JUAN FERNANDO VELÁSQUEZ OSPINA

Juan Fernando Velasquez is Assistant Professor of Ethnomusicology at the Moores School of Music, University of Houston. His scholarship explores the intersections of sound, technology, and social formation in Latin America, with particular attention to modernity, privilege, and urban soundscapes. By positioning sound as central to processes of urbanization and cultural transformation, Velasquez underscores its role in shaping collective experience and social life. His work bridges musicology and ethnomusicology while engaging with cultural history, urban studies, and sound studies. His research interests also extend to symphonic and brass bands, protest music, ecomusicology, and music in animation.

His first book, Los Ecos de la Villa (2011), received the Grant for Research on Cultural Heritage from the Secretary of Culture of Medellín, Colombia. His articles have appeared in leading academic journals, including Latin American Music Review, Americas: A Hemispheric Music Journal, Boletín de Música de Casa de las Américas, and Artes: Revista de la Facultad de Artes de la Universidad de Antioquia. He has also contributed chapters to edited volumes published in Colombia, Germany, and the United States. Velásquez is currently completing his second book, Inscribing Sounds: Music Technologies and Aural Culture in Late-Nineteenth- and Early-Twentieth-Century Colombia, which examines how musical technologies shaped cultural identity and experiences of urban modernity.

A native of Medellín, Colombia, Velasquez earned his BA (2005) and MA (2011) in Music at Universidad EAFIT, and his PhD in Musicology, with certificates in Latin American and Cultural Studies, at the University of Pittsburgh (2018). His academic distinctions include a Michigan Society of Fellows Postdoctoral Fellowship, an Andrew W. Mellon Predoctoral Fellowship, a Fulbright grant, and awards from the Tinker Foundation, Fundación Carolina (Spain), the Orquesta Filarmónica de Bogotá, and the Ministerio de Cultura (Colombia).