Global African Music Festival Series

Dr. Karlton E. Hester, Artistic Director

Staff:

The principal organizers for this project are Dr. Hester, William Johnson, and Alissa Roedig.  These individuals continue to be active in moving the project forward with the help of other interested and dedicated artists and scholars such as Dr. Nelson Harrison in Pittsburgh (PA), Nontsizi Cayou of Wajumbe Cultural Center in San Francisco, and Fran Balshan of World Travel Vignettes in Philadelphia.

This year's Global African Music and Arts Festival/Symposium is under the joint artistic direction of Dr. Karlton Hester and Prof. Elisabeth Cameron of UC Santa Cruz:

Dr. Karlton E. Hester, Ph.D.
Director of "Jazz" Studies and Assistant Professor
Music Department, UC Santa Cruz

 

A composer and musician (flute and saxophone), Hester's expertise includes composition; jazz theory, history, and performance; flute; and saxophone. His latest CD, Harmonious Soul Scenes 2000, was just released in October. Among his other recordings are Hesterian Liberation (1998) and Reconstructive Musicism (1998). He is the author of Afrocentric Innovations Some Call 'Jazz' Vols. I and II (1998), and The Melodious and Polyrhythmic Developments in John Coltrane's Spontaneous Compositions Within a Racist Society (1997). He has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Massachusetts Council of the Arts, and a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship, among others. He comes to UCSC from Cornell University, where he was the Herbert Gussman Director of Jazz Studies. He received his Ph.D. in composition from the City University of New York Graduate Center, an M.M. in music education from San Francisco State University, and a B.M. in flute from University of Texas at El Paso. (Photo by UCSC Photo Services)

Prof. Elisabeth Cameron
Assistant Professor
Art History Department, UC Santa Cruz

Elisabeth Cameron's present research centers on iconoclasm and the different cultural contexts in which objects are created with the intention of being destroyed. Cameron was born and raised in the Congo, and much of her work focuses on African cultures. Prior to her appointment at UCSC, Cameron held several teaching and curatorial positions, including associate curator of African art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). During her tenure at LACMA, Cameron won a Silver MUSE award from the American Association of Museums for her interactive game "Secrets of Ancestors" in the 1999 "Ancestors: Art and the Afterlife" exhibition. Cameron received her B.A. in fine arts from Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Georgia, and her M.A. and Ph.D. in art history from UCLA. Her dissertation is titled "Negotiating Gender: Initiation Arts of Mwadi and Mukanda among the Lunda and Luvale, Kabompo District, North-Western Province, Zambia." (Photo by UCSC Photo Services)

Background and Experience:

In the past Dr. Hester has organized 9 annual "jazz" festivals at Cornell University where he has brought such renowned artists as McCoy Tyner, Joe Henderson, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Cecil Taylor, Steve Turre, Jaki Byard, Randy Weston, Billy Taylor and other artists to the Cornell University campus. The guest artists performed with the students, and presented clinics and lectures. Hester also produced dozens of smaller performances with visiting artists to the Cornell campus and Ithaca area ( Click Here for more information on these events). Dr. Hester now seeks to expand these efforts to a broader community and to include a wider range of contemporary Global African music.

In his current capacity as director of the "jazz" program at UCSC he has already begun inviting artists for performances and organizing the Santa Cruz festival. His longstanding relationship with so many outstanding "jazz" artists over the last 30 years has led to his immediate ability to attract and negotiate agreements with artists to perform as part of his efforts.

Click Here for information on Past Festivals.

Global African Music Festival
284 Music Center
1156 High Street
University of California
Santa Cruz, CA 95064