Sylvia Antonia Nannyonga-Tamusuza (Dr)

Dr. Sylvia Antonia Nannyonga-Tamusuza, the Curator of MAKWMA, is an Associate Professor of Music and Coordinator of the Ethnomusicology in Uganda Projects at the Music, Dance and Drama Department. Nannyonga-Tamusuza is a holder of a PhD (Ethnomusicology) from the University of Pittsburgh (USA) having studied under Professor Andrew Weintraub. She is a graduate of Makerere University where she received a Master of Arts in Music and Bachelor of Arts with Education degrees. 

Dr. Nannyonga-Tamusuza established the ethnomusicology program at Makerere University both at undergraduate and Graduate levels and is the founder of the Makerere University Klaus Wachsmann Music Archive. She is a member of the International Advisory Board for the Global Music Archive at Vanderbilt University, Nashville (USA).

Dr. Nannyonga-Tamusuza has been honored with numerous fellowships, awards, scholarships and grants. She has presented more than seventy papers and lectures within Africa, United States and Europe. She was the Keynote Speaker at the Thirtieth Anniversary for the Finish Society of Ethnomusicology, Helsinki, and Finland.

She has published (within and outside ethnomusicology) papers and book chapters on popular music, church music, school music competitions, children’s music, sexuality in music and dance, politics, gender and music, archiving music construction of gender among the Baganda, and fashion and design.

Dr. Nannyonga-Tamusuza’s publications also include a full-length book titled: Baakisimba:  Gender in Music and Dance of the Baganda People of Uganda (2005) published by Routledge.

Dr. Nannyonga-Tamusuza’s research on archiving popular music became the foundation of establishing the MAKWMA. Her most recent research is on “Girlhood Songs, Musical Tales and Games: Performance of and Socialization into Adult Gender among the Baganda of Uganda,” will be published as a Chapter by Oxford Press in 2011. Her ongoing research is “What is “African Music”? Conceptualization of “African Music” in Bergen  (Norway) and Uppsala (Sweden)." Nannyonga-Tamusuza is also a member of the Editorial Board of the African Music Journal published in South Africa.

Curator

Oversees all the activities of the music archive including, but not limited to the selection of materials that go into the collection; preservation and maintenance of the collections; and through research, exhibitions and publications, disseminates information about the collections.

The Curator is also in charge of planning and resourcing funds for the archive.