Chad Hamill, Ethnomusicology
Instructor
Office: Bldg. 37, Room 223
Phone: (928) 523-3849
Email: Chad.Hamill@nau.edu
Chad Hamill is a dual specialist focusing on the classical music of northern India and Native American music. Before joining the faculty at Northern Arizona University, he taught courses in indigenous and world musics at Cal Arts, Naropa University, and the University of Colorado at Boulder, where he is currently working toward a PhD in ethnomusicology. Inspired by his own Native American ancestry (Spokan), his doctoral dissertation, Songs from Spirit: Power and Prayer in the Columbia Plateau, is an investigation into traditional song as a catalyst for spiritual power among tribes of the interior Northwest, including the Nez Perce, Umatilla, and Spokan.
After earning a BFA degree in African music from Cal Arts in 1993, Hamill began his MFA studies in Indian classical vocal music under the direction of Pandit Rajeev Taranath, world-renowned vocalist and master of the sarod. Soon after receiving his degree, Chad was asked to join the North Indian classical department at Cal Arts where he taught courses in Indian classical theory, sargam, private lessons, and Indian classical ensemble for the next 4 years. He performs regularly in the US and has been featured alongside artists such as Pandit Ramesh Misra, Ustad Roshan Bhartiya, Pandit Nayan Ghosh, and Arup ChattopadhyayJi. Chad Hamill continues his lifelong study of Indian classical music under the direction of his guru, Pandit Rajeev Taranath and Pandit Sripad Hegde in Dharwad, India.
In addition to presenting papers at national conferences for the College Music Society and the Society of Ethnomusicology, Hamill has presented at numerous international conferences, including the Cultural Diversity in Music Education Symposium in Brisbane, Australia and the Phenomenon of Singing International Symposium in St. Johns, Canada. More recently he sat on a panel on Native American music at the 2006 Plateau conference at Washington State University and moderated a panel on healing in Native American music at the Music and Health Symposium at the University of Colorado. He will be presenting a paper titled, Prophets of the Plateau: Songs from Spirit and the Ontology of Power at the upcoming SEM conference in October of 2007 and plans to present a second paper in May of next year titled, Spiritual Symbiosis: The Jesuit, the Medicine Man, and the Power of Songat the European Association for American Studies in Oslo, Norway.