To celebrate the launch of the Haiti field trip sessions on the LDA, we’re thrilled to welcome Haiti scholar Gage Averill for a special conversation about these remarkable recordings.
Join us as Gage shares insights into his work with the collection, Alan Lomax’s time in Haiti, and the cultural and historical significance of these sessions.
Gage Averill (Ph.D. University of Washington, 1989) is the Provost and Vice President Academic at the University of British Columbia and was formerly UBC’s Dean of Arts. He was Vice-Principal Academic University of Toronto Mississauga) and formerly Dean of Music at the University of Toronto, and before that Chair of Music at NYU.
He is an ethnomusicologist specializing in popular music of the Caribbean and North American vernacular music. Prof. Averill served as President of the Society for Ethnomusicology between 2009-2011. His book on barbershop singing (Four Parts, No Waiting: A Social History of American Barbershop Harmony, Oxford 2003) won best book prizes from the Society for Ethnomusicology (Merriam Prize) and the Society for American Music; his book on Haitian popular music and power (A Day for the Hunter: A Day for the Prey: Popular Music and Power in Haiti, Chicago 1997) was awarded the best book prize in ethnic and folk research by the Association for Recorded Sound Collections; and the 10-CD boxed set of music and film he curated, along with an accompanying book. called Alan Lomax in Haiti, 1936-37, received two Grammy Nominations.
He has consulted for the Ford Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Smithsonian, OAS, Fulbright, and for films, festivals, and copyright cases. For fun he kayaks, bikes, writes/performs music, and works on construction projects.