Dr. Lisa Allen-McLaurin is Helmar E. Nielsen Professor of Church Music and Worship and oversees the Master of Arts in Liturgical Arts and Culture degree at the Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta, Georgia, and is appointed Coordinator of Practical Ministries for the Sixth Episcopal District of the CME Church. Dr. Allen-McLaurin holds Bachelor’s, Master’s, and Ph.D. degrees in piano and music education from Millsaps College and the University of Southern Mississippi, and the Master of Divinity degree from the Candler School of Theology at Emory University. She is the author of A Womanist Theology of Worship (Orbis Books, 2021), Worship Matters! (Creative Publishing, 2015), and Development Comes Before Deliverance (Creative Publishing, 2018), and a featured musicologist in the Emmy-award winning documentary, Reflect, Reclaim, Rejoice: Preserving the Gift of Black Sacred Music.
Dr. Loneka Wilkinson Battiste is Assistant Professor of Music Education at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Drawing on 12 years of experience teaching children in school and community settings, she now teaches elementary general and middle school choral methods and graduate courses in music education. She has presented several papers and sessions at local, national, and international conferences and symposia and is a frequent clinician and guest conductor for elementary, middle school, and community choirs. As a former member of the Moses Hogan Chorale and the Moses Hogan Singers, she completed her dissertation entitled “ ‘Music Down in My Soul’: Achieving a Sound Ideal for Moses Hogan Spirituals” in 2014. Her work has been published in the Choral Journal and the Proceedings of the International Society for Music Education. She currently serves as on the Council for the Tennessee Music Education Association as the Society for Music Teacher Education Representative and Research Chair. She has also served in various leadership positions in the Society for Ethnomusicology, including Co-Chair of the Education Section, Co-Chair of the Crossroads Section, and Co-Chair of the Gertrude Robinson Network of Scholars. Loneka’s scholarly interests in music education include equity and inclusion, multicultural education, and culturally responsive teaching. She frequently presents on the artistic style of Moses Hogan, African American music aesthetics, and various musics of the African diaspora. In 2019, she completed a Fulbright Fellowship at Universidade Federal de Pernambuco (UFPE) in Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil and studied coco, a musical tradition of the Brazilian northeast, in the Xambá community of Olinda, Pernambuco, Brazil. While in Brazil, she gave lectures on African American musics and formed a gospel choir at UFPE. She also gave lectures on culturally responsive teaching at UFPE, Universidade Federal de Paraiba, and Artefatos da Cultura Negra in Ceará. Her relationship with UFPE and the Xambá community is ongoing. Through the University of Tennessee’s Global Catalyst Award, she is building a teaching and research exchange program between UFPE, the Xambá community, and the university’s music education program.
Her current research addresses the history of African American music education and the training of African American music teachers. She serves as Minister of Music at Metropolitan Community Church of Knoxville.
Dina M. Bennett, Ph.D., is the Director of Collections and Curatorial Affairs at the American Jazz Museum in Kansas City, Missouri, a member of the Smithsonian Institution Affiliation Program. Bennett is responsible for overseeing the permanent collection and institutional archives of the museum, including all loans and temporary exhibits. Prior to this position, Bennett spent three years as the Curatorial Director of the National Museum of African American Music in Nashville, Tennessee, the first national institution dedicated to educating, preserving, and celebrating more than fifty music genres and sub-genres that were created, influenced, and inspired by African Americans. As an ethnomusicologist, Bennett specializes in African American music-culture and has honed her expertise in telling the story of African American music and its various genres through her curatorial work in music museums. She has previously served as the Associate Director of the Mulvane Art Museum at Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas; Director of Education at the B.B. King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center; and Manager of Collections and Exhibitions at the American Jazz Museum. Bennett received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Communication Studies from Washburn University, a master’s degree in College Student Personnel from Kansas State University, and a Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology with a minor in African American & African Diaspora Studies from Indiana University. She is a Board member of the Association of African American Museums and a member of the Association of American Museums. She currently serves on the advisory team of scholars for “A History of African American Music,” an interactive timeline produced as a resource for Carnegie Hall’s 2009 festival “Honor! A Celebration of the African American Cultural Legacy. Bennett has over 30 years’ experience in the music field and is an accomplished pianist.
