"Flower of Shembe" Operetta
Conversations

Black Music and the Aesthetics of Protest

  • This is a past program

Co-presented with the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music Department of Musicology

Neo Muyanga’s opera The Struggle serves as a departure point for a panel discussion exploring the role of Black opera and other genres of Black music in achieving racial justice and social change, the persistent exclusionary politics of musical genres, and the future revolutionary potential of historically defined Black genres.

Moderated by Tamara Levitz, Professor of Musicology, UCLA, the panelists will include Mark Anthony Neal, Professor of African and African-American Studies, Duke University; Guthrie Ramsey, Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Term Professorof Music , University of Pennsylvania; Robin Kelley, Gary B. Nash Professor of American History, UCLA; Shana Redmond, Associate Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity, University of Southern California; and Gayle Murchison, Associate Professor of Musicology, College of William and Mary.

Supported by the UCHRI Vital Dialogue series

All Hammer public programs are free and made possible by a major gift from the Dream Fund at UCLA. 

Generous support is also provided by Susan Bay Nimoy and Leonard Nimoy, Good Works Foundation and Laura Donnelley, an anonymous donor, and all Hammer members. 

The Hammer’s digital presentation of its public programs is made possible by the Billy and Audrey L. Wilder Foundation.