royal hartigan
biography



royal hartigan is a percussionist who has studied and performed the musics of Asia, Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and the Americas, including indigenous West African drumming, dance, song, and highlife; Turkish bendir frame drum; Japanese taiko drumming; Philippine kulintang gong and drum ensemble; Chinese Beijing, Cantonese, and Kunqu opera percussion; South Indian solkattu rhythms; Korean Nong ak drum and gong ensemble; Javanese and Sumatran gamelan; Gaelic bodhran; Native American drumming; Dominican merengue; Brazilian samba; Cambodian sampho drums and Vietnamese clapper percussion, European symphony; and African American blues, gospel, funk, hip-hop, and jazz traditions.

He was awarded an AB in Philosophy from St. Michael's College in 1968, specializing in medieval metaphysics and the existentialism of Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Satre. He received a BA degree in African American music at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 1981, studying with Roland Wiggins, Frederick Tillis, Reggie Workman, Archie Shepp, Max Roach, and Clifford Jarvis. royal earned his MA and Ph.D degrees in world music at Wesleyan University in 1983 and 1986, studying intensively with ethnomusicologist David McAllester and Bill Lowe, Bill Barron, Ed Blackwell, Freeman Donkor, Abraham Adzenyah, and other master artists from Java, India, and Ghana, West Africa.

He has taught ethnomusicology, African drumming, and world music ensemble at the New School for Social Research in New York and the Graduate Liberal Studies Program at Wesleyan University. royal helped develop and taught graduate and undergraduate courses in world music, large and small jazz ensembles, experimental music ensemble, Asian music ensembles (Philippine kulintang and Javanese gamelan), African American music history, and West African drumming and dance at San Jose State University before assuming a position as Assistant Professor in world music at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth. He has taught Music Theory and Fundamentals, Western Music history, and Introduction to World Music. He currently teaches music of the African Diaspora, area studies, and World Music Survey. He has served on the music department curriculum development, the CVPA lecture series, and the University Cultural Diversity committees as well as initiating grants for numerous workshops and concerts of world music during the 1999-2000 academic year.

His publications include Cross Cultural Performance and Analysis of West African, African American, Native American, Central Javanese, and South Indian Drumming, a 1700-page analysis of world drumming traditions (the Edwin Mellen Press); articles in Percussive Notes, World of Music, Annual Review of Jazz Studies, and The African American Review; and a book with compact disc, West African Rhythms for Drumset (Manhattan Music/Warner Brothers). He has given lectures and clinics on world music and jazz in Africa, China, Europe, and North America. He travels to West Africa each summer to teach, perform, and do research, collaborating with J.H. Nketia at the Institute for African Studies, University of Ghana, and the musicians at the Dagbe Cultural Center, Kopeyia village, Volta Region, Ghana.

He has performed, given workshops, and recorded internationally with his own quartet (Blood Drum Spirit, 1997 and Ancestors 2000), Juba (Look on the Rainbow 1987), Talking Drums (Talking Drums, 1985 and Someday Catch, Someday Down, 1987) the Fred Ho Afro-Asian Music Ensemble (We Refuse to Be Used and Song for Manong, 1988, Underground Railroad to My Heart, 1994, Monkey Epic:Part 1, 1996,Turn Pain Into Power, 1997, Monkey Epic Part 2, 1997, Yes Means Yes, No Means No! 1998, Night Vision 2000), Hafez Modirzadeh's Paradox Ensemble (Chromodal Discourse, 1993 and The Peoples Blues, 1996, The Mystery of Sama 1998), the David Bindman-Tyrone Henderson Project (Strawman Dance, 1993 Iliana's Dance, 1996), and Nathaniel Mackey (Songs of the Andoumboulou, 1995). He has released a documentary and artistic video of his work in West Africa and its relation to the African American music cultures (Eve).

personal philosophy


as an artist, scholar, student, and human i cannot work among the peoples of the world as a distanced observer, blind to the daily inequities and suffering which infect most of our planet. i cannot gather information, record melodies, transcribe rhythms, and learn dance movements without seeing the villagersı hunger, illness, and lack of clothing and shelter. i cannot return home to perform and contribute books and recordings as if all is well, pretending, covering the underlying reality, the paradox of ancient, powerful, spiritual music born from constant pain and struggle for survival. i cannot have a worldwide website and ignore the people who give us music and dance.

the human path has been a story of physical survival. with the accumulation of surplus wealth since the middle ages, humanity has been largely coerced into a role as competitive economic individuals and societies. now at the apex of a barbarian competitive way of life, we stand at a crossroads of extinction due to our blindness. if we do not realize our true human and spiritual essence we are doomed to self destruction: that life can and should be a cooperation in an interdependent worldwide family, where we are part of, not separate from, nature, caretaking it, rather than controlling it for ego driven self gain in a styrofoam narcississtic throw away society.

the clear cutting of forests at the stroke of a lobbyistıs pen; the pollution of our air, water, land, bodies, minds, and spirits to maximize profit margins; the denial of health care, education, and opportunities to the worldıs masses while the few enjoy privilege, at a time when elderly people are thrown into concentration camps called nursing homes, guns are rampant, and worth is judged by material possessions; the control of discourse by mainstream government, media, and educational institutions; and the colonial penetration into the so-called third world by multinational corporations, extracting resources, people, and wealth with the same results as slave ships; these are all genocide against people and the world which must be confronted and stopped if we are to survive.

the historical reality of 600 years of colonial and neo-colonial penetration has made our globe into a grand prison where people are herded into geographical and psychological cells, a wall street garage sale, with everything available to the highest bidder - money, television, and technology as the new gods. the result is a twenty-first century economic-based totalitarianism arising from the information revolution just as the american robber baron abuses were spawned by the nineteenth century industrial revolution. the ill-named american dream is in effect the worldıs nightmare, a walt disney snake oil sideshow, lying to us about the reality of history and of our time. yet time and space do not alter truth: we are all responsible for each other, and what happens in a boardroom in new york or a government office in washington, tokyo, or paris affects someoneıs life in tanzania, yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

history has so far been kind; since world war two we have had the ability to wipe life off the earth, and have avoided that possibility. if we do not change we will destroy all that is living on this planet through nuclear, radioactive, chemical, biological, mental, and emotional holocaust.

i am an egalitarian. i believe in the equality of all peoples and value of all cultures and their artistic expression. political equality means nothing without economic, social, and cultural equality. no one has a right to a pair of shoes until everyone has a pair. in my view, self interest and greed is not a valid motivation for work or activity. meaningful activity is done for its own sake or the welfare of others. we are part of nature, not its dictators or controllers. property necessary for survival and lifework is at most a temporary custodianship for the creator, as many native americans believe. excess property and control is theft.

social, economic, political, academic, or personal hierarchies are betrayals of human social justice and equality. the world has historically functioned as a grand plantation with a minority of wealthy and powerful people committing daily direct and indirect murder against the masses. this old-new world order should be replaced with a radical redistribution of wealth, so that people may eat, be clothed, sheltered, and live in a dignified way in their communities, able to pursue their humanity and spirituality. we are not economic animals or usable pawns; we are spiritual, rational, emotional, creative beings.

my music is inspired by the spirit of world cultures voiced through an african american idiom, as a symbol of the equality and worth of all peoples. as trumpeter dizzy gillespie said, "we are all different branches of the same tree, each with its own unique and beautiful fruit."

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