Brenda Romero

Associate Professor of Musicology and Ethnomusicology,
Coordinator of Ethnomusicology

Email: Romerob@colorado.edu
Website: http://spot.colorado.edu/%7Eromerob/
Office Location: Room N149, Imig Music Building
Office Phone: 303-492-7421
Mailing Address: 301 UCB, Boulder, CO 80309-0301

Brenda M. Romero is an Associate Professor and Coordinator of Ethnomusicology at the University of Colorado in Boulder, where she has been on the faculty since 1988, serving as Chair of Musicology from 2004-2007.  She holds a Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology from the University of California in Los Angeles, and received her Bachelors and Masters degrees in Music Theory and Composition from the University of New Mexico.  She has worked extensively on the pantomimed Matachines music and dance and other New Mexican folk music genres that reflect both Spanish and Indian origins.  Since 1998 she has extended her fieldwork and research on Matachines to Mexico and in January 2007 to Colombia, and has published various articles on the subject.  She is co-editor with Olga Nájera-Ramírez and Norma Cantú of Dancing across Borders: Danzas y Bailes Mexicanos (University of Illinois Press, forthcoming).  She frequently gives local and regional lecture/recitals on the older folk music of New Mexico and southern Colorado, and has appeared on regional television productions as performer and narrator.

Dr. Romero is best known among her friends for providing English translations and research notes for the 1987 Elektra recording Canciones de Mi Padre by Linda Ronstadt. In 2000 she was awarded a Fulbright Research Scholarship to conduct field research on the Matachines music and dance in Mexico.  She is the 2004 recipient of the Society for American Music’s “Sight and Sound” award, a subvention that will be applied to the production of a CD, Caniones de mis patrias:  Songs of My Homelands, Early New Mexican Folk Songs, currently in the mastering phase.  In recognition of her tireless work to promote diversity at CU, she was awarded the President’s 2007 Faculty Award for Diversity.

Brenda Romero writes,  “as a teacher, scholar, composer, and performer I have tried to be grounded in social consciousness and responsibility in a world that is deeply troubled.  I have worked toward a better, more equitable world by helping to create a greater awareness of world cultures through music.”