Studio portrait of American violinist Maud Powell, c. 1909

Women, Men, and Classical Music

As more women embraced music as a profession, more men became worried that the world of the orchestra was losing its masculinity.
Clockwise: Sun Ra, Betty Davis, Janelle Monáe, Erykah Badu, and Jimi Hendrix

The Scholars Who Charted Black Music’s Timeline: Tony Bolden

Tony Bolden explores the spiritual principles that inform the foundation of Afrofuturist music.
Carl Friedrich Christian Fasch

From Screaming to Singing

How one German choir changed the way we think about, practice, and perform choral music.
Portia K. Maultsby, 1981

The Scholars Who Charted Black Music’s Timeline

Portia K. Maultsby documents the course of African American music, tracing the histories of the sounds alongside the histories of the people who made them.
Shelley Morningsong, 2019 Nammy Arits of the Year, with Fabian Fontenelle

The Native American Music Awards

Native American musicians and performers have been honored since 1998 by the Nammys.
Donna Summer, 1976

The Year The Grammys Honored Disco

In 1980, The Grammys gave disco its own category, but the genre was already receding into invisibility.
The Rolling Stones perform on the set of the pop music television show Thank Your Lucky Stars in Birmingham, England on January 30th, 1965.

Creating the Musical Canon

When you look at the canon of popular music, who's on the list looks very much like those who made the list.
Nadezhda von Meck

Tchaikovsky’s Patroness

Madame von Meck offered Tchaikovsky her generous patronage, but spoke to him only through letters.
Johnny Cash on stage with his band, in concert at San Quentin State Prison, California, February 24th 1969.

The Radicalism of Johnny Cash

The best-selling musical artist in the world in 1969, Johnny Cash sang of (and for) the "forgotten Americans": the imprisoned men of all races.
Eileen Southern

The Work of Pioneering Musicologist Eileen Southern

The scholarship of Black music was transformed by Southern's work, and is now being honored by a new initiative.