Katherine Hagedorn

Professor of Music
Thatcher 108 and Alexander 221
(909) 621-8155 and (909) 621-8518, Email Katherine Hagedorn
Expertise Profile

Dr. Katherine Johanna Hagedorn is Professor of Music at Pomona College in Claremont, California, where she teaches seminars on the performance traditions of the African diaspora and Latin America, survey courses in "world music," and classes on ethnomusicological theory and method. Professor Hagedorn also directs Pomona's ethnomusicology program, which features a Balinese gamelan gong kebyar, a rotating ensemble-in-residence (Ghanaian drumming, Flamenco guitar, Afro-Cuban percussion, etc.), a concert and lecture series, and an interdisciplinary plan of study. Her research, carried out in Cuba and the United States, focuses on Afro-Cuban religious and folkloric performance, with an emphasis on the central role of batá drumming. Dr. Hagedorn has published articles and review essays in World of Music, British Journal of Ethnomusicology, and Ethnomusicology. Her book, Divine Utterances: The Performance of Afro-Cuban Santería (Smithsonian Institution Press, 2001), won the Alan Merriam Prize for best ethnography in 2002. In 2005, Dr. Hagedorn was awarded a coveted Mellon New Directions Fellowship for her new research project, "Toward a Theology of Sound." Trained as a classical pianist, Dr. Hagedorn has performed West African, Afro-Cuban, and Indonesian percussive traditions since the late 1980s. She has a B.A. in Comparative Language and Literature from Tufts University, an M.A. in International Relations from The Johns Hopkins University, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology from Brown University. Dr. Hagedorn has taught at Pomona College since 1993, and in 2002 was awarded a Wig Teaching Award by Pomona College. In 2000, she was the recipient of the prestigious California Professor of the Year award, sponsored by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education. Dr. Hagedorn is pleased to be serving as Associate Dean of the Faculty from July 2009 through June 2012.