performers, Politics, Popular music
Helen Myers and East Indian music in Trinidad
Throughout her life, ethnomusicologist Helen Myers dedicated herself to exploring the connections between local East Indian music genres in Trinidad and their counterparts in northern India. Her research produced invaluable documentation of traditional songs and shed light on the rich … Continue reading
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Filed under Asia, Ethnomusicology, Literature, Migrations, Popular music, Religion, West Indies, World music
Musical expressions of the Harlem Renaissance: An annotated bibliography
Emerging from a New York neighborhood in the early 20th century, the Harlem Renaissance was a period of vibrant intellectual and artistic development in the African American community. Considered a turning point in Black history, the Harlem Renaissance offered African … Continue reading
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Filed under Black studies, Jazz and blues, Literature, North America, Performers, Politics, Popular music
