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From conducting fieldwork in Senegal to podcasting, Dr. Althea SullyCole’s career in music has been incredibly diverse. She studied her primary instrument, the kora, a 21-stringed West African harp, for three years in Dakar, Senegal, and has performed both as a soloist and alongside renowned musicians from around the world. Her passion in organology led to her work with the Metropolitan Museum of Art and currently, Dr. SullyCole is the co-chair of the Organology Special Interest Group and Secretary of the African and African Diasporic Music section at the Society for Ethnomusicology. Funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, she will perform fieldwork in Mali and Guinea to study historical collections of musical instruments from the Mandé region of West Africa.Ìý

Dr. SullyCole brings a wealth of experience to the Schulich School of Music, where she joined the faculty in Fall 2024 and teaches courses in music research. Her teaching not only explores contemporary themes and methods in ethnomusicology but also offers students the chance to engage with her expertise in ethnographic fieldwork and the new findings in her current research.Ìý 

Introducing Dr. Althea SullyCole in conversation.Ìý

Your work bridges performance and ethnomusicology, particularly focusing on the kora and West African musical traditions. How do you plan to incorporate this rich cultural heritage into the diverse musical landscape of Schulich this year? 

My work as an ethnomusicologist has always been driven by my identity as an artist and performer. In this sense, I share a great deal with most students at Schulich, who, in addition to having rich lives as performers, are also deeply curious about the ways in which music shapes our culture(s) and society/ies. I consider it a privilege to bring my varied experience as a practicing musician, scholar, and teacher who has lived and worked on three continents to guide students who are as creative as they are intellectually engaged in their studies here towards a broad and diverse range of musical practice and engagement.Ìý

As someone deeply involved in organology, how do you envision incorporating the study of musical instruments into your curriculum, especially in a way that resonates with students from diverse musical backgrounds? 

I am humbled to have received an award from the National Endowment for the Humanities in the U.S. to perform fieldwork in Mali and Guinea in the upcoming years. This fieldwork, in addition to fieldwork performed in Senegal in the summer of 2023, which was funded by the West African Research Association, will contribute to a book project on a collection of musical instruments from the region currently housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.Ìý

The research grapples with how these objects’ intangible cultural heritage has been meaningful to different communities over time. One particularly generative area of inquiry that I explore in this research, for example, is the ways in which instruments can be read materially for changes in a sounded relationships between human societies and the surrounding ecology. For example, a vibrating mirliton found on an instrument in the region today is likely made from a synthetic material, such as plastic. However, that same mirliton on a nineteenth-century instrument is likely to be made from spiderweb silk. A part of my research involves investigating the reasons for these changes; are they aesthetic? Practical? Do they reflect changing relationships between people and spiders? Larger ecological and cultural changes? And, if it is some combination of the reasons above, what are the relationships between them, and what do they tell us about how music influences and is influenced by the surrounding ecology? 

My research also weighs in on how real and potential collaborations between different actors dealing with this intangible cultural heritage are meaningful (or not) in terms of constructing new post-colonial relations between certain parts of sub-Saharan Africa, Europe and the U.S. In so doing, it theorizes the contours of time and space on which cultural belonging and identity are determined in the post-colonial context more broadly. This work also represents what research in music may be able to achieve in terms of cross-cultural critique, advocacy, and even policy-making in the twenty-first century.Ìý

In the process of doing this research, I gain insights into music’s role with respect to identity, culture, politics and even climate change—all of which are considerations that I know are top of mind to many of our students. By sharing my research and perspective with the students at Schulich, I hope to continue to spark curiosity about how music is both a product and productive of the inter-connected nature of our present society/ies.Ìý

As a multi-instrumentalist, how do you encourage students to explore and embrace musical diversity? 

My identity as a multi-instrumentalist reflects my broad and diverse set of experiences as a performer, which have ranged from appearances in remote villages in Senegal to Royal Albert Hall in the U.K. I do not value one experience more than another; on the contrary, I have picked up valuable skills and knowledge in every context I’ve had the privilege of being able to work as a performer. Further, I know from experience the ways in which developing a wide skill set in a diversity of settings broadens and enriches the kinds of social connection one can experience as a musician. Doing so requires openness and generosity of mind and spirit, which I hope not only to convey and encourage but also model for students at Schulich.Ìý

You’ve been a significant voice in discussions around diversity in music. How do you plan to foster inclusive dialogue and practice within the Schulich community? 

In addition to continuing to foster space for students to explore musical traditions that are underrepresented within the field of music studies broadly, I aim to bring intellectuals and practitioners that students may not otherwise encounter to Schulich. For example, this semester I had the privilege of having two wonderful guest speakers in my classes: Jayme Kurland, a fellow at the Metropolitan Museum of Art who researches the impact of Chicano women luthiers on the development of Fender guitars; and Dr. Samuel Boateng, a fellow at Oxford University and accomplished pianist who presented his research on the role of Ghanian musicians in the development of jazz over the course of the 20th century.Ìý

Your podcast, The Earfull, explores the lives of musicians through music. How might storytelling and personal narrative play a role in your teaching or in helping students find their own musical voices? 

One of the great affordances of 150 years or so of sound recording technology and its availability today is being able to access and draw from a wide diversity of figures, their music and stories, to inform one’s own art and perspective. In addition to requiring that students engage with these kinds of archives in each of my classes, I also offer them the option of conveying the research they’ve performed over the course of the semester in the form of creative work. This option presents an opportunity to my students to reflect on how the stories and work of music practitioners from very different cultures may serve as inspiration in terms of their own self-knowledge and expression.Ìý

What excites you most about joining the Schulich School of Music? 

It is hard to identify one thing that excites me most about joining Schulich! In my years as a student, researcher and professor, I have never been in a music faculty as large as that at Schulich. I’m thrilled to be in the company of such a broad and significant range of thinkers and practitioners of music, in addition to having access to the school’s unparalleled resources in terms of music development and research. I’ve also been very impressed with the intellectual and musical skills of our student population. I so look forward to continuing to be a part of the rich intellectual and artistic dialogues taking place here.Ìý