Ben Barson (PhD 2021) and Afro Yaqui Music Collective have a new album available on all major streaming services and in CD format from Neuma Records. According to the band,

PhD student Lee Caplan’s active schedule of writing and lecturing continues this spring. His review of Billie Holiday: Essays on the Artistry and Legacy was recently published in the Jazz Research Journal. In the review, Caplan provides a chapter-by-chapter assessment of this collection of essays, affirming the book’s often fruitful efforts to expand our understanding of Holiday while also providing suggestions for further scholarly inquiry.

Jazz Studies PhD student Samuel Boateng has been awarded a Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Completion Fellowship. The fellowship supports a year of research and writing to help advanced graduate students in the humanities and social sciences in the last year of PhD dissertation writing. 

Jazz Studies PhD Student Samuel Boateng’s new work Sunsum is Spirit will premiere on The New Hazlett Theater’s CSA (Community Supported Art) series. Performances take place on April 29 (8 p.m.) and April 30 (11 a.m. and 8 p.m.). Find out more about the show and tickets here. 

PhD student Deanna Witkowski is the recipient of the 2021 Mother Theodore Guerin Research Travel Grant (sponsored by Notre Dame's Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism) for her project, “Writing Friendships: Letter Correspondence Between Jazz Pianist Mary Lou Williams and Women Religious from 1961-1981.” Witkowski initially researched these letters for her fo

Our guest for this episode of the Music at Pitt Podcast is Michael Heller, Associate Professor of Music for the Department of Music and editor of the journal Jazz and Culture published by University of Illinois Press.