Dr. Lisa Beckley-Roberts, Associate Professor of Musicology, earned her doctorate in Ethnomusicology and Masters Degrees in Ethnomusicology and Harp Performance at Florida State University, after having received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Harp Performance from Dillard University in New Orleans, LA. Dr. Beckley-Roberts has taught courses including Minority Music in America, American Roots Music, American Popular Music, World Music Cultures and African Music and Dance in addition to guest lecturing and presenting papers on Africana religious practices and the role of music in them, Peruvian shaman ritual chanting, and the creation of sacred space through music. She is also an accomplished performer who has been principal harpist with the Valdosta Symphony Orchestra and the Central Florida Symphony Orchestra, has performed with orchestras throughout the Southeast, and maintains an active performance career having accompanied singers with the neo-soul and hip-hop performers of Tallahassee Nights Live. Dr. Beckley-Roberts currently teaches both graduate and undergraduate students courses in Music History, Studies in Historical Musicology/Ethnomusicology, Music Appreciation, Applied Harp Lessons, and has proposed and been approved to begin a World Music Cultures class. She began the Jackson State University African Drum and Dance Ensemble shortly after arriving at JSU and held the Inaugural performance of the ensemble on November 30, 2016. She has authored articles and film/album reviews that have appeared in the Journal for the Society of Ethnomusicology, Journal of Africana Studies, and Worlds of Music Journal and has presented at numerous professional conferences including African Studies Association Conference, Caribbean Studies Conference, African and Diasporic Religious Studies Association Conference, and Regional Society for Ethnomusicology Conference. Having been a Fulbright-Hayes Scholar in South Africa as well as a FLAS scholar in Nigeria, Beckley-Roberts’ research focuses on traditional African religious practices in diaspora communities of the Americas and the role of music, dance and chant in conversion processes. However, she has also done research on exoticism in the Romantic era, the performance of gender in Western art music, and the musician’s role in contemporary resistance movements in America and Cuba.
Dr. Roland Marvin Carter, is Professor Emeritus of American Music at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (UTC); he served UTC for twenty four years and was Director of Choirs and Department Head at his undergraduate, alma mater, Hampton University for twenty-five years. Both appointments included stents as head and chair of the departments respectively. Carter’s accomplishments as a leading figure in the choral arts include lectures, workshops, master classes, and concerts with major choruses and orchestras in prestigious venues nationwide. He is especially noted as an authority on the performance and preservation of music of African American traditions and composers. As a composer/arranger, he is, perhaps, best known for his festival setting of LIFT EVERY VOICE AND SING and his spiritual settings YOU MUST HAVE THAT TRUE RELIGION and IN BRIGHT MANSIONS ABOVE. He has received numerous commissions from churches, choruses, and individuals including most recently Len Hale, the Chattanooga Symphony, Duke University, the BESA SAKA FESTIVAL, Chorus America, and internationally acclaimed soprano, Marquita Lister. Carter was music director of the acclaimed Chattanooga Choral Society for the Preservation of African American Song and served twenty seasons as music advisor and principal guest conductor for the Houston Ebony Opera (TX) Gala Concerts. He was active with the Choir Directors and Organists Guild of the Hampton University Ministers Conference for over five (5) decades, having moved through the ranks of student accompanist to assistant director to Director of Music. Since 2011, the Conference has honored him with the presentation, annually, of The Roland M. Carter Living Legends Award to distinguished church musicians throughout the country. He was among three composers/arrangers named MASTERS OF THE SPIRITUAL in 2020 by Conti Classics for a Lincoln Center Concert. A past president of the National Association of Negro Musicians, Carter has a distinguished record of commitment and service having held seats on the on the boards of directors of the League of American Orchestras, SPHINX, TN ARTS COMMISSION, National Association of State Arts Agencies, the Chattanooga Symphony and Opera Association, ArtsBuild of Chattanooga, and CHORUS AMERICA. He is founder and CEO of Mar-Vel, Inc., a music publisher specializing in the music of African American composers and traditions, now published by WALTON MUSIC; and is Founder and Executive Director of The Roland Carter Institute for Studies in American Music (RCISAM). Carter has conducted the Chancel Choir at the Cascade United Methodist Church, Atlanta, GA, for eighteen years.
