Celebrating faculty: Jennifer Kelly

Jennifer Kelly, professor of music, department head, and director of choral activities

What is the focus of your research?

My research over the past decade has focused on music conducting and the commissioning of living women composers of the United States. I wrote a book in 2013 called In Her Own Words: Conversations with Composers in the United States. With support from a Hearst Foundations grant, I then commissioned and conducted the premieres of several of the composers from my book. The way I teach and involve the students in these major works is based on ‘collective inspiration,’ a contemporary and inclusive approach to conducting, which I discuss in a recent published article.

How do students benefit from your scholarship and research?

The supported composer commissions included residencies so that each composer could get to know the students and often my additional nonprofit ensemble who practiced and performed several of these works. Students learned about each composer, their music, and the creative process of bringing a new major work to fruition. A few examples for you: the Lafayette choirs were a part of the performance for Gabriela Lena Frank’s Songs of Cifar and the Sweet Sea based on the poetry of Nicaraguan poet Pablo Antonio Cuadra; the creation of a new musical genre for chorus, orchestra, sitar, and tabla called Swara Leela (Divine Play of Notes) by Hasu Patel; and At the Forks by Libby Larsen for chorus, orchestra, and folk instruments, celebrating the histories and cultures of our Lehigh Valley. 

What will you be teaching in the fall?

I am a new department head of music, and will continue teaching and conducting the Lafayette choirs.

Read more about faculty members newly named full professors.