About

Clifton Boyd (he/him) is Visiting Assistant Professor of Music at New York University, where he will transition into his role as Assistant Professor of Music in 2024. He recently completed his Ph.D. in music theory at Yale University. His research explores themes of (racial) identity, politics, and social justice in twentieth- and twenty-first-century American popular music. His book project, Racial Dissonance: American Barbershop Harmony in the Age of Jim Crow, demonstrates how nostalgia-fueled efforts toward musical and cultural preservation can perpetuate racial injustice. Combining critical race studies and music theory, this work furnishes new understandings of whiteness, barbershop as a racialized musical practice, and vernacular music theory. His research on music and politics also extends beyond the U.S. context: he is in the preliminary stages of a research project on how African immigrants in Italy negotiate questions of race, nationality, and citizenship through contemporary popular music. He specializes in several subfields of music-analytical research, including nineteenth-century chamber music, minimalist music, and musical meter.

Boyd has presented his work nationally at major conferences and invited talks, and his publications appear or are forthcoming in Music Theory and Analysis, Music Theory Online, Music Theory Spectrum, Theory and Practice, American Music, and Inside Higher Ed, as well as the edited collections The Oxford Handbook of Public Music Theory and Being Black In The Ivory: Truth-Telling About Racism In Higher Education. His research has been supported by fellowships from the American Musicological Society, the Society for American Music, and the American Council of Learned Societies, among others.

Boyd is also active in anti-racism and social-justice efforts in music studies: in 2017, he founded Project Spectrum, a graduate student–led coalition committed to increasing diversity, equity, and inclusion in music academia. As chair, he oversaw the organization of their inaugural national symposium, “Diversifying Music Academia: Strengthening the Pipeline” (2018). On behalf of Project Spectrum, he is twice a recipient of the Sphinx Organization’s MPower Artist Grant. He currently serves on Project Spectrum’s affiliate board. At Yale, he led the founding of the Grant Hagan Society, a graduate student–led affinity group that supports people of color in the Department of Music. In 2021, he was invited to represent the Society of Music Theory for the American Council of Learned Societies’ Intention Foundry, an initiative that aims to accelerate equity, inclusion, and structural change in the academy. He has served on the American Musicological Society’s Committee on Cultural Diversity, as well as on the Society for Music Theory’s Committee on Race and Ethnicity. He currently serves on the American Musicological Society’s Council as a Member-at-Large. At NYU, he co-convenes (with Sarah Louden) the working group “Music Theory for Whom? A Comprehensive Reform of Music Theory Curricula Across NYU,” which aims to contribute to national efforts to redefine who music theory serves and how it can inform one’s relationship with the music (and world) around them.