Maya Cunningham is an Africanist/African-Americanist ethnomusicologist, an Africana Studies scholar, a jazz vocalist and a cultural activist. Her research focuses on intersections between African/African American identities and traditional Black musics, as well as ethnomusicological approaches to culturally responsive music education for Afro-descendant students. Cunningham is an active member of the Society for Ethnomusicology and serves as Secretary of the African/African Diasporic Music Section. She is also HBCU Outreach Co-Chair of the Gertrude Robinson Network for Black Ethnomusicologists. Her forthcoming book chapter, “The Hush Harbor as Sanctuary: African American Survival Silence During British/American Slavery,” will be featured in a Bloomsbury collection called Sonic Histories of Occupation: Sound and Imperialism in Global Context (Taylor and Skelchy, eds), forthcoming in February 2022. Another book chapter, “Singing Power/Sounding Identity: The Black Woman's Voice from Hush Harbors and Beyond” is included inThe Routledge Companion to Black Women’s Cultural Histories, edited by Janell Hobson. Cunningham is completing a PhD at the W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in African American studies with a concentration in Ethnomusicology. She received an MA in ethnomusicology from the University of Maryland, College Park, a MA in jazz performance from the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College and a Bachelor of Music in jazz studies from Howard University. In 2017 she received a Fulbright fellowship to research how traditional music is used to teach national identity to primary school students in Botswana. Cunningham is also a two-time award recipient of the National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Scholar fellowship to study African American Gullah culture, as well as African American culture and blues traditions in the Mississippi Delta. In 2016 she received fellowships to research traditional music and culturally responsive music education models in Ghana and India. She has given papers at conferences nationally and internationally, including Documenting Jazz, the Society for Ethnomusicology, the Association for the Study of African American Life and Culture (ASALH), the National Council for Black Studies (NCBS), and at conferences at the University of Nottingham, the University of Albany and New York University. In 2017, Cunningham launched Ethnomusicology In Action, a project of Themba Arts and Culture, Inc., that uses educational programs, curriculum development, professional development for teachers, music recordings and broadcast media to advance heritage education about Afro descendant expressive culture. Cunningham is also a leader in the We Up Re Up Artist Collective. Led by JD Allen, We Up Re Up is an international and multidisciplinary Black artist-led coalition rejecting exploitation that supports and fosters creative performances in non-traditional settings while promoting artistic and career sustainability around the globe. Learn more about Maya Cunningham’s work at http://www.ethnomusicologyinaction.org/
Dr. Michael Decuir was born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana. He began playing clarinet at the age of eleven and matriculated to Southern University at New Orleans where he earned a BA in Instrumental Music Education. He earned a MA in Music History & Literature from the University of California, Berkeley and a Doctor of Arts in Humanities from Clark Atlanta University where he currently serves as an Associate Professor of Music.
