January 11, 2024
Vicky Mogollón Montagne (Ph.D.) and Mercedes Alejandra Payán Ramírez (Ph.D.) received a $5,000 grant through the Rainwater Innovation Grant Project to host the First Encuentro of Latina Music Scholars at UT Austin.
The objective of the Encuentro was to create a place for Latina music scholars to know each other better — whether they were seeking mentorship, support, or more. The grant also helped create a website to serve as a directory of Latinas in music studies.
Listen to student-led conversation on challenges, navigating identity, and what it means to be a Latina music scholar.
The Encuentro featured Latina music scholars from all around the country, including: Jacky Avila (UT Austin), Beth Colón (UT Austin), Pilar Martínez (UT Austin), Constanza Fuentes Landaeta (UT Austin), Elisa Alfonso (UT Austin), Sophia Enriquez (Duke), Teresita Lozano (UTRGV), Ashley Oliva Mayor (Smithsonian), Ludim Pedroza (TXST), Marysol Quevedo (University of Miami).
Vicky Mogollón Montagne (she/ella) is a Ph.D. candidate in Ethnomusicology. Her dissertation explores the convergences among music, sound, and violence in the lives of espiritistas marialionceros (religious practitioners) and afro-venezuelan tambor musicians in contemporary Caracas, Venezuela. Her work advances a Caribbeanist perspective within Venezuelan studies through the lenses of affect theory, sensory ethnography, and sound studies.
Mercedes is a scholar of music education and ethnomusicology, specializing in brass bands from indigenous communities in the Mixe region in Oaxaca, México, and non-academized music traditions or in the process of academization, like mariachi and rock music. Since 2014, her research has been focused on the teaching and learning processes from the anthropological perspective in the community-based system of these ensembles.