Several members from the Department of Music, including Professor Charrise Barron and Devon Gates (’23), recently sat down with Dylan Goodman from The Harvard Gazette to discuss their experiences as women in music.
Excerpt:
When she is not singing or playing the keys, Barron is researching and teaching courses surrounding ethnomusicology — the study of music within societal and cultural spheres. Specifically, she explores a range of Black popular music, from gospel to hip-hop to protest music. Currently, Barron is teaching an undergraduate course called “Gospel Music from the Church to the Streets” and a graduate course titled “Gods of Hip-Hop and Black Pop.”
“As a Black woman, I aim for my scholarship to bring more attention to the groundbreaking and genre-defining work of women musicians and music industry leaders, especially in genres and offices in which people expect men to predominate.”
-Professor Charrise Barron
Barron fell in love with music as a child; she describes a childhood that was “deliciously noisy.” Her greatest influences come from the sounds of Black church and her parents.