Category: Academia

I am pleased to share that I have earned academic tenure as an Associate Professor of Music.

I advised Danni Slawinski’s Senior Project, “The Show Must Go On: New York DIY as Cultural Practice in The Changing City.”

I had the pleasure of writing the following citation for Thurman Barker’s 2022 Bardian award, including this excerpt: In the morning, from Thurman Barker’s office, a sustained sound would emanate that brought the listener to consider the word “hush,” a homophone. He would be there, practicing the snare drum not with brushes but with sticks, precision, and…

I offered commentary entitled, “Listening for Climate Awareness in Music” for The Worldwide Teach-In on Climate and Justice Conference by Bard College and the Open Society University Network.

I had the distinct honor of co-organizing—with Robert O’Meally and Fred Moten—a special meeting of scholars at the Columbia University Center for Jazz Studies dedicated to the themes of “Jazz, Space, and Physics.” As an introduction to the colloquium, I presented a paper entitled, “Jazz Studies the Wire: Disciplinary Reckoning with Musicians and their Science.”

I had the privilege of researching and discussing military music with Jonathan Crane and Kristina Teuschler of the West Point Music Research Center for a three part podcast. https://westpointband.com/westpointmusicresearchcenter/podcast-1.html References “The repetition of stanzas as the dancers circled around and around with ever greater acceleration reinforced and deepened the spirit of familial attachment, drawing within…

Audra McDonald was born in West Berlin, Germany and grew up in Fresno, California. After graduating from The Juilliard School where she studied classical voice as a soprano, McDonald began an awarded career as the only person to have won a Tony in all four acting categories. One of America’s most important voices, Audra McDonald…

I advised Matice Maino’s Senior Project, “Hip-Hopping Over the Great Firewall of China.”

I advised Alex Parke’s senior project, “Traditional Ashkenazi ‘Klezmer’ Music Concert: Preformative Ethnomusicology.”

The Da Capo Chamber Players invited me to discuss Valerie Coleman’s Freedmen of the Five Civilized Tribes.

I challenged graduate students of the Bard Conservatory of Music Vocal Arts Program and of The Orchestra Now program to consider “voice,” “subjectivity,” and “objecthood” in Fred Moten’s analysis of Frederick Douglass’ reminiscence of his Aunt Hester’s scream in a meeting entitled, “Contemporary Classical Performance and ‘Resistance to the Object.’”

I discussed ways to consider the early life of composer, Joseph Bologne with members of the A Far Cry Orchestra.

I had the pleasure of discussing the history of the blues, jazz and piano improvisation with Marcus Roberts.

I presented “Reflexively and Improvisation: Ethnomusicology at a Liberal Arts College” as a contributor to the panel entitled, “Ethnomusicology as a Liberal Art: Pedagogy, Disciplinarity, and Institutionalization at the Educational Crossroads” at the 2020 annual (virtual) meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology. ABSTRACT: New ethnomusicology students at Bard College consider ethnographic fieldwork in terms much…

I wrote concert notes and introduced the works of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, the Chevalier de Saint-Georges, and Duke Ellington for the “Out of the Silence” programs of the 2020 Bard Music Festival. Four Novelettes, op. 52 (1903), Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, composer Program notes by Whitney Slaten Ever mellifluous, with a growing embrace of syncopations that would mean…

The “trans” prefix takes on a special significance within the contemporary moment, as the immediacy of digital mediations foreground the complexity and diversity of many more human experiences that change. “Trans” signals a temporality, between being and becoming. How does transduction change one form of energy to another? How does transparency describe acts of hiding…

I am pleased to announce that I have been appointed as a faculty member of the TON Graduate Program at Bard College. I am especially looking forward to continuing my work with the graduate students of this important orchestral program. https://www.theorchestranow.org

I advised Zoë Peterschild-Ford’s ethnographic senior project, “The Ethos of the Blues: An Ethnography of Blues Singers and Writers,” Bard College, Spring 2020.

“Listening for Repetition in Moments of Interruption,” President Leon Botstein in Conversation with Music Professor Whitney Slaten, Bard College, April 2020.