Mr. Eddie Ellis was born in Atlanta, Georgia. Where he received his primary and secondary education. He taught in the Georgia public school System for 18 years, Randolph County, and Dekalb County Schools. His high school bands received consistent superior and excellent awards in marching band, concert band and jazz band. After teaching in the public-school system, He served as Director of Bands, for 7 years at Morris Brown College where the band program grew in the number of students as well as the quality of all performing ensembles including Marching Band, Symphonic band and jazz band. The Symphonic Band toured the state of Georgia and Alabama. While doing so The Morris Brown College Symphonic band was the first African American College band to perform for the Georgia Music Educators Association. This performance took place January 26, 2000 in Savannah, Ga. The marching band performed for the Philadelphia Eagles as well as the several half-time performances for the Atlanta Falcons. The Marching Band was invited to apply for the Macy’s Parade. In addition, the marching Band was featured in the r hit movie “Drumline”, Recording artist video’s Rosa Parks (Outcast) and (Lil John and the East Side Boys), (Bone Crusher) Skills Raised the level of student participation and the quality of instruction at the secondary and collegiate levels at all institutions under my supervision. Initiated the team concept of cooperative teaching involving music instruction of students enrolled in school clusters within the same community successfully. Organized and participated in staff development activities for the purpose of improving personal instructional skills as well as instructors under my supervision.
Dr. Oliver N. Greene, Jr., a native of LaGrange, GA, is an associate professor of music at Georgia State University where he teaches courses on traditional world music, the popular music of select countries and carnival traditions of the Americas, and has produced numerous world music shows. He holds a Ph.D. in musicology (emphasis, ethnomusicology) from Florida State University, Master of Music degrees from Southern Methodist University, and a Bachelor of Music degree from the College Conservatory of Music, University of Cincinnati. He has published articles in the Black Music Research Journal (2002, 1999), Continuum Encyclopedia of Popular Music of Music (2005), and the Garland Encyclopedia of World Music (1998) and Concise Garland Encyclopedia of World Music (2008), as well as in the book The Garifuna: A Nation Across Borders (2005). He has created websites on Garifuna music and ritual arts traditions. In 2005 he presented a paper at the Seminaire d’Ethnomusicologie at the International Gwoka Music Festival in Guadaloupe, French West Indies and directed a study abroad to Rio de Janeiro and Salvador, Brazil. He has presented at meetings of the Society for Ethnomusicology, International Association for the Study of Popular Music, Center for Black Music Research (CBMR), and International Council of Traditional Music. As a recipient of a Rockefeller fellowship at the CBMR in Chicago in 2000, he conducted fieldwork and research on the relationships between art, dance and music in the expression of ethnic identity in the wanaragua (Jankunú) ritual of the Garifuna of Belize. He has also conducted research on popular music and ancestor veneration rituals of the Garifuna in Belize and Honduras. His documentary film, “Play, Jankunú Play: The Garifuna Wanaragua Ritual in Belize” (2007) has been screened at scholarly conferences, universities, film festivals and cultural art affairs in Aukland, New Zealand; Salvador da Bahia, Brazil; Dangriga, Belize; Belgrade, Serbia; Honolulu, Hawaii; the Bronx, NY; Rutgers, NJ; and Atlanta, GA.
Dr. Paula Grissom-Broughton is an Assistant Professor of Music in the Spelman College Department of Music where she teaches courses related to women, race and music. An active scholar and researcher on the subject of race and gender in the music classroom, Grissom-Broughton has presented her research at local and national conferences, including the National Association for Music Education. Before becoming a member of the music faculty at Spelman, Grissom-Broughton taught piano, music history, and music theory at Winston-Salem State University. During her tenure in North Carolina, she was a featured performer for the Focus on Piano Conference at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She was also featured at the Winston-Salem Delta Arts Center where she performed works by Pulitzer Prize Winner George Walker. Grissom-Broughton's background in music education extends beyond the college classroom. She has several years of teaching experience as a music specialist and choral instructor for both Atlanta Public Schools and Fulton County Schools. During her time as a music specialist for Fulton County Schools, she also created, developed and taught various music courses for After-School Development Programs throughout the district. A former winner of Atlanta Steinway Piano Competition, Grissom-Broughton remains an active musician, serving locally and nationally as an incredibly versatile collaborative pianist, guest clinician, and presenter for various panels and workshops.
