Abby Rehard

Why FSU?

I chose to attend FSU because of the high-caliber work and tight-knit community emanating from the Musicology Program. The program is unique in that it promotes the idea of "Big M Musicology," which seeks to remove the division between ethnomusicological and historical research, through its course of studies and values performance alongside the academic research of music. The opportunity to teach and direct an ensemble as a graduate student further drew me to Florida State.

Importance and/or impact of research and work

As a percussionist, I enjoy witnessing how accessible our instruments are to people and how the playing, moving, and sharing of these instruments facilitates a sense of community. My research focuses on gendered spaces in collective drumming and dance traditions and explores how that can be used to challenge social inequalities based on gender, race, sexuality, class, etc. This coming year, I will be working with an all-women’s maracatu ensemble called Baque de Mina in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, to learn about their evolving women’s rights movement, the role of protest musics, and the transformational effects of music participation during a critical time in Brazil’s history.

Career aspirations

Through a combination of teaching, researching, and playing, I want to develop a community outreach program that engages with multicultural art forms and conversations to empower women of all ages.

Advice for anyone considering graduate school

From someone who has two master’s degrees and is working on a PhD, I can say that graduate school is an incredibly intense period that will have a great impact on every aspect of your life. Be mindful of your values and needs when deciding on a program—what do you need to thrive as a student, a teaching assistant, a researcher, and most importantly, a human being? What’s the culture of the program like? Do their values align with yours? Will you be supported in this community?

Accomplishments during graduate career

This past spring 2022, I received the Fulbright Open Study/Research Award and the Presser Foundation Graduate Music Award for my dissertation project “Empowering Women through Maracatu Drumming: Baque de Mina’s Calls for Social Justice.”

My role as the director of Mas ‘n’ Steel, FSU’s Caribbean steel band, remains one of my proudest accomplishments during my graduate career. I love the opportunity to make music with students from various majors across the university and share what I can about this incredible music tradition from Trinidad and Tobago. The Oxford University Press published my entry “Music and Lusophone Africa” in the Oxford Bibliographies Online this year. Additionally, Revista: Harvard Review of Latin America published my article “Axé, Capoeira!” in 2021 about my work with a local capoeira academy, Tallahassee Capoeira. I also presented at the Society for Ethnomusicology conference and serve as the assistant editor to the Ethnomusicology journal.