David Font Navarrete
David Font Navarrete is an artist, musician, and ethnomusicologist. He is a ritual drummer in the Afro-Cuban Lukumi tradition. His scholarship focuses on Afro-Atlantic cultural currents, exploring ties between representation and cultural expression in an array of musical genres[1]. As an artist, Font-Navarrete creates electroacoustic music and multimedia art under a variety of pseudonyms. He is currently on the faculty of the Department of Music, Multimedia, Theatre, and Dance at Lehman College CUNY.
Biography
David Font-Navarrete was born in Santurce, Puerto Rico to a Cuban mother and Puerto Rican father. He has lived and worked in Miami, Washington D.C., Toronto, Durham, and New York City.
Since the late 1990s, Font-Navarrete developed “io,” a collaborative project based on electroacoustic experimentation and abstract approaches to traditional music forms[2]. In 1999, he founded Elegua Records, an independent label specializing in live recordings and limited editions which has released seventeen albums, including a collection of live recordings from the archives of the Subtropics New Music Festival featuring performances by John Cage, Thomas Buckner, Alvin Lucier, and Jon Gibson, as well as albums by Audionaut, Jaap Blonk, and Betacicadae. As a percussionist, Font-Navarrete specializes in Afro-Cuban Lukumi traditions and the batá drumming tradition and is active as a ritual musician. He has performed with Chopteeth, Fertile Ground, Mosaic, Spam Allstars, Alfredo Triff, and various Afro-Caribbean folkloric ensembles.
He earned a BA from Antioch College (1995), an MA from the University of Maryland College Park (2007), and a PhD from York University (2011) and he has taught at Duke University, Miami International University of Art and Design, Miami Dade College, and Washington College. His scholarship includes primary research in Cuba[3], Senegal, the Gambia, and the United States, and his publications explore musical history, performance practices, and the politics of cultural expression and representation. He has published articles about the Congotronics series of recordings[4], the Sublime Frequencies label[5], and Bass[6]. His PhD dissertation was a study of Bugarabu, a drumming genre from the Senegambia region of West Africa. His current research projects include: a book and multimedia project on Afro-Cuban music (co-written with Kenneth Schweitzer), Lukumí Music: Art, Ritual, and Culture; a monograph on the confluence of cultural traditions, avant-garde art, and ethnography titled Art at the Edge of Tradition; and an English-language translation of Lydia Cabrera's El Monte.
Bibliography
- 2018. “Inside, Outside, and Between: On Translation and the Study of Afro-Cuban Music.” Musicology Now. http://musicologynow.ams-net.org/2018/02/inside-outside-and-between-on.html
- 2016. “The Amplification of Muted Voices: Notes On a Recitation of the Adhan.” Sounding Out!. http://soundstudiesblog.com/2016/03/07/the-amplification-of-muted-voices-notes-on-a-recitation-of-the-adhan/
- 2016. “Ambient Sounds in Sublime Frequencies as Art (and/or) Ethnography.” In Punk Ethnography: The Sublime Frequencies Companion, edited by Michael Veal and E. Tammy Kim. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press. http://www.upne.com/0819576521.html
- 2016. Translation (Spanish–English) of “Timba, rumba, y la ‘apropiación desde adentro’” by Iñigo Sánchez Fuarros. In A Latin American Music Reader: Views from the South, edited by Javier León and Helena Simonett. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press. https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/76dkk8wh9780252040214.html
- 2015. “Awo Ayan: Metaphysical Dimensions of the Yoruba Divinity of Drumming.” Co-authored with Akinsola Akiwowo. In The Yoruba God of Drumming: Transatlantic Perspectives on the Wood That Talks, edited by Amanda Villepastour. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi. http://www.upress.state.ms.us/books/1837
- 2015. “Bass 101: Miami, Rio, and the Global Music South.” Journal of Popular Music Studies 27 (4): 488-517. http://popmusicstudies.org/?p=220
- 2011. “‘File Under Import’: Musical Distortion, Exoticism, and Authenticité in Congotronics.” Ethnomusicology Review 16. http://ethnomusicologyreview.ucla.edu/journal/volume/16/piece/460
Discography
- 2015. io. test patterns / efun, eedu, aro (Elegua).
- 2015. io.ko. Archival Feedback (Other Electricities).
- 2014. io. dedication vol. 1 (Elegua).
- 2014. io. conloninpurple variations (Elegua).
- 2012. io. flamenco abstractions (Elegua).
- 2011. io. mbira abstractions (Elegua).
- 2010. Chopteeth. AfroFunk Big Band Live (Grigri Discs).
- 2008. Mosaic. Unsaid Undone (Snack).
- 2008. Chopteeth. AfroFunk Big Band (Grigri Discs).
- 2007. io. live @ the Ambient PiNG (Elegua).
- 2006. Alfredo Triff. Boleros Perdidos (dadaMiami).
- 2004. Spam Allstars. Contra los Roboticos Mutantes (Spamoramic).
- 2003. Spam Allstars. Fuacata! Live (Elegua Records). Nominated for a 2003 Latin Grammy Award.
- 2003. io. the fat albert concert (Elegua).
- 2001. io. little haiti suite (Elegua).
- 1999. Needle & io. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Elegua).
External links
- http://eleguarecords.com
- http://lehman.edu/academics/arts-humanities/music-multimedia-theatre-dance/faculty-navarrete.php
References
- ↑ Fraser Delgado, Celeste (1999). "Digital Orisha". Miami New Times. Retrieved 26 April 2018.
- ↑ "io ~ Flamenco Abstractions". A closer Listen. Retrieved 26 April 2018.
|Authors list=missing|1=(help) - ↑ Font Navarrete, David. "Inside, Outside, and Between: On Translation and the Study of Afro-Cuban Music". Musicology Now. American Musicological Society. Retrieved 26 April 2018.
- ↑ Font Navarrrete, David (2011). "File Under "Import": Musical Distortion, Exoticism, and Authenticité in Congotronics". Ethnomusicology Review. 16. Retrieved 26 April 2018.
- ↑ Font Navarrete, David (2016). Punk Ethnography. Wesleyan University Press. pp. 142–170. Search this book on
- ↑ Font Navarrete, David (2015). "Bass 101: Miami, Rio, and the Global Music South". Journal of Popular Music Studies. 7 (4): 488–517.
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