Frederick (Fritz) Schenker

Fritz Schenker's teaching and research centers on popular music, race, and empire. His current book project examines musical labor and jazz in colonial Asia, focusing on the travel and circulation of music and musicians in the 1920s along a littoral entertainment circuit extending from Japan to India. By focusing in particular on the experiences of Filipino and Filipina musicians, dancers, and songwriters, he explores the contradictory ways in which popular dance music was both a force of U.S. and European empire yet also a medium of disruption in multiple social forums and fields. Some of his other projects explore contested performances of musical blackness among contemporary New York jazz musicians inspired by Balkan music, global circulations of early Tin Pan Alley songs, and urban soundscapes of U.S. imperialism. His approach towards the study of music is also deeply informed by his experiences as a jazz and salsa pianist. Fritz received the Society for American Music's 2016 Wiley Housewright Dissertation Award.