About Kristen Turner

Kristen M. Turner is a lecturer in the music and honors departments at North Carolina State University. She co-authored Race and Gender in the Western Music History Survey: A Teacher’s Guide (Routledge, 2022) with Horace Maxile. Her research on U.S. operatic culture and popular entertainment at the turn of the twentieth century has appeared in the Journal of the Society for American Music, the Journal of the American Musicological Society, Musical Quarterly, the Journal of Musicological Research, and a number of collected editions including the Cambridge Companion to Gershwin (CUP, 2019), and Carmen Abroad: Bizet’s Opera on the Global Stage (CUP, 2019) which received the 2021 RMA/Cambridge University Press Outstanding Edited Collection Book Prize. She is past president of the AMS-Southeast Chapter and currently serves on the Society of American Music’s Board of Trustees.

Kristen M. Turner is a lecturer in the music and honors departments at North Carolina State University. Her research centers on race and class in American popular entertainment at the turn of the twentieth century.

NBN Episodes hosted by Kristen:

Judith Tick, "Becoming Ella Fitzgerald: The Jazz Singer Who Transformed American Song" (Norton, 2023)

March 12, 2024

Becoming Ella Fitzgerald

Judith Tick
Hosted by Kristen Turner

Ella Fitzgerald (1917–1996) was one of America’s greatest musicians. In this major biography, Becoming Ella Fitzgerald: The Jazz Singer who Transforme…

Michael O'Malley, "The Beat Cop: Chicago's Chief O'Neill and the Creation of Irish Music" (U Chicago Press, 2022)

February 3, 2024

The Beat Cop

Michael O'Malley
Hosted by Kristen Turner

Francis O’Neill (1848–1936) was a Chicago police officer and a folk music collector. Michael O’Malley connects these two seemingly unrelated activitie…

Michelle R. Scott, "T.O.B.A. Time: Black Vaudeville and the Theater Owners' Booking Association in Jazz-Age America" (U Illinois Press, 2023)

December 18, 2023

T.O.B.A. Time

Michelle R. Scott
Hosted by Kristen Turner

Black vaudevillians and entertainers joked that T.O.B.A. stood for "tough on black artists." But the Theater Owner's Booking Association (T.O.B.A.) pl…

Brigid Cohen, "Musical Migration and Imperial New York: Early Cold War Scenes" (U Chicago Press, 2022)

November 15, 2023

Musical Migration and Imperial New York

Brigid Cohen
Hosted by Kristen Turner

The heart of Brigid Cohen’s Musical Migration and Imperial New York: Early Cold War Scenes (University of Chicago Press, 2022) are the connections for…

Philip Ewell, "On Music Theory, and Making Music More Welcoming for Everyone" (U Michigan Press, 2023)

May 3, 2023

On Music Theory, and Making Music More Welcoming for Everyone

Philip Ewell
Hosted by Kristen Turner

On Music Theory and Making Music More Welcoming for Everyone (University of Michigan Press, 2023) by Philip Ewell is an unflinching look at white supr…

Coretta M. Pittman, "Literacy in a Long Blues Note: Black Women’s Literature and Music in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries" (UP of Mississippi, 2022)

March 19, 2023

Literacy in a Long Blues Note

Coretta M. Pittman
Hosted by Kristen Turner

Literacy in a Long Blues Note: Black Women’s Literature and Music in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries by Coretta M. Pittman (Universi…

Brian Harker, "Sportin' Life: John W. Bubbles, an American Classic" (Oxford UP, 2022)

March 11, 2023

Sportin' Life

Brian Harker
Hosted by Kristen Turner

John W. Bubbles was an actor, singer, comedian, and most importantly, a dancer. Born in 1902, Bubbles was an innovator in the jazz tap style and half …

Lauron J. Kehrer, "Queer Voices in Hip Hop: Cultures, Communities, and Contemporary Performance" (U Michigan Press, 2022)

February 14, 2023

Queer Voices in Hip Hop

Lauron J. Kehrer
Hosted by Kristen Turner

Notions of hip hop authenticity, as expressed both within hip hop communities and in the larger American culture, rely on the construction of the rapp…

Norm Cohen et al., "An American Singing Heritage: Songs from the British-Irish-American Oral Tradition as Recorded in the Early Twentieth Century" (A-R Editions, 2021)

December 8, 2022

An American Singing Heritage

Norm Cohen, Carson Cohen, and Anne Dhu McLucas
Hosted by Kristen Turner

The Music of the United States of America Series of musical editions is a monumental undertaking funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities w…

Emily Bingham, "My Old Kentucky Home: The Astonishing Life and Reckoning of an Iconic American Song" (Knopf, 2022)

September 19, 2022

My Old Kentucky Home

Emily Bingham
Hosted by Kristen Turner

Any song as old and as familiar as “My Old Kentucky Home” is bound to have accrued many different meanings and an interesting history. Emily Bingham’s…

Mark Clague, "O Say Can You Hear?: A Cultural Biography of the Star-Spangled Banner" (Norton, 2022)

September 2, 2022

O Say Can You Hear?

