Music Professor Carol Frierson-Campbell Awarded Fulbright Scholar Grant to Conduct Research on Making Music in Palestine


Carol Frierson-Campbell, a professor of music at William Paterson University in Wayne, New Jersey has been awarded a 2023-24 Fulbright U.S. Scholar award to continue her research on music making in Palestine.

The Fulbright Program is sponsored by the United States Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. Each year, the program provides approximately 800 grants in more than 130 countries to support teaching and research in a wide variety of academic and professional fields.

Frierson-Campbell will spend five months from January through May 2024 in residence at Birzeit University and the Edward Said National Conservatory of Music in the West Bank. While there, she will work collaboratively with both institutions, as well as community members, to conduct a survey of music making throughout the West Bank. She will also continue collecting stories from musicians there for a book project, tentatively titled Places for Musicking, Places for Palestine.

“It is an honor to be recognized by the U.S. Fulbright Program as a scholar at this level,” says Frierson-Campbell. “I am excited to continue my research on how people create places for themselves and a sense of belonging through music making.”

Frierson-Campbell first traveled to Palestine in 2010 as part of a faculty exchange program with Edward Said National Conservatory of Music, funded by a grant from the Muna and Basem Hishmeh Foundation. She and other William Paterson faculty worked with students in a jazz workshop program there and presented several concerts. In 2015, she served as a scholar-in-residence at the conservatory, helping the institution develop its program in music education, and currently coordinates a summer residency program at the conservatory, funded by the Hishmeh Foundation, that supports music lessons by William Paterson faculty and alumni.

A member of the William Paterson music faculty since 2000, Frierson-Campbell teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in instrumental music education and research and coordinates the music education program at the University. Her scholarly interests include music education in marginalized communities, instrumental music education, and research pedagogy.

Her most recent publication, Sociological Thinking about Music Education: International Intersections, which she co-edited, includes a chapter she authored on music education in Palestine. She is the co-author of Inquiry in Music Education: Concepts and Methods for the Beginning Researcher, and co-editor of Teaching Music in the Urban Classroom, Volumes I and II, as well as numerous journal articles and conference presentations. She is an active member of the New Jersey Music Educators Association, the National Association for Music Education, and the International Society for Music Education. She is also a member of the Paterson Music Project Community Advisory Board.

04/26/23