Pre-Concert: The Gospel of Meshell Ndegeocello

Panelist

Dr. Dwandalyn R. Reece

Dr. Dwandalyn R. Reece is Associate Director for the Humanities at the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture. She brings over thirty years of experience in public humanities work, including twelve years as NMAAHC’s Curator of Music and Performing Arts. Under her leadership, the Museum built a music and performing arts collection of over 4,000 objects.  She also curated the museum’s inaugural permanent exhibition, Musical Crossroads, for which she received the Secretary’s Research Prize in 2017. Recent projects include the publication, Musical Crossroads: Stories about the Objects of African American Music (March 2023), appearing in two seasons (2022-2023) of the award-winning SiriusXM podcast series All Music is Black Music, serving as contributing producer of the Smithsonian Anthology of Hip-Hop and Rap (2021), and co-curator of the Smithsonian Year of Music in 2019. She is also chair of the Smithsonian Music Executive Committee, a pan-institutional group that promotes access to the Smithsonian’s vast musical holdings. Dr. Reece has appeared on numerous media outlets, including NPR, the New York Times, the Washington Post, CBS This Morning, USA Today, Vice News, and Al Jazeera, and has appeared on such podcasts as WTF with Marc Maron, Sound Expertise, The Creative Process and the Hikma Collective.  Her 2019 Ted X Mid-Atlantic talk on blackface minstrelsy was posted on Ted.com and has nearly 2 million views.   Reece serves as a Board Member-at-Large for the Society for American Music and the American Musicological Society.   

Panelist

Timothy Anne Burnside

Timothy Anne Burnside is an accomplished museum professional with over 20 years of experience at the Smithsonian Institution. Her work explores intersections between history and culture through the lenses of music and performing arts via the acquisition, research, and interpretation of material culture. She builds collections inclusive of diverse and unique objects and develops exhibitions, publications, and programs that provide engaging and educational experiences. In addition to curatorial work and exhibition development, her background includes archival work, collections management, and program production. Timothy’s unique professional perspective fuels her exploration of museums’ changing roles and responsibilities and evolving methodologies in the field. 

Timothy began her career with the Smithsonian Institution at the National Museum of American History’s Archive Center in 2003, then became a Curatorial Assistant for the Division of Cultural History. She was also Project Assistant and a Producer of Jazz Appreciation Month (JAM) for two years. During that time, she led JAM’s national and international outreach and produced over 20 public programs and performances each April. In 2006, she launched the Smithsonian’s first hip-hop initiative and began building a collection. Timothy joined the curatorial team at the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) in 2009 and started developing the museum’s collections and exhibitions.  

  
Timothy contributed to multiple NMAAHC inaugural exhibitions, including Musical Crossroads, Sports: Leveling the Playing Field, Taking the Stage, Cultural Expressions, and Power of Place. Additional exhibitions for NMAAHC include Ain’t Nothing Like the Real Thing: How the Apollo Theater Shaped American Entertainment, Watching Oprah: The Oprah Winfrey Show and American Culture, and Represent: Hip-Hop Photography. She has produced and contributed to diverse award-winning projects, including the Smithsonian Folklife Festival Rhythm and Blues: Tell It Like It Is, NMAAHC’s grand opening festival Freedom Sounds: A Community Celebration, the groundbreaking publication The Smithsonian Anthology of Hip-Hop and Rap, and the podcast All Music is Black Music. Recent projects include the NMAAHC Hip-Hop Block Party, the publication Musical Crossroads: Stories Behind the Objects of African American Music, and the NMAAHC's newest exhibition, Afrofuturism: A History of Black Futures. 

Panelist

Keith Clark

Keith Clark is a Distinguished University Professor at George Mason University in Fairfax, VA. He is a member of the department of English and an affiliate faculty in the program in African and African American Studies. He is the author of Black Manhood in James Baldwin, Ernest J. Gaines and August Wilson (Illinois, 2002), The Radical Fiction of Ann Petry (Louisiana State, 2013), and editor of Contemporary Black Men's Fiction and Drama (Illinois, 2001). His last book, Navigating the Fiction of Ernest J. Gaines: A Roadmap for Readers, was published by Louisiana State and was runner-up for the 2021 C. Hugh Holman Award for the best book in southern studies. His essays and reviews have in appeared in such publications as African American Review, Callaloo, Gay and Lesbian Quarterly, and Black Queer Studies: A Critical Anthology. His most recent essay, “Rootlessness: Afro-Pessimism as Foundation in Paradise,” was published last year in The Bloomsbury Handbook to Toni Morrison. His teaching interests include Black Literary Masculinity Studies, African American Drama, and African American LGBTQ Literature and Criticism.