Featuring: Dr. Whitney SlatenT.K. Blue QuintetSouleymane Badolo / Kongo Ba Tériaand the art of James Ransome 1619: A Commemoration in Sound is a remembrance event to mark the 400th anniversary of the first arrival of enslaved people from Africa in the North American British Colonies—the beginning of slavery in what would become the United States of…

“The Juba like the Scherzo: The Social Commentary of a Symphony’s Third Movement,” Florence Price and the Emergence of African American Composers in the 21st Century Pre-Performance Conversation with Myra Armstead, and James Bagwell, Kyle Gann. Bard Conservatory Orchestra, Fisher Center, December 2019.

I advised Jon Collazo’s senior project, “To Be the Sole Performer: A Selective Outline of the Development of the Solo Marimba in the United States,” Bard College, Fall 2019.

“Hamid Al-Saadi & The Two Rivers Ensemble: Iraqi Maqam and Jazz,” Middle Eastern and North African Music Project, Fordham University, November 2019. Hamid Al-Saadi Through his powerful and highly ornamented voice, and in his comprehensive knowledge of the intricate details of the music and poetry of Iraq, generations and layers of the maqam tradition resonate…

“Bandoneonista: Javier Sanchez in conversation with Professor Whitney Slaten,” Bard College, November 2019.

“Conflict, Music, and Memory: Syria’s Experience,” The Chase Lecture, Bard Globalization and International Affairs, New York, New York, November 2019. Music offers a vital means of keeping alive a sense of place that preserves memories and traditions, even when played thousand miles of away.  To discuss this role of music in the context of the…

“Talking Drums: Speech Surrogacy, African Retentions, and American Music,” Two Sisters Festival Bard College, May 2019

András Hodorog is the last living virtuoso among native Hungarian flute players in the Carpathian region. The “peasant flute” was once a widespread instrument in the villages of Hungary; during the 20th century, a number of collected field recordings immortalized thousands of flute melodies, including those that inspired the great Hungarian composers of the last century among them, Bartók and Kodály. A member of…

I am especially delighted to announce that I have been appointed as the tenure-track Assistant Professor of Music, Ethnomusicology in The Bard Music Program at Bard College. It is an honor to teach at Bard, and I am especially looking forward to continuing my work in ethnomusicology among its brilliant faculty and students.

With great reflection, gratitude, and pride, I announce that I have graduated from Columbia University on May 16, 2018, earning the Doctor of Philosophy degree in music. I have grown both as a scholar and a person there, and Columbia will always be a a very special place in my life.

I advised Alyssa Jones’s Independent Senior Capstone, Project iNIDGO: A Self Study of Genre and the Role of the DIY Artist in the Contemporary Music Program, Eugene Lang College, The New School.

The Vera List Center Prize Conference in November looks at the urgent and necessary work of the recipient of the third Vera List Center Prize for Art and Politics, Brazilian artist Maria Thereza Alves, and the five Prize Finalists: the London-based interdisciplinary research agency Forensic Architecture; the artist coalition Gulf Labor; House of Natural Fibers…

At 11:00AM, on Monday, October 16, 2017, I successfully defended my Ph.D. dissertation, entitled Doing Sound: An Ethnography of Fidelity, Temporality, and Labor Among Live Sound Engineers. The defense took place in the Center for Ethnomusicology at Columbia University. I am honored by each committee member’s close reading of the work and their commentary, and I am deeply…

In conjunction with the Center for Jazz Studies at Columbia University and Jazzmobile, Inc., I organized a special event entitled Jazzmobile, Community, and the Harlem Soundscape that took place in Columbia’s St. Paul’s Chapel on Tuesday, September 19, 2017.  The event included remarks by the Center’s director, Professor Robert O’Meally, a performance by the Danny…

I am delighted to announce that I have been appointed to the Assistant Professor of Contemporary Music, Music Technology position in the Contemporary Music program at the Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts at The New School during the Fall 2017 to Spring 2018 academic year.  My involvement with the students and faculty has been exceptionally positive, and…

On May 4th, I presented a research paper entitled “Voicing Artis, Pianolizing Gershwin: Piano Rolls in the Post-Digital and Post-Industrial Era” in the panel entitled “Player-Pianos and Piano Rolls: Arrangements, Engagements, and Re-engagements” at the Ghosts in the Machine: Technology, History, and Aesthetics of the Player-Piano Conference.  The conference was sponsored by the Westfield Center…