W. Weldon Hill, Ph.D., A native of Richmond, Virginia, holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in music education from Virginia Union University (Richmond) and Master of Music (composition) and Doctor of Philosophy (musicology) degrees from the Catholic University of America. He also did post-graduate work in jazz studies at Virginia Commonwealth University (Richmond). He is a 1986 National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow, 1994 Plan for Social Excellence Post-Doctoral Fellow (Harvard University Management Development Program), and a 2000-01 American Council on Education Fellow. Dr. Hill began teaching in the VUU Department of Music in 1984 as Coordinator of Instrumental and Commercial Music at the rank of Assistant Professor. He subsequently served as Chairperson of the Department of Music and Chairperson of the Division of Humanities. From 1993 to 1997, he served as Dean of the VUU School of Arts and Sciences and Associate Professor of Music and was appointed Vice President for Academic Affairs 1998. In 2001, he was promoted to Provost and Senior Vice President. In December 2003, Dr. Hill was appointed Dean of the School of Liberal Arts and Education at Virginia State University. In July 2009, Dr. Hill was appointed Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs at VSU and has recently returned to the classroom professor and chairperson of the Department of Music (the position in which he currently serves). A musicologist and pianist, remains active in his discipline as a recording artist and scholar. He is most well known as a pianist, having shared the stage with numerous nationally known artists including Joe Williams, Herb Jefferies, Panama Francis, Ethel Ennis, Benny Carter, Milt Hinton, Rene Marie, Billy Pierce, Steve Wilson, and Jon Faddis. Dr. Hill is also involved in educational and public affairs outside the university, having most recently served on the New College Institute Board of Directors (Martinsville, Virginia; appointed by Gov. Ralph Northam) and, currently, the Culture Works Board of Directors (Richmond, Virginia).
Fredara Mareva Hadley, Ph.D. is an ethnomusicology professor at The Juilliard School in the Music History Department. Hadley teaches courses on jazz history, African American music, and ethnomusicology, and her research centers on the diverse musical legacies and impact of Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Her publications include the ICTM Yearbook and Journal of Popular Music Studies as well as outlets including The Washington Post and Billboard Magazine. She's presented her research at academic conferences both domestically and abroad. Hadley’s other area of research focuses on Shirley Graham DuBois and the influence of musical pan-Africanism in her opera Tom Tom (1932) and her ongoing political engagement. Hadley earned her undergraduate and Masters’s degree from Florida A&M University and Clark Atlanta University, respectively, and her Ph.D. in ethnomusicology from Indiana University. Her forthcoming book is a survey of the musics that HBCU campuses nurture and the broader cultural impact of those musics.
Dr. Alisha Lola Jones is an associate professor in the Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology and faculty director of the Global Pop Music Initiative at Indiana University (Bloomington). Dr. Jones is a board member of the Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM), a member of the strategic planning task force for the American Musicological Society (AMS), and a co-chair of the Music and Religion Section of the American Academy of Religion (AAR). Additionally, as a performer-scholar, she consults museums, conservatories, seminaries, and arts organizations on curriculum, live and virtual event programming, and content development. Dr. Jones’ book Flaming?: The Peculiar Theopolitics of Fire and Desire in Black Male Gospel Performance (Oxford University Press) breaks ground by analyzing the role of gospel music-making in constructing and renegotiating gender identity among black men. Her research interests extend to global pop music, musics of the African diaspora, music and food, the music industry and the marketplace, and anti-oppressive ways of listening to black women. A little-known fact is that Dr. Alisha Lola Jones and her sister Rev. Angela Marie Jones are co-owners of Paradise Media Group, a Black women-owned radio company based in Oxford and Henderson, NC. Dr. Alisha Lola Jones is newlywed to Rev. Calvin Taylor Skinner. In January 2022, she will be joining the music faculty of the University of Cambridge in England as an associate professor!
