Shelemay, Kay Kaufman (Harvard University) |
Current InstititutionHarvard University (G. Gordon Watts Professor of Music and African and African American Studies) Areas of ExpertiseMusical ethnography; historical ethnomusicology; Ethiopian musics at home and in their American diaspora; Jewish music traditions; American urban music traditions. BiographyKay Kaufman Shelemay is the G. Gordon Watts Professor of Music and Professor of African and African American Studies at Harvard University. Shelemay, a former Chair of the Department of Music, is an ethnomusicologist who has carried out fieldwork in Africa (Ethiopia and Ghana), the Middle East (Israel), and the United States. She received her Ph.D. in Musicology in 1977 from the University of Michigan. The author of numerous articles and reviews, Shelemay's book Music, Ritual, and Falasha History (1986), won both the ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award in 1987 and the Prize of the International Musicological Society in 1988. Other major books and editions include A Song of Longing. An Ethiopian Journey (1991); Ethiopian Christian Chant. An Anthology (3 vols. with CD, 1993-97), co-authored with Peter Jeffery; and Let Jasmine Rain Down. Song and Remembrance Among Syrian Jews, University of Chicago Press, 1998 (finalist for the National Jewish Book Award). Shelemay edited the seven-volume Garland Library of Readings in Ethnomusicology, issued by Garland Publishing (1990); and Studies in Jewish Musical Traditions (2001) Her textbook, Soundscapes. Exploring Music in a Changing World, was first published by W.W. Norton in 2001 and appeared in a revised second edition in 2006. She co-edited Pain and its Transformations: The Interface of Biology and Culture (with Sarah Coakley), published by Harvard University Press in 2007. Her current research and book-in-progress is on Ethiopian music and musicians in the United States. Contact InformationThis e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it |