On April 7th, I presented a research paper entitled “On the Poststructuralism of Loudspeakers: Transduction and the Digital Humanities” at Reembodied Sound: A Symposium on Transducer-Based Music and Sonic Art at Columbia University. The following is the abstract for the paper: On the Poststructuralism of Loudspeakers: Transduction and the Digital Humanities How do transducers analyze…

I advised Brielle Leibman’s ethnographic honors thesis entitled, “Eat, Pray, Love: Situating Gender, at a Dhurpad Gurukul Within and Beyond India” during the 2015-2016 academic year at William Paterson University. I met Brielle with other bright students in the Popular Music and Genre Study I and II course sequence, required courses that I designed for…

I had the distinct honor to co-advise and be a committee member for Jasmine Henry’s masters thesis in the spring of 2016 at William Paterson University.  Her thesis entitled, “‘Is R&B Having an Identity Crisis?’ Examining the ‘R&B Identity Crisis’ Phenomenon in the Contemporary Music Industry,” examines the intersection of musical style, anxieties of changing…

On April 10th, I presented a research paper entitled “Amplifying Jazz as Cultural Repatriation in Harlem: Jazzmobile and the Urban Soundscape” at the Locations and Dislocations: An Ecomusicological Conversation conference at the Westminster Choir College of Rider University. The following is the abstract for the paper: Amplifying Jazz as Cultural Repatriation in Harlem: Jazzmobile and the Urban…

On April 3rd, I presented a research paper entitled, “Amplifying From the Shadows: Representation and Metarepresentation in Live Music Production” at the Music and Labour conference at the University of Toronto. The following is the abstract for the paper: Amplifying From the Shadows: Representation and Metarepresentation in Live Music Production Whitney Slaten, Columbia University How…

I had the honor of being invited to speak at the Columbia Black Law Student’s Association’s annual Paul Robeson Conference on the 27th of February.  As a member of the panel entitled, “Art, Citizenship and Community,” I discussed my experiences conducting ethnographic fieldwork at Jazzmobile productions in Harlem, rock productions in Manhattan and Brooklyn, and music theater…

On Sunday, November 8th, I presented a research paper entitled, “Liveness, Sonic Color, and Transparency: The Creative Agency of Mixing Recorded and Live Broadway Productions of Porgy and Bess” at the Art of Record Production in Philadelphia. The following is the abstract for the paper: Liveness, Sonic Color, and Transparency: The Creative Agency of Mixing…

The following is an excerpt from a masterclass by Randy Weston and Abdellah El Gourd detailing the highlights of Randy Weston’s prolific career, as well as the healing practice of the Moroccan Gnawa people by Abdellah El Gourd.  This masterclass was a part of the World Music History course at the School of Jazz and…

This is a lecture/demonstration of a 1904 Edison Phonograph to students of the Technologies of Global Pop course at Lang College at The New School.  

I presented a research paper entitled, “Transparency, color, and liveness: An ethnographic study of the live sound engineering of Porgy and Bess on Broadway” at the International Association of Music Libraries, Archives and Documentation Centres (IAML) and International Musicological Society (IMS) Congress entitled Music Research in the Digital Age at Lincoln Center in New York…

I presented a research paper entitled, “Sonic Color and the Transparency of Live Music Production: Mixing Porgy & Bess on Broadway” at the International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM) Canada conference at the University of Ottawa on May 29th. The following is the abstract for the paper: Sonic Color and the Transparency of…

On February 21, 2015, the world lost a great leader, social theorist, jazz artist, master of the trumpet and flugelhorn, my mentor and friend: Clark Terry. Terry bestowed upon music an unfading contribution, one that everyone should encounter in his masterful craft that has impacted popular culture for generations.  Each of us must critically engage…

  Columbia was well repesented in the panel discussion orgaized by Ethnomusicology PhD Student Whitney Slaten at the 2015 annual conference of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM-US) in Louisville last week.  The title of the panel was “Representing Labor in Digital Media: Radio, Records and Live Performance” and it represented an extension…

I was invited to present a research paper entitled, “Faders, Engineers and Genres: Mixing Live Music in New York City” at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, in association with the Africana Studies Department of Oberlin College. The following is an excerpt from the paper: “I have chosen to focus on the relatively inconspicuous social encounters between…