Penn Music Colloquium Series

This talk traces the performance of Blackness in Christmas villancicos from Puebla de los Ángeles in the early 1600s. By situating this polyphonic genre within the listening experiences of the growing Afro-diasporic population in New Spain, the presentation reveals defiant voices and expressions of collective identity and the persistent efforts to silence them.

Texas State University and Director of FlowStory Raphael Travis Jr will explore how expressive arts, particularly Hip Hop culture, positively influence mental health and well-being through recent research. The presentation discuss how intentional use of Hip Hop can support personal and community outcomes, and provide interactive exercises demonstrating its applications in education, research, and practice.

Blacktronika, initiated by Charlie Dark in 1999 and expanded through King Britt's University of California course, addresses the historical exclusion of innovators of color in electronic music. As electronic music evolves into a major industry, Blacktronika seeks to rectify this oversight by highlighting the contributions of these influential artists. King Britt will discuss how a lived experience approach is reshaping university practices in electronic music.

Chilean singer-songwriter Víctor Jara (1932-1973) is renowned for his role in protest music and his support for leftist causes through the New Song movement. After being brutally murdered following the 1973 coup, Jara became a martyr for the movement. This presentation explores Jara’s queerness, examining its impact on his role in the Communist Party and suggesting new interpretations of his music through a queer perspective.

This talk considers inscrutable contradictions in the reception of three early twentieth-century white southern women expressly committed to preserving antebellum Black vernacular song by performing the voices of their childhood “mammies.”

The talk delves into the influence of trans and queer performances in the Cuban diaspora, highlighting events like Wigwood drag festival in Miami, a 1980s album by a Cuban drag queen in New York, and ongoing work by a Black lesbian drag king in Havana. From her upcoming book, she contributes to discussions bridging performance and music studies, exploring the intricacies of trans and queer lives in the Spanish-speaking Americas.

This talk offers a précis of Steingo's new book, Interspecies Communication: Sound and Music Beyond Humanity (University of Chicago Press). In the book, he examines significant cases of attempted communication beyond the human—cases in which the dualistic relationship of human to non-human is dramatically challenged.