Mark Clague
Hosted by Kristen Turner

The national anthem of the United States is familiar around the world from Olympic medal ceremonies and American patriotic celebrations. Like anything…

Alexandra Apolloni, "Freedom Girls: Voicing Femininity in 1960s British Pop" (Oxford UP, 2021)

July 11, 2022

Freedom Girls

Alexandra Apolloni
Hosted by Kristen Turner

Freedom Girls: Voicing Femininity in 1960s British Pop (Oxford University Press, 2021) by Alexandra M. Apolloni is about how the vocal performances of…

Kira Thurman, "Singing Like Germans: Black Musicians in the Land of Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms" (Cornell UP, 2021)

June 21, 2022

Singing Like Germans

Kira Thurman
Hosted by Kristen Turner

Singing Like Germans: Black Musicians in the Land of Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms by Kira Thurman (Cornell University Press, 2021) is a truly interdisc…

Rebecca Dowd Geoffroy-Schwinden, "From Servant to Savant: Musical Privilege, Property, and the French Revolution" (Oxford UP, 2022)

May 11, 2022

From Servant to Savant

Rebecca Dowd Geoffroy-Schwinden
Hosted by Kristen Turner

Today’s copyright laws are predicated on the idea that music is intellectual property; a commodity that has value to its creator and to its publisher.…

Louis K. Epstein, "The Creative Labor of Music Patronage in Interwar France" (Boydell, 2021)

April 6, 2022

The Creative Labor of Music Patronage in Interwar France

Louis K. Epstein
Hosted by Kristen Turner

Patronage has long been an important topic of study in musicology, but is much more likely to be one that specialists in medieval or renaissance music…

Katie Rios, "This Is America: Race, Gender, and Politics in America's Musical Landscape" (Lexington Books, 2021)

February 9, 2022

This Is America

Katie Rios
Hosted by Kristen Turner

“This is America”: Race Gender and Politics in America’s Musical Landscape by Katie Rios (Lexington Books, 2021) examines an eclectic mix of different…

Jake Johnson, "Lying in the Middle: Musical Theater and Belief at the Heart of America" (U Illinois Press, 2021)

January 6, 2022

Lying in the Middle

Jake Johnson
Hosted by Kristen Turner

Jake Johnson, author of Lying in the Middle: Musical Theater and Belief at the Heart of America (University of Illinois Press, 2021) takes as his subj…

Mary Talusan, "Instruments of Empire: Filipino Musicians, Black Soldiers, and Military Band Music During US Colonization of the Philippines" (UP of Mississippi, 2021)

December 20, 2021

Instruments of Empire

Mary Talusan
Hosted by Kristen Turner

Instruments of Empire: Filipino Musicians, Black Soldiers, and Military Band Music during US Colonization of the Philippines published in 2021 by the …

William Robin, "Industry: Bang on a Can and New Music in the Marketplace" (Oxford UP, 2021)

October 29, 2021

Industry

William Robin
Hosted by Kristen Turner

Presenting eclectic, irreverent marathons of experimental music in crumbling venues on the Lower East Side, Bang on a Can sold out concerts for a genr…

Katherine K. Preston, "George Frederick Bristow" (U Illinois Press, 2020)

June 24, 2021

George Frederick Bristow

Katherine K. Preston
Hosted by Kristen Turner

George Frederick Bristow, born in 1825, was a significant musical figure in the United States from the 1850s until his death in 1898. Now, almost one …

Douglas W. Shadle, "Antonín Dvořák's New World Symphony" (Oxford UP, 2021)

June 11, 2021

Antonín Dvořák's New World Symphony

Douglas W. Shadle
Hosted by Kristen Turner

Most music students have been taught that the New World Symphony was the first piece of classical music written in an American national style which An…

K. E. Goldschmitt, "Bossa Mundo: Brazilian Music in Transnational Media Industries" (Oxford UP, 2019)

May 28, 2021

Bossa Mundo

K. E. Goldschmitt
Hosted by Kristen Turner

Bossa Mundo: Brazilian Music in Transnational Media Industries (Oxford University Press, 2020) takes on the circulation of Brazilian music in the Glob…

Maureen Mahon, "Black Diamond Queens: African American Women and Rock and Roll" (Duke UP, 2020)

May 4, 2021

Black Diamond Queens

Maureen Mahon
Hosted by Kristen Turner

Maureen Mahon’s book, Black Diamond Queens: African American Women and Rock and Roll (Duke University Press, 2020), focuses on the contributions to ro…

Anne Searcy, "Ballet in the Cold War: A Soviet-American Exchange" (Oxford UP, 2020)

April 9, 2021

Ballet in the Cold War

Anne Searcy
Hosted by Kristen Turner

During the Cold War, cultural diplomacy was one way that the governments of the United States and the Soviet Union tried to cultivate goodwill towards…