Resonant Ecologies: Music, Nature, and Community Activism 

An online symposium sponsored by the Hitchcock Institute for Studies in American Music (HISAM)

Date: Friday, November 14th

Location: Online

Time: 3:00-6:30 pm EST

The Hitchcock Institute for Studies in American Music (HISAM) at CUNY presents “Resonant Ecologies: Music, Nature, and Community Activism,” a virtual symposium exploring how music engages with the urgent realities of environmental transformation. This event brings together scholars, artists, and activists examining the ways sound and musical practice amplify community resilience, mobilize environmental justice movements, and articulate resistance in the face of ecological crisis.

Through interdisciplinary dialogue and creative presentation, Resonant Futures invites audiences to consider how music functions as both an archive and an action—documenting the lived experiences of displacement, migration, and activism while also inspiring new imaginings of ecological balance and solidarity.

This year’s symposium features a keynote presentation by Tyler Yamin (Bucknell University), whose work examines “sonic NIMBYism”—how communities weaponize sound and notions of “noise” to maintain social, racial, and ecological hierarchies. Yamin shows how local resistance to animal sounds reflects deeper colonial, capitalist, and biopolitical structures that determine whose lives and voices are valued.

Program schedule

3:00-3:05pm..........................................................................opening remarks... Agustina Checa

3:05-3:35pm………………………………………………...……………………........…………………………Carlos Cuestas

3:35-4:05pm…………………………………………………………………………………….........………...Mercedes Payán

4:05-4:35pm……………………………………………………………………………………........…..Rubens De La Corte

4:50-5:20pm.........................................................................................................Elizabeth Frickey

5:20-5:50pm………………………………………………...……………........………………………......…Charles Colwell

5:50-6:30pm………………………………………………………………………............…keynote... by Tyler Yamin

Register for the conference to receive the zoom link through this link.

Acknowledgements

We are sincerely grateful to everyone whose dedication and efforts contribute to HISAM’s efforts to diversify the study of American music. This symposium was made possible because of the generosity and general awesomeness of the following people:

Kelsey Milian

Maurice Restrepo

Tyler Yamin

Carlos Cuestas

Mercedes Payán

Charles Colwell

Rubens De la Corte

Elizabeth Frickey

Robin Miller

Kyle Devine

The Music Department at Lehman College

The Music, Multimedia, Theater and Dance Department at Lehman College

The School of Visual, Media, and Performing Arts at Brooklyn College

Our advisory board and the donors who support our programming

You can support us with a donation to the H. Wiley Hitchcock Fund for studies in American Music clicking on this link and specifying the name of the fund. Thank you!