The Prima Memorial Lecture Series presents Guthrie P. Ramsey Jr., September 19

Tulane University Special Collections and the Gia Maione Prima Foundation present

The Prima Memorial Lecture Series
featuring
Guthrie P. Ramsey Jr.

“What I Did with Musicology and What It Gave Me Back"

Thursday, September 19, 2024
6:00 p.m.

Rogers Memorial Chapel
1229 Broadway Street
(If entering from Broadway St., use gate entrance at Oak St.)
Tulane University

Free and open to the public

Co-sponsored by the Newcomb-Tulane College Office of Undergraduate Research and Newcomb Department of Music

A Guggenheim Fellow and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Dr. Guthrie P. Ramsey, Jr. is a music historian, pianist, composer, and Professor Emeritus of Music at the University of Pennsylvania. An honorary member of the American Musicological Society, he is renowned for his work in music and musicology specializing in African American studies.

In his talk, Ramsey will explore his 30 years of multimodal inquiry as a scholar, writer, musician, teacher, and community activist as a route of possibility for an academic career in music.

Ramsey’s books include Who Hears Here: On Black Music Pasts and Present (2022); The Amazing Bud Powell: Black Genius, Jazz History and the Challenge of Bebop (2013); and Race Music: Black Cultures from Bebop to Hip-Hop (2003). He edited and wrote a foreword for Rae Linda Brown’s The Heart of a Woman: The Life and Music of Florence B. Price (2020); and co-authored with Melanie Zeck, Samuel A. Floyd, Jr.’s The Transformation of Black Music (2017).  

As a producer, label head, and bandleader, he has released five recording projects, including A Spiritual Vibe, vol. 1; and has performed at The Blue Note, The Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, and Harlem Stage. He scored the 2019 prize-winning documentary Making Sweet Tea, and his documentary Amazing: The Tests and Triumph of Bud Powell (2015) was a selection of the BlackStar Film Festival.

Ramsey co-curated Ain’t Nothing Like the Real Thing: How the Apollo Theater Shaped American Entertainment, a 2009 exhibition for the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History & Culture; and was a consultant and narrator in the 2020 Emmy Award-winning HBO documentary, The Apollo: The Soul of American Culture. He is the CEO of Musiqology Media Group, a production and consulting agency that helps artists produce their best work and tell their story successfully.

The Prima Memorial Lecture Series presents discourse and discussion around American popular music, including its origins in American jazz. The series is presented by the Gia Maione Prima Foundation and Tulane University Special Collections (TUSC), a division of Tulane University Libraries.

For more information about the lecture, email mweber3@tulane.edu or call 504-247-1807.

Tulane University is committed to providing universal access to all our events. Please contact Melissa A. Weber of TUSC at mweber3@tulane.edu or 504-247-1807 for accessibility accommodations. Please note that advance notice is necessary to arrange some accessibility needs.