Lara Pellegrinelli
Lara Pellegrinelli is a freelance journalist and scholar with bylines in The New York Times and the Village Voice. She has been the commissioned writer for Columbia University's Miller Theatre and its Composer Portrait series since 2018.
Pellegrinelli began reporting locally in New York for WNYC and producing segments for its daily music talk show, SoundCheck. She has been a contributor to NPR's arts coverage since 2008, reporting stories that have been heard on Morning Edition, All Things Considered and Weekend Edition. From 2011 to 2014, she was the coordinator for educational outreach and audience development for NPR's Live from the Village Vanguard and wrote regularly for A Blog Supreme. In 2021, Pellegrinelli led a team of reporters in a data analysis of the NPR Music Jazz Critics poll, published on NPR Music as "Equal at Last? Women In Jazz, By The Numbers."
An ethnomusicologist by training, Pellegrinelli received her Ph. D. in music from Harvard University. Her dissertation, "The Song is Who? Locating Singers on the Jazz Scene," is the first ethnographic study of jazz singing. She currently teaches at The New School in New York City.
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"Women in Jazz Day" officially hits New York City Friday, complete with a new documentary on the subject. -
A visual tour of the Village Vanguard, New York City's world-famous jazz club, capacity 123. -
More than 90% of the country's schools offer it, but what students actually receive isn't clear. -
In an era when some classical musicians are struggling, New York-based flutist Claire Chase, the founder of the International Contemporary Ensemble, is keeping very busy.
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As the British Invasion changed the landscape of the music industry, jazz musicians had to adapt to popular music written by the bands themselves instead of hired songwriters.
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The last year and a half hasn't been easy for the award-winning jazz pianist and composer, who spent months in a coma and almost died. But he has a new album out and is performing again.
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"Strange Fruit" can feel like a period piece, more a memorial than a protest song. Rare are the performers who have invested it with new meaning, fraught as it is with the legacy of America's past. -
This year marks the 70th anniversary of Blue Note Records, whose roster once included heavyweights Thelonious Monk and Horace Silver. Singers were a rarity, but Sheila Jordan has outlasted them all.
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Her bandmates have called her the best player in their group. But Nelson is content to hunker down in front of her piano, hidden by her cowboy hat. She had to be tricked into recording her solo debut.
