Merrill Hall, MU118
Biography
Javier León is academic specialist and director of the Latin American Music Center at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music.
He earned his Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology from the University of Texas at Austin. He was most recently assistant professor of folklore and ethnomusicology at IU. He has also been a faculty member at the Newcomb Department of Music and the Stone Center for Latin American Studies at Tulane University.
He is an experienced performer and ensemble director of a variety of Latin American and Caribbean genres. His research interests have dealt with multiple aspects of music in the region, including music and nationalism, the intersection of popular and art music traditions, African and indigenous musical heritage safeguarding, and the history of cultural policy and music research institutions in the region.
León’s work has been published in a number of research journals, edited volumes, and reference works. Most recently, he was coeditor of the forthcoming volume A Latin American Musical Reader: Views from the South (Illinois University Press).
He has been a consultant for a number of music arts institutions, including the Music Instrument Museum, National Endowment for the Arts, and Smithsonian Institution.