Brian Jordan Jr. is an American actor and classically trained singer-dancer and has many off-broadway and regional theatre credits. He trained at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and The Debbie Allen Dance Academy. Currently, he is starring as Maurice Webb on Tyler Perry’s Sistas on BET. Jordan is a native of Baton Rouge, Louisiana and a product of Southeastern Louisiana University. He has had film roles in Bolden!: The Buddy Bolden Story, Get On Up!, and also in the new BET holiday film, Christmas Belles.
Dr. Abimbola Cole Kai-Lewis is a teacher in the New York City Department of Education. She is a proud graduate of Spelman College. Dr. Kai-Lewis completed her doctoral studies in UCLA’s Ethnomusicology Department where she explored the music of hip-hop collective Cashless Society. She currently collaborates with emcee Chosan.
Saïs Kamalidiin
Associate Professor of Flute
Howard University Director of Graduate Studies in Music
Founder and Executive Director of the Howard University Center for Ethnomusicology
Dr. Tammy L. Kernodle is an internationally-recognized scholar and musician that teaches and researches in the areas of African American music and gender and music. She has worked closely with a number of educational programs including The American Jazz Museum, National Museum of African American History and Culture, National Public Radio (NPR), the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (RRHOF), Canadian Public Radio and the BBC. Her work has appeared in numerous journals, anthologies, and online platforms including NPR's 2019 Turning the Table Series and “Creative Black Music at the Walker Art Center,” a digital exhibit at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. Kernodle is the author of biography Soul on Soul: The Life and Music of Mary Lou Williams, served as Associate Editor of the three-volume Encyclopedia of African American Music and the Editorial team for the revision of the Grove Dictionary of American Music. She has appeared in a number of award-winning documentaries including Girls in the Band, The Lady Who Swings the Band and Miles Davis: The Birth of Cool. Dr. Kernodle is the immediate Past-President of the Society for American Music and is University Distinguished Professor of Music at Miami University.
Dr. Cheryl L. Keyes is the author of Rap Music and Street Consciousness (University of Illinois Press), which received a CHOICE award for outstanding academic book titles. She has written numerous journal articles, essays, and reviews on hip-hop/rap and African American popular music. Amongst her most recent essay is “Long Live Hip-Hop: Hamilton and the Death (and Rebirth) of Hip-Hop” in the edited volume Dueling Grounds: Revolution and Revelation in the Musical Hamilton. Professor Keyes is also a member of the Executive Committee for the Smithsonian Folkways Recordings and the National Museum of African American History and Culture’s project, Smithsonian Anthology of Hip-Hop and Rap, and help “stewarded the selection of nine CDs consisting of 129 tracks and a 300-page book” along with additional writing for the Anthology. On other fronts, Professor Keyes has been featured in public facing platforms as a critic and cultural consultant for the television mini-series documentary, Death Row Chronicles (BET) and for DreamWorks Animation’s film, Trolls World Tour (Universal Pictures), respectively. Keyes’s scholarship has advanced into other areas including producing, writing, and directing a documentary (short) called Beyond Central Avenue: Contemporary Female Jazz Instrumentalists of Los Angeles. In addition, she has served as musical director for the “Lady Jazz: Blues in the Summertime” concert, commissioned by Instrumental Women Project™ for its Lady Jazz summer concert series held at the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre and created and produced the concert Swinging to a World of Strings, presented at UCLA’s Schoenberg Auditorium and supported by the David and Irmgard Dobrow Fund.
