Assistant Professor
Education:
Ph.D., University of Michigan (Ethnomusicology); B.Mus., Oberlin Conservatory of Music (Piano Performance)
Selected Awards: Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship; Horace J. Rackham Graduate School Predoctoral Fellowship; Margaret Dow Towsley Scholarship for doctoral research; Glenn C. McGeoch Memorial Scholarship for excellence in teaching; Louise Cuyler Award.
Courses offered at Wellesley: 101 (Music of the Sphere) (co-taught with Bhogal); 209 (History of Jazz); 225/325 (Topic: Global Pop); 276 (American Popular Music); 300 (Major Seminar) (Topics: Fieldwork Methods in Ethnomusicology; Free Jazz)
Biographical
Information: Tamar Barzel’s scholarly interests center on the intersection between New York City’s downtown music scene (including jazz, free jazz, punk rock, experimental and improvised music) and Jewish cultural studies. Her research focuses on how history, heritage and identity inform the work of artists working in an abstract medium. She has presented her research at national and international conferences, including the Society for Ethnomusicology, the Society for American Music, the American Studies Association, and the Center for Jazz Studies at Columbia University. Her article, “If Not Klezmer, Then What? Jewish Music and Modalities on New York City’s ‘Downtown’ Music Scene,” was published in the Michigan Quarterly Review (Winter 2002). She is working on a book manuscript, ‘Radical Jewish Culture’: Composer/Improvisers on New York City’s 1990s Downtown Scene.
