David M. Powers

Several years ago, David Powers embarked upon a long and fruitful journey to explore the strong bonds between music, society, and the French concept of the Sub-Saharan African Other—all of which were nourished within an environment consumed with the complexities of colonization. Those bonds also provided a venue in which nonwhites (enslaved and freed) were able to excel in the performance of classical genres produced in the colonies. Thus, Dr. Powers approached the subject from a very unique position, one that focuses on a classical art form–opera–in an attempt to determine the relationship between the ruling class, those being ruled, and theatre production.

To achieve these goals, Dr. Powers spent several years in France (Aix-en-Provence, Bordeaux, Cassis, Marseilles, Paris, and Versailles) and in the French Antilles (Guadeloupe and Martinique)conducting research in several archives,libraries, and private collection. Dr. Powers has also published several articles on seventeenth- and eighteenth-century French opera and presented papers, nationally and internationally, at many prestigious conferences. These include the Scholarly Papers Competition of the National Opera Association; African American Music and Europe International Conference at Université de la Sorbonne Nouvelle (Paris, France); Second Conference of International Centre of African Music and Dance, University of Ghana-Accra (West Africa); Twenty-First Annual Conference of the Association of Caribbean Studies (Johannesburg, South Africa); and Ethnomusicology Symposium: Orientalism, Representation, and the Arts, University of California-Los Angeles.

She has received several prestigious awards including Honorable Mention, NWA Nonfiction Contest, National Writers Association; Camargo Foundation Resident Fellowship (Cassis, France); First Place, Scholarly Papers Competition, National Opera Association; Faculty fellowship, Institute for the Humanities, University of Illinois at Chicago; and travel awards to present papers in Ghana, West Africa, and Paris, France.

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On a non-musical level, Dr. Powers has participated in informal sessions with French scholars in Paris on French classical theatre of the 17th century and on literary works associated with the Négritude movement in the late 1920s and early 1930s.

On a more personal level, Dr. Powers is the product of a strong family committed to excellence and integrity. I was an educator and mentor long before I entered academia. As a single parent (divorcée), I worked hard at and succeeded in one of the most difficult and rewarding occupations–raising two children in one of our country’s toughest environments, New York City. Nevertheless, the fruits of my labor are two young adults who have made significant contributions to society–by taking full advantage of educational and career opportunities to which they were exposed and by being hard-working, conscientious citizens.

EDUCATION

Ph.D., History and Theory of Music, University of Chicago, August, 1988

MA, History and Theory of Music, University of Chicago, August, 1983

BA, Honors in Music, Queens College, City University of New York, June, 1979

Dissertation: “The pastorale héroïque: Origins and Development of a Genre of French Opera of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries” (1988), 2 volumes.