Whitney Slaten

Associate Professor of Music

Primary Academic Program: Music

Academic Program Affiliation(s): American and Indigenous Studies

Biography: Whitney Slaten researches how the social positions of musicians and audiences shift, in moments when sound becomes music. This analysis of time and resonance in music and society contributes to the discourses of ethnomusicology, jazz studies, technology studies, the philosophy of music, and the sociology of art. A 10-year participation in jazz festivals throughout Harlem inform Slaten’s ethnographic analysis Doing Sound: An Ethnography of Fidelity, Temporality, and Labor among Live Sound Engineers. His scholarship appears in Current Musicology, Ethnomusicology Review, and Souls. He has presented his research at Columbia, MIT, Cornell, and the International Musicology Society at Lincoln Center. His discography as a record producer and recordist include Arthur Bird: Music for the American Harmonium, Artis Wodehouse; This Little Light of Mine, Courtney Bryan; and Creation Story, John-Carlos Perea. A saxophonist, Slaten engaged in collective improvisations in New York City–based world music and jazz scenes. He performed with Babatunde Olatunji and Merriam Makeba. A student of James Williams, Don Braden, Kenny Garrett, and Clark Terry, Slaten was a member of the Clark Terry Big Band, performing at Birdland, Blue Note, and the Berne International Jazz Festival in Switzerland. Live at Marian’s, Clark Terry Big Band, and Expedition, Clark Terry and Louie Bellson, are two recordings that present his performances with Terry. The Whitney Slaten Project, his quintet that experimented with post-bop, Afro-Caribbean, and West African musical aesthetics, performed regularly in New York City. Slaten previously served as an assistant professor at Seton Hall University and the New School. Whitney Slaten is associate professor of music at Bard College.

BMus, William Paterson University; MA, MPhil, PhD, Columbia University. At Bard since 2018.
Website: https://www.whitneyslaten.com
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