Biography of Dr. Marti Newland

Soprano and ethnomusicologist Dr. Marti Newland is the co-founder of the Harry T. Burleigh Society (https://www.burleighsociety.com). Her scholarship and performances intersect African American expressive culture, art music, and institutionality, informing her commitment to Burleigh studies and performance. Newland’s most recent scholarship is found in her dissertation, Sounding ‘Black’: An Ethnography of Racialized Vocality at Fisk University. She also has published in the American Music Review, Grove Dictionary of American Music, Current Musicology, Souls and the African American National Biography. Newland’s research has been supported by the Ford, Mellon, and Woodrow Wilson Foundations, as well as the Social Science Research Council. She is a frequent lecture-recitalist, having offered programs at Bard College, Brooklyn College, Columbia University, Reed College and the Society for American Music. A chorister in New York City Opera’s production of Anna Nicole and the Opera Orchestra of New York’s Roberto Devereux, she has also been a guest soloist with the Fisk Jubilee Singers, Opera Noire of New York, and Harlem Opera Theater. She is a charter member of Melodeon, the chamber ensemble founded by Artis Wodehouse. She has sung in music festivals including three seasons with the Aspen Music Festival Opera Theater Center and Centro Studi Italiani in Urbania, Italy. She holds degrees from Oberlin College (BA), Oberlin Conservatory of Music (BM) and Columbia University (MA, PhD). Newland is a Lecturer in Music at Columbia.