Kay K. Shelemay

I am an ethnomusicologist with particularly strong interests in the theories and methods of musical ethnography. I have carried out research and writing in many locales at home and abroad, including in Ethiopia and the Ethiopian- American diaspora, with Syrian Jews in New York, Mexico City, and Jerusalem, and with a cross-section of musicians ranging from those in Accra, Ghana, to numerous American ethnic musical communities. A native Texan, I studied at the University of Michigan, and have taught at Columbia University, New York University, and Wesleyan University, before coming to Cambridge in 1992. At Harvard, I am a professor in the Music Department and in the Department of African and African American Studies, as well as actively carrying out research in the field of Jewish Studies. I greatly enjoy my on-going contact with both current and former students “from whom I have learned so much,” as I write in the dedication to my Soundscapes textbook.