Michelle Wick Patterson

Michelle Wick Patterson is Assistant Professor of History at Mount St Mary’s University in Emmitsburg, Maryland. She has just published Natalie Curtis Burlin: A Life in Native and African American Music (University of Nebraska Press) and is currently working on an anthology of the work of ethnomusicologist Frances Densmore.

Looking for America
In the early part of the twentieth century, a young musician named Natalie Curtis began drawing attention to the music of Native Americans and African Americans, publishing collections, organising concerts and advocating their traditions as the basis for a new American music. Michelle Wick Patterson explores her legacy.