Katherine Johanna Hagedorn (October 16, 1961November 12, 2013) was an American ethnomusicologist. Born in

Summit, New Jersey Summit is a city in Union County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. The city is located on a ridge in northern- central New Jersey, within the Raritan Valley and Rahway Valley regions in the New York metropolitan area. At the 2010 United Sta ...

to a white family, she became a traditional Cuban drummer and

Santería Santería (), also known as Regla de Ocha, Regla Lucumí, or Lucumí, is an African diaspora religions, African diasporic religion that developed in Cuba during the late 19th century. It arose through a process of syncretism between the tradit ...

priestess. She spent her career as a Professor of Music at

Pomona College Pomona College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Claremont, California. It was established in 1887 by a group of Congregationalists who wanted to recreate a "college of the New England type" in Southern California. In 1925, it became ...

in Claremont, California, where she directed the Ethnomusicology Program, served as co-coordinator of the Gender & Women’s Studies Program, and became an associate dean. She also served as a "scholar-in-residence at Harvard University’s Center for the Study of World Religions and as a visiting professor at the

University of California, Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Barbara County, California, Santa Barbara, California with 23,196 undergraduate ...

." Trained in languages and

classical piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...

Tufts University Tufts University is a private research university on the border of Medford and Somerville, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1852 as Tufts College by Christian universalists who sought to provide a nonsectarian institution of higher learning. ...

, Hagedorn earned an M.A. in Soviet Studies at

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hem ...

. She became a

White House fellow The White House Fellows program is a federal fellowship program established via Executive Order by President of the United States Lyndon B. Johnson in October 1964, based upon a suggestion from John W. Gardner, then the president of Carnegie Corp ...

, and worked on the Afghanistan desk at the

State Department The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an United States federal executive departments, executive department of the Federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government responsible for the country's fore ...

. Starting in 1989, Hagedorn traveled to

Cuba Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...

to study the

batá drum The Batá drum is a double-headed drum shaped like an hourglass with one end larger than the other. The percussion instrument is still used for its original purpose as it is one of the most important drums in the yourba land and used for trad ...

in Matanzas Province. There, she was initiated as a Santería priestess. At Pomona, she taught the batá drum,

Tuvan throat singing Tuvan throat singing, the main technique of which is known as ''khoomei'' ( tyv, хөөмей, xöömej, mn, хөөмий; ᠬᠦᠭᠡᠮᠡᠢ, khöömii, russian: хоомей, Chinese: 呼麦, pinyin: ''hūmài''), includes a type of overt ...

, and directed a Balinese

Gamelan Gamelan () ( jv, ꦒꦩꦼꦭꦤ꧀, su, ᮌᮙᮨᮜᮔ᮪, ban, ᬕᬫᭂᬮᬦ᭄) is the traditional ensemble music of the Javanese, Sundanese, and Balinese peoples of Indonesia, made up predominantly of percussive instruments. T ...

ensemble. Her classes were described as "emphatically participatory, not to mention loud." Her best known work is ''Divine Utterances: The Performance of Afro-Cuban Santería.''

Works

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References

External links

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"Tangible Effects of Preserving Intangible Culture in Cuba : Afro-Cuban Religious Performance and the Conjunto Folklórico Nacional – A Case Study", an article by katherine J. Hagedorn at lameca.org
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hagedorn, Katherine 1961 births 2013 deaths Ethnomusicologists American Santeríans Harvard Divinity School Tufts University School of Arts and Sciences alumni Johns Hopkins University alumni Pomona College faculty Women's studies academics People from Summit, New Jersey Place of death missing White House Fellows