Paul T. Kwami, D.M.A., is Musical Director of the Multi-Award-Winning Fisk Jubilee Singers. Kwami was born in Ghana, West Africa, studied music at Ghana’s National Academy of Music, and taught there until immigrating to the US in 1983 as a student at Fisk University. He promptly joined the Fisk Jubilee Singers® and sang under the directorship of McCoy Ransom, a Fisk Jubilee Singer alumnus who sang under John W. Work III’s direction. After graduating Fisk, he earned the Master of Music degree from Western Michigan University in 1987. In 1994, he was solicited to serve as part-time director of the Fisk Jubilee Singers, and later in the year was promoted to full-time faculty member in the music department and became the Musical Director of the ensemble later. He is the first African to direct the ensemble, and the first to hold the Curb-Beaman Chair position. He is currently the Mike Curb Jubilee Singers Endowed Chair. Kwami received the Doctor of Musical Arts (D.M.A.) degree in conducting from the American Conservatory of Music. Kwami, a composer, an arranger, and a conductor, is a Professor of Music and the Music Discipline Coordinator at Fisk University. During his years of service as Musical Director, the Fisk Jubilee Singers have received several awards including the Rhapsody and Rhythm Award, the Americana Music Association Award, a Dove Award, and the Recording Academy Honors, as well as induction into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame, the Music City Walk of Fame, the GRAMMY® Hall of Fame, and the American Classical Music Hall of Fame. The ensemble was awarded the 2008 National Medal of the Arts by President and Mrs. George W. Bush. Under his leadership, the Fisk Jubilee Singers won their first GRAMMY® on March 14, 2021. He is the Executive Producer of the Fisk Jubilee Singers’ recording entitled Rise, Shine, Fisk Jubilee Singers Live in Concert and Co-Executive Producer of In Bright Mansions and Fisk Jubilee Singers® Celebrating Fisk! the 150th Anniversary album. Under his directorship, the Fisk Jubilee Singers have performed in many great venues in Italy, Spain, Bahamas, the United Kingdom, Germany, Ghana, and the United States of America. A recipient of the 2021 Nashville Convention and Visitors Corporation’s E. W. “Bud” Wendell Award, Kwami was also honored by the Fisk University Board of Trustees with a resolution on May 25, 2021, for his achievements. Fisk University recently received an anonymous donation of $1.5 million for the Fisk Jubilee Singers, and it is named after Dr. Kwami. He is a son, ever on the altar.
Marvin McNeill is a Ph.D. candidate in ethnomusicology at Wesleyan University and lives in West Hartford, CT with his wife and daughter. After serving 20 years as a collegiate band director - most recently serving for 16 years as the associate director and chief arranger for the “Pride of Connecticut” the University of Connecticut Marching Band - Marvin returned to school as a student to pursue and expand upon personal scholarly interests and passions. His research interests include African American folk and popular music traditions with special attention on Black New Orleans brass band and HBCU marching band history and culture. Additional research interests include youth culture studies; community studies; social bond theory; and affect theory. Marvin is the founding member of The Funky Dawgz Brass Band, a New Orleans style Brass Band that has toured nationally and internationally. The Funky Dawgz Brass Band’s performance resume includes being featured on bills with the likes of The Rebirth Brass Band, Preservation Hall Jazz Band, The Soul Rebels, Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue, Dumpstaphunk, Dispatch, Snarky Puppy, The Stooges Brass Band, Big Sam’s Funky Nation, and Lettuce amongst others. The Funky Dawgz have been recognized as one of Live for Live Music’s “Brass Bands You Need to Know” and are the founders of an afterschool brass band program for at-risk-youth at the Charter Oak Cultural Center in Hartford, CT. Marvin was awarded the 2021 Global South Fellowship from the New Orleans Center for the Gulf South at Tulane University in support of his research project on the New Orleans brass band: To Be Continued Brass Band. Most recently he was awarded the Gertrude Rivers Robinson Annual Meeting Travel Award; a recognition of which he is most humbly proud.
