New On Campus: Reggae Summer Institute
The School of Music launched the International Summer Institute for Reggae Studies this summer, believed to be the first of its kind in the United States. Scott Currie, director of the institute and associate professor of creative studies and media/ethnomusicology, wanted to bring scholarly attention to reggae music and believed that the University of Minnesota provides a “powerful combination” of both scholarship and performance. Currie collaborated with faculty members Akosua Addo and Paul Shaw—who both have deep personal and scholastic ties to Jamaica—in developing the program, which received support from Jamaica’s minister of culture.
The week-long institute was split between mornings analyzing and discussing reggae music from an academic perspective and afternoons in music workshops. The week was capped off with a performance by Third World and International Reggae All-Stars on Northrop Mall. Currie and Shaw view the institute as an important first step in institutionalizing reggae and related forms in the same way that other world music genres have been established as areas of academic focus. “We’re arriving at a really fortuitous moment,” Currie says—one that he hopes will grow the interest and support of reggae studies.
Tutti. (Italian) all. every musician to take part.
Tutti is the annual magazine of the University of Minnesota School of Music.
