Patricia Shehan Campbell

Patricia Shehan Campbell is Professor Emeritus at the University of Washington School of Music, and recently finished a year's post as Fulbright Research Chair at Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada (her third Fulbright award, including appointments in India and China). She chairs the Education Committee for Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, and is founder of the World Music Pedagogy courses that have been ongoing for almost two decades. She serves on the board of the Association for Cultural Equity, and chairs Chamwino Connect, an NGO in support of the sustainability of Wagogo cultural heritage in central Tanzania. Campbell's publications include Lessons from the World (1991), Music in Cultural Context (1994), Songs in Their Heads (1998, 2010), Teaching Music Globally (2004), Redefining Undergraduate Music Studies in an Age of Change (2017), Music Education and Diversity (2018),  Music in Childhood  (2018, 4th edition), and she is author-editor of Oxford’s Global Music series, the Routledge World Music Pedagogy series, and the Oxford Handbook of Children’s Musical Cultures (2013). She is an active contributor to research journals and has served as a member of various editorial committees (Journal of Research in Music Education, Psychology of Music, Ethnomusicology, Research Studies in Music Education, Music Educators Journal, and the College Music Symposium).  

While on the UW faculty as Donald Peterson Professor of Music, Campbell's chaired both Music Education and Ethnomusicology programs, teaching courses in the two areas, coordinating student teaching internships and community music projects, and serving as director of over 40 PhD dissertations. In 1999, she established a small program out at the Yakama Nation Tribal School in Washington state called “Music Alive! in the Yakima Valley”, which fostered musical exchanges and collective song-writing projects between university students and the students, teachers, and elders of the Yakama community.  She developed the “First Band and First Place School”, a start-up band for children of homeless and low income families in Seattle’s Central District. She proposed and found funding for University of Washington “music partnerships” at the University of Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) and Gitameit Academy (Yangon, Myanmar), both aimed at student and faculty exchanges on teaching-learning global and local music cultures.

Campbell was awarded the Taichi Traditional Music Award (China, 2013) and the Koizumi Prize in Ethnomusicology (Japan, 2017) for her work on transmission, teaching, and preservation of traditional music in schools and universities.  As well, she was recipient of the Senior Researcher Award (MENC-NAfME, 2002), the Kent State University Distinguished Alumni Award (2014), the PBS-KCTS Golden Apple Award (2021) for teaching excellence, and was awarded an Honorary Membership in the Society for Ethnomusicology (2022).  Her work continues nationally and internationally as lecturer, researcher, and consultant on topics of music for children, cultural diversity in music education, applied ethnomusicology, and school-community partnerships in music.