The African Diaspora: A Musical Perspective

Ingrid Monson is Quincy Jones Professor of African American Music at Harvard University. She won the Sonneck Society's 1998 Irving Lowens Prize for the best book in American music for her 1996 Saying Something, Jazz Improvisation and Interaction. She was also a founding member of the nationally known Klezmer Conservatory Band, and plays trumpet with jazz and salsa bands. Monson previously was Associate Professor of Music at Washington University in St. Louis, and has taught at the University of Michigan, Harvard (as Visiting Professor), and University of Chicago. She has a Ph.D. and an M.A. in Musicology from NYU, and a B.M. from New England Conservatory. Monson is currently working on two books: one on the impact of the Civil Rights Movement and African Independence on the history of jazz, and one on the musics of the African Diaspora.