Music Department 2025-2026 Colloquium Series
This lecture series showcases new work by performers, composers, and scholars in ethnomusicology, musicology, music theory, sound art, and cultural history. The colloquia also invite dialogue with professionals working in the arts, music journalism, and in librarianship. A brief reception follows each formal presentation, offering a chance for collegiality. All meetings take place in person.
Thursdays | 4:30–6:00pm | Adzenyah Rehearsal Hall 003 (unless otherwise noted)
FALL 2025
Sep. 18 Irene V. Jackson-Brown (PhD, Wesleyan University, 1974)
“’Lift Every Voice and Sing’: A Conversation with a Gospel Music Research Pioneer”
Dr. Irene V. Jackson-Brown received her PhD in ethnomusicology from Wesleyan University in 1974 with her dissertation, Afro-American Gospel Music and its Social Setting: with Special Attention to Roberta Martin. She has carried out research on spirit possession and altered states of consciousness in Haiti and Jamaica, was an assistant professor at Yale University and Howard University and a Fellow at the Yale Institute of Sacred Music, and is the Founder and CEO of Jackson-Brown Associates. In 1981 she published Lift Every Voice and Sing: A Collection of Afro-American Spirituals and Other Songs, a groundbreaking hymnal in the Episcopal Church. In 1985, she published twin pioneering edited collections that helped define the burgeoning field of African diasporic studies: More Than Dancing: Essays on Afro-American Music and Musicians; and More Than Drumming: Essays on African and Afro-Latin American Music and Musicians. She later founded the applied gerontology practice, The Art of Eldercare. We will have a conversation with Dr. Jackson-Brown about her extraordinary career informed by her graduate work at Wesleyan.
*Sep. 24 David P. Nelson (PhD, Wesleyan University, 1991; Adjunct Associate Professor of Music, Wesleyan)
“T. Ranganathan: A Centenary Celebration”
*4:30PM WEDNESDAY, RING FAMILY PERFORMING ARTS HALL
Oct. 9 Society for Ethnomusicology papers
Abiodun Adisa (Graduate student, Wesleyan University): “Afro-Asian Cross-Cultural Encounters: Nigerian Drummers and South Korean Samulnori”
Aibek Baiymbetov (Graduate student, Wesleyan University): “Performing the Kyrgyz Epic Manas in Contemporary Times: An Endeavor to Preserve the Oral Tradition”
Garrett Groesbeck (PhD candidate, Wesleyan University): “Scrambling the Genre Logic of Spotify in ‘anime music’”
Oct. 16 Society for Ethnomusicology papers
Susana Gyamfuaa Agyei (Graduate student, Wesleyan University): “Beyond Missionary Legacies: Examining the Musical Practices in Ghanaian Methodist Worship”
Emmanuel Abeku Ansaeku (Graduate student, Wesleyan University): “Cultural Identity and Future Directions in Ghanaian Choral Music: A Synthesis of Tradition and Innovation”
John Wesley Dankwa (Assistant Professor of Music, Wesleyan University): “Colonial Residue or Sheer Love for Music? G.F. Handel in Ghanaian Choral Art Music”
Oct. 30 Marie Comuzzo (ACLS/Mellon Innovative Dissertation Fellow and PhD Candidate, Brandeis U.) and Rachel Mundy (BA, Wesleyan University; Associate Professor of Music, Rutgers U.)
“Singing and Listening with Whales: Exploring Human and More-Than-Human Musicalities”
*Nov. 12 Elliott Sharp (composer, guitarist)
“Feedback: Translations From The irrational”
*12:00PM WEDNESDAY, ADZENYAH REHEARSAL HALL 003
Nov. 20 William Brooks (BA, Wesleyan University, 1965; Emeritus Professor, U. of Illinois and U. of York)
“The Pragmatist thread in American Music”