Verna Gillis: Ethnomusicologist, Producer, Manager, Writer

Conversations with Musicians, with Leah Roseman

It’s hard to sum up how important Verna Gillis has been for music lovers. First of all, she is an ethnomusicologist who recorded traditional music around the world including in Kashmir, Afghanistan, Iran, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Peru, Surinam, Ghana, and the United States. This episode will bring you along on some of these journeys. 25 of these recordings are available through Smithsonian Folkways and Lyrichord, and I’m very grateful to Smithsonian Folkways for allowing us to use some of these tracks for this specific episode. The albums that this music comes from are linked here in the show notes, where you'll find the video version, transcript, and photo gallery from Verna's career: ⁠https://www.leahroseman.com/episodes/verna-gillis⁠

In 1979 Verna opened Soundscape, the first multi-cultural performance space in New York City, which put on hundreds of performances over 5 years. You’ll also hear Verna reminisce about her work on career development with phenomenal international musicians including Youssou N’dour from Senegal, Salif Keita from Mali, and Carlinhos Brown from Brazil. As a producer, Verna was twice nominated for a GRAMMY award for two of the albums she produced with Roswell Rudd. She’s also a writer and spoken word performer. We’ve included in this episode one of her recent spoken word videos with British musician Jennifer Maidman. There’s so much more in this episode, and I hope a wide audience will be inspired by Verna Gillis’ reflections on her remarkable life in music.

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