Austin Richey
Adjunct Faculty
Section Lead, Material Culture
PhD, Eastman School of Music
MA, Eastman School of Music
BM, Western Washington University
Austin T. Richey is a musician, multimedia artist, and Storyteller for Detroit Opera. He recently defended his PhD in Musicology at Eastman School of Music; his dissertation, “Synergistic Mythologies: Improvising the Afrofuture in Detroit’s North End” explores the resonances between diasporic African musical, dance, and visual arts and Detroit-specific genres such as Motown and techno.
Richey’s current sonic practice reclaims public spaces through community-oriented DIY synthesizer-making workshops and site-specific, historically and environmentally informed sound installation. Through these workshops, Richey connects young sound makers to their environment via deep listening practices while teaching skills like electrical engineering, encouraging them to experiment with self-designed sonic expressions.
Professional Experience
Richey was recently in residence as Wave Farm’s Radio Art Archive Research Fellow, where he expanded Wave Farm’s collection to incorporate artists and sound art from Africa and its diasporas. His research and photography have been featured in publications including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, as well as co-production support for The Metropolitan Opera, Cincinnati Opera, and Scottish National Opera among others. Musical collaborations include work with Bora Yoon, Tatsuya Nakatani, Nate Young (Wolf Eyes), Sō Percussion, and more.
Richey has published original research in African Music, Sonic Signatures, Opioid Aesthetics: Expressive Culture in an Age of Addiction, has contributed research to the award-winning Public Broadcasting Service digital series Sound Field and has a forthcoming essay in the Routledge Handbook of Music in the New African Diaspora. His work is supported by the Frederick Douglass Institute, the Society for American Music, Humanities New York, the Knight Foundation, and the Presser Foundation.
Significant Publications, Presentations and Exhibitions
Peer Reviewed
2024 “Dumisani’s Diasporic Mbira: Tracing the Zimbabwean Diaspora through the Nyunga Nyunga Mbira,” Routledge Handbook on the Music of the New African Diaspora, Routledge Press, (Forthcoming).
2016 “Chimurenga Renaissance: Double Doubleness in the Diasporic Music of Tendai Maraire” African Music, Vol. 10, No. 2, 2016, 167 – 185.
Edited Collections
2024 “Low Pass: Day 51,” A Year of Deep Listening: A Celebration of Pauline Oliveros, The Center for Deep Listening, (Forthcoming).
2022 “Karingido: Vigilante Tricksters and Feedback-Loop Approaches to a Liberation Struggle,” Sonic Signatures: How Migrant Music Constitutes the City at Night, Intellect Books, (Forthcoming).
2020 “‘Hey, Let’s Have a Very Good Time:’ The Opioid Aesthetics of Young Thug’s Post-Verbal Hip Hop,” The Opioid Epidemic and U.S. Culture: Expression, Art, and Politics in an Age of Addiction, West Virginia University Press, December 2020. Digital
2018 “Doubled Double Consciousness and the Sound of New Afrikan Expression” Sounding Out!, Amplifying W.E.B. Du Bois at 150, September 3, 2018.
2015 “The Diasporic Nyunga Nyunga Mbira” SEM Student News: Music and Diaspora, Vol. 10 Spring/Summer 2015, 13.
Script Writing
2019 “Are Three 6 Mafia the Godfathers of Modern Rap?” Sound Field, PBS Digital Studios, August 15, 2019.
2019 “The ‘One’: What Makes James Brown’s Funk So Funky?” Sound Field, PBS Digital Studios, January 31, 2019.
2019 “‘Triggaman:’ The Most Famous Breakbeat You’ve Never Heard Of” Sound Field, PBS Digital Studios.
2019 “Popular Sounds and Punjabi Sources: Hearing Bhangra in Early 2000s American Hip Hop” Sound Field, PBS Digital Studios.