JUAN FERNANDO VELÁSQUEZ OSPINA

Music scholar and cultural theorist of sound and music working in Latin American studies, Velásquez received his BA in Music (2005) and MA in Music (2011) at the Universidad Eafit in Medellín, Colombia, and his PhD in Musicology with certificates in Latin American and Cultural Studies at the University of Pittsburgh (2018). He was also a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Michigan Society of Fellows (2019-2022).

Dr. Velásquez’s research aims to cross boundaries between musicology and ethnomusicology by intersecting cultural history, urban history, decoloniality, and sound studies to explore the relationships and networks connecting urban modernization, social formation processes, economic transformation, and sound in late nineteenth and early twentieth-century Latin America. Other research areas include ecomusicology, symphonic bands, music and protest, and music and animation. His articles and essays have appeared in journals like Latin American Music Review, Americas: A Hemispheric Music Journal, Latin American Music Review, and the Boletín de Música de Casa de las Américas. Dr. Velásquez has also contributed chapters to books published in Colombia, Germany, Spain, and the United States. His first book, “Los Ecos de la Villa,” received the Award for Research in Immaterial Heritage by the Municipality of Medellín, Colombia. Dr. Velásquez also co-curated de “Coleccionistas de Sonidos.” This project created a virtual exhibition centered on binder’s volumes in Colombia during the 19th century (for further information, see: https://www.coleccionistasdesonidos.com/en). His new book, “Inscribing Sounds: Music Technologies And Aural Culture In Late-Nineteenth And Early-Twentieth-Century Colombia,” is on contract with Oxford University Press.

Dr. Velásquez has been the recipient of multiple grants and awards, including a Fundación Carolina Grant for the Cátedra Robert Stevenson at the Real Conservatorio de Música de Madrid, a Fulbright-Mincultura Scholarship, a Tinker Grant, an Andrew Mellon Pre-Doctoral Fellowship, and an honorary mentions at the Eduardo Lozano Memorial Dissertation Award and the Martin Cole Blaiser Award for Outstanding Service in from the Center for Latin American Studies at the University of Pittsburgh and the Otto Mayer-Serra Award at the Center for Iberian and Latin American Music (CILAM). He has also chaired the Ibero-American Music Study Group at the American Musicological Society (IAMSG-AMS). Dr. Velásquez is also a member of the scientific committee of “Estudios Bandísticos,” the Spanish Association of Band Directors journal. Before joining the Moores School of Music, he was the Chair of Graduate Programs in the School of Arts and a member of the Grupo de Investigación en Músicas Regionales at the Universidad de Antioquia in Medellín, Colombia.