Soprano. Music Theorist. Speaker.
Lydia Bangura (she/her) is a singer and a doctoral candidate in music theory at the University of Michigan. She also holds a bachelor’s degree from Northern Arizona University (2019) and a master’s degree from Roosevelt University (2021), both in vocal performance. Bangura was selected in 2022 as an associate artist at the Atlantic Center for the Arts in New Smyrna Beach, Florida, where she had the honor of studying with mentor artist Dr. Philip Ewell. She is the founder and host of the music research podcast series, Her Music Academia, and serves as the student representative on the Society for Music Theory's Standing Committee on Race and Ethnicity. Bangura also serves on the graduate student committee for Project Spectrum. Her dissertation project is titled “Black Feminist Sound in the Past, Present, and Future: Florence Price as Collaborator,” in which she combines Black feminist theory and Black musical analysis to theorize Price’s music in terms of collaboration with other Black women musicians.
Also a lifelong music performer, Bangura has experience studying violin, viola, and voice. She was recently the recipient of the National Association of Teachers of Singing Dillard Scholar Award (2023). Her recent operatic roles include the Mother in Humperdinck’s Hansel und Gretel, Pamina, Papagena, and Second Lady in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte, Govinda in Christopher Theofanidis’ Siddhartha, She, and the solo soprano in Judith Weir’s one woman show, King Harald's Saga.