Critical Race Studies Lecture

An annual lecture on recent scholarship in Critical Race Studies held at the AMS Annual Meeting

About

The Critical Race Studies Lecture is presented at the AMS Annual Meeting each year and is designed to share and explore research and scholarship concerning the intersections of music and race, indigeneity, and ethnicity. The choice of the featured lecturer is made by the Society’s Committee on Race, Indigeneity, and Ethnicity (CRIE), which organizes this lecture each year. This lecture is endowed and has been generously funded through the contributions of AMS members.

Recent Lectures

2024 Annual Meeting: “Vivir mi vida: Toward a Critical Salsa Romántica and a Sonic Global South Brownness” by Frances R. Aparicio
2023 Annual Meeting: “The Shape of Musicology to Come” by Alex Blue V, Rena Roussin, Ireri E. Chávez-Bárcenas, and Amanda Hsieh
2022 Annual Meeting: “Sound Assumptions: The Given of New Orleans and Havana” by Alexandra T. Vazquez

NBC TV, Leontyne Price and Opera Casting in the Civil Rights Era

In this AMS/Library of Congress lecture Danielle Ward-Griffin examines television and its influence on opera casting practices during the early civil rights movement. She traces how the NBC’s color-blind “Integration without Identification” policy was praised for eliminating stereotypes and hiring Black performers in its prestige arts programs. Focusing on the NBC Opera appearances of Leontyne Price, especially her debut in “Tosca” (1955), Ward-Griffin’s research explores how television promised new opportunities for Black singers at a time when they were still barred from many roles in the opera house.