Black Violinists and the Race of Musical Instruments

FAIN: FEL-302357-25

Francesca Inglese
Northeastern University (Boston, MA 02115-5005)

Research and writing leading to a book about African American violinists, American music, and race.

Despite the long history of the violin in Black American music and the many African American violinists and fiddlers who shaped the instrument, the violin has overwhelmingly been constructed in the popular consciousness as an instrument tied to Whiteness. “Black Violin” is an interdisciplinary and multi-methods book project that uses the violin as a lens through which to reimagine the history of American music. It critically reframes the violin by attending to its integral place in the development of Black music genres; documents a long genealogy of genre-bending African American violinists whose radical innovations in sound and style have been critical, but long ignored; and illuminates how a musical instrument can serve as a powerful conduit of racial epistemology, transformed in the hands of Black musicians.