Leonard J. Reade Distinguished Lecture on Music and Racial Justice

About

In August 2020, the Dean of Faculty and the Endowment Administration Office at Dartmouth College approved the music department's creation of the Leonard J. Reade Distinguished Lecture on Music and Racial Justice. These annual lectures are supported by the Leonard J. Reade 1917 Institute for American Music.

2025 Reade Lecture

Melvin Butler

Melvin Butler

Melvin Butler (University of Miami)

"Sacred Noise: Improvisation, Dissonance, and the Divine in Black Music"

This talk explores Black music making as a spiritual quest and ritual practice through which participants deploy improvisation, dissonance, and musical joy as strategies of cultural affirmation and social defiance.

Thursday, May 15, 2025
12:00 p.m. coffee and reception

12:30 p.m. lecture

East Reading Room, Baker-Berry Library
Free and open to the public