Dr. David Morrow, a native of Rochester, NY, was valedictorian of his Morehouse College class, holds a Master of Music degree from the University of Michigan and a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music. He is a long-time faculty member at Morehouse College since 1981 and is currently the Academic Program Director for Music and Theater and Performance majors. He conducts the renowned Morehouse College Glee Club to domestic and world-wide acclaim; most recently in Honduras and Algeria. He also conducts the Wendell P. Whalum Community Chorus and Co-Directs the Morehouse-Spelman Chorus. His conducting honors include performances in such widely varying venues as Atlanta’s Symphony Hall with, soprano, Jessye Norman, the national anthem of Superbowl XXVIII with Natalie Cole, the opening and closing ceremonies of the 1996 Atlanta Centennial Olympic Games, on the masterworks series for the Colour of Music Festival in Charleston, South Carolina. With the Morehouse College Glee Club he has conducted at Carnegie Hall, with the Tallahassee Symphony Orchestra, the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra, the Georgia Symphony Orchestra and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. He is a sought-after choral clinician and lecturer, who serves on the Board of Directors of both the Intercollegiate Men's Choruses, Inc. and Chorus America, Inc., and serves on the Georgia Council for the Arts. He holds membership in the Metropolitan Atlanta Musicians Association, The National Association of Negro Musicians, Inc., the American Choral Directors Association, the Georgia Music Educators Association, Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, and is a “Friend of the Arts” member of Sigma Alpha Iota. His compositions and arrangements are published with Alfred Music Publishers, Oxford Music and GIA music publishers.
Mark Puryear, MA Ethnomusicology, is recognized for curating public programs involving performing arts and cultural education. His professional experience includes program management, research and documentation, producing, performing, and teaching. As an independent scholar, Mark's professional endeavors encompass public, private, and non-profit organizations. His experience includes positions with The National Endowment for the Arts and The Smithsonian Institution. He is 2015 Grammy nominee for Fannie Lou Hamer: Songs My Mother Taught Me, a Smithsonian Folkways African American Legacy Series release. Mark has served as Co-Chair of the SEM Applied Ethnomusicology Section. Mark is a graduate of Hunter College and received his Masters from the University of Maryland, College Park.
Dr. Dwandalyn R. Reece is Curator of Music and Performing Arts at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History and Culture and curated the museum’s permanent exhibition, Musical Crossroads for which she received the Secretary’s Research Prize in 2017. Reece has collaborated with other SI units on such programs as the 2016 NMAAHC Grand Opening Festival, Freedom Sounds: A Community Celebration and the 2011 Folklife Festival program, Rhythm &Blues: Tell it Like It Is. She is chair of the SI pan-institutional group Smithsonian Music and is currently working on the NMAAHC and Smithsonian Folkways collaboration, The Smithsonian Anthology of Hip-Hop and Rap, and serving as co-curator of the Smithsonian Year of Music.
Langston Collin Wilkins, PhD, is a folklorist, ethnomusicologist and writer based in Seattle, Washington. He currently serves as Washington State’s state folklorist and is Director of the Center for Washington Cultural Traditions, a program of Humanities Washington and the Washington State Arts Commission. In this role, he oversees the center’s Cultural Traditions Survey and Heritage Arts Apprenticeship Program as well as documentation and archiving activities. Langston and the Center serve as resources for folk and traditional arts research, documentation, and programming across Washington state. Langston received his PhD in Folklore & Ethnomusicology from Indiana University in 2016. As a researcher and writer, his interests include urban folklife, African American folklife and hip hop culture.
Aja Burrell Wood is an ethnomusicologist and the managing director for Berklee’s Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice. Wood currently implements vision and strategy, oversees institutional initiatives and programming, teaches courses related to gender and justice in jazz and Black music history, and produces events for the Berklee community. She has extensive experience as an educator, and curator, with a background in development and violin performance. She most recently taught courses on music, history, and culture at the City College of New York and Brooklyn College's Conservatory of Music. Her work includes research on musical community among Black classical musicians, women in jazz, jazz in the digital era, music and civic engagement in Harlem, and other related genres of the African Diaspora, such as blues, hip-hop, soul, and West African traditions. She has been a visiting fellow at the New School, in addition to her role as guest lecturer at New York University and various institutions throughout New York City.