William T. Faber

Will Faber is an ethnomusicologist and musician, whose teaching includes courses focused on jazz and blues, the musics of the Caribbean, and the musics of Asia, as well as interdisciplinary courses focused on topics such as rhythm and the voice. A Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Music at the University of Chicago, he has presented his scholarly research at meetings of the International Council For Traditional Music and the Society for Ethnomusicology.

Working with guitar, banjo, ngoni, laptop, and flute, he performs with Ben LaMar Gay's Tones for Tongues Quartet and Ernest Dawkins' Boglifier and Nabaggala Ensembles, and is a founding member of El is a Sound of Joy, a collective of artists, instrument builders, recording engineers, and fieldworkers. He is also actively involved with Live the Spirit Residency, a nonprofit organization which produces the annual Englewood Jazz Festival and provides a free after-school jazz education program.

Will Faber is a Ph.D. Candidate at the University of Chicago, completing a dissertation in the Department of Music titled "Improvised Belongings: Music, Race, and Post-Imperial London." His ethnographic research addresses the affordances of performance, collaboration, and dissonance in the contexts of jazz, electronic dance music, and reggae. Working alongside musicians, dancers, and listeners in clubs, studios, and rehearsal rooms, his work engages the diverse ways they produce and transform categories of race, nation, and musical style. In addition to his work in London, he has conducted extensive research on the musical cultures of Chicago and Jamaica. He has presented his scholarly work at meetings of the International Council For Traditional Music and the Society for Ethnomusicology.

As a guitarist and electronic musician, he performs with Ben LaMar Gay's Tones for Tongues Quartet and Ernest Dawkins' Boglifier Ensemble, and is a founding member of El is a Sound of Joy, a collective of artists, instrument builders, recording engineers, and fieldworkers. He is also actively involved with Live the Spirit Residency, a nonprofit organization which produces the annual Englewood Jazz Festival and provides a free after-school jazz education program.