CHICAGO, IL (June 22, 2009) – The Center for Black Music Research (CBMR) will welcome research fellows Dr. Helen Brown and jazz bassist and composer Marcus Shelby this summer. Both are recipients of the Black Metropolis Research Consortium (BMRC) Short-Term Fellowships in African American Studies.
For two months, Dr. Brown and Mr. Shelby will work on research for projects which will explore the lives and work of influential African Americans. The opportunity to host these two distinguished fellows recognizes the CBMR and Columbia as a national research destination and respected resource for both artists and academicians.
Helen Brown, Ph.D., whose project is entitled “Margaret Allison Bonds and Langston Hughes: Musical Textural Relationships in the Arts and Songs,” will research the “art songs” of pioneering composer and Chicagoan, Margaret Allison Bonds. Ms. Bonds wrote her songs during the 1950s to poetry by Langston Hughes. This research is part of a larger book project on Margaret Allison Bonds. Dr. Brown will use collections at the CBMR as well as the Vivian G. Harsh Research Collection at the Woodson Branch of the Chicago Public Library for her research. Dr. Brown holds a Ph.D. in Music Theory from Ohio State University. She is the Associate Professor in the Department of Performing and Visual Arts at Purdue University.
Marcus Shelby, whose project is entitled “MLK (Oratorio for Jazz Orchestra),” will research the Chicago experiences of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., as part of a jazz oratorio he is composing that interprets the life of the civil rights leader. Mr. Shelby will use collections at the CBMR, the Harold Washington Branch of the Chicago Public Library, and the Vivian G. Harsh Research Collection at the Woodson Branch of The Chicago Public Library during his fellowship term. Mr. Shelby is a jazz bassist and composer based in Oakland, California. He was the bandleader of Columbia Records and GRP Impulse! Recording Artists Black/Note. Currently, Mr. Shelby is the Artistic Director and leader of The Marcus Shelby Jazz Orchestra, The Marcus Shelby Septet and the Marcus Shelby Trio. Mr. Shelby holds an instructor position at the Berkeley Young Musician Program, San Francisco State University, and the Stanford Jazz Workshop. He recently released an ensemble composition based on the life of Harriet Tubman
This year marks the inception of the BMRC’s Fellows Program, which is made possible by the generous support of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The Fellowships were awarded to scholars and artists who have exhibited excellence in their discipline(s), have a significant body of work characterized by originality, and who have demonstrated a need to conduct research in the archives and collections of BMRC members.
The Center for Black Music Research at Columbia College Chicago was founded in 1983 and is the only organization of its kind. The CBMR documents and preserves information and materials related to the black music experience throughout the world. Through its Library and Archives, publications, conferences, performances, and other public programming, the CBMR promotes and advances scholarly knowledge and thought about black music and the black musical experience, and about their relationship to higher education and to society at-large.
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