A Conversation with Ethnomusicologist Colin Harte: “Some people compartmentalize. I kind of synthesize."
By Cíara Emmanuel
January 14th
Dr. Colin Harte with the Irish traditional bodhrán drum.
“I’d go into a class teaching and playing West African music, and then I would take my lunch break and go play Irish music. And those things would still be in my head.”
Having graced both sides of the academic coin during his impressive educational career as a student and now teacher, Dr. Colin Harte is a genre-bending phenomenon. With a PhD in Ethnomusicology from the University of Florida’s School of Music—where he founded and performed with the UF Irish Traditional Music Ensemble—a Masters in Educational Leadership from CUNY-Hunter College, and a Masters in Ethnomusicology from the University of Limerick, in addition to the Masters in Education he received as a Teaching Fellow at CUNY-Lehman College, Colin’s ambitions in the academic realm have shaped his experiential teaching philosophy, sharpened by years of trusting his internal authority. “As a drummer I play with says,” Colin shares, “I have more degrees than a thermometer.”
Before this, Harte received his Bachelor of Arts in Musical Performance from Bard College, and now teaches a world music curriculum at the Bard High School Early College in the Bronx where he directs a fifty-student West African percussion ensemble, along with keyboard lab and music technology courses. A student favorite, Colin emphasizes the importance of playing live gigs outside of class rehearsals, inviting a thrilling extracurricular opportunity. “You're playing together as musicians,” he says. “You get out there and play in front of the general public. You know, there's no grade for that. And that changes you as a musician. So there's a very different dynamic than taking a test or writing a paper. It's a unique experience, and that motivates the heck out of the students, which is fun.”
Growing up with a strong collaborative urge, Colin joined the jazz band as a high school musician, living something of a double life with his more traditional Irish roots at home. “My parents would play Irish music in the house. It was always around. I just took it for granted. Like, ‘Oh, diddly, diddly. That’s cool.’ And my brothers would play. So I played with them on the piano, or I would try and play a melody. My brother brought a bodhrán home, and this thing sounded—it was so dry, it sounded like a pizza box.” This early exposure to the sounds of Ireland would remain a foundational aspect of Colin’s artistic mythos, nourishing the seed of experimentation that he would go on to carry into his later work. “I had fun with it. But the music I was interested in was jazz, so I was always trying to corrupt the harmonic progressions and rhythms of the stuff my brother was playing, you know? I was always messing with things.”
Frequently tinkering with a sporadic array of sound, Harte’s natural inclinations led to a symbiotic dance between his internal and external landscapes. “I remember my brother had a tin whistle, and I put a rubber band around it as a mute, because I saw Miles Davis had a mute on his trumpet. I tried to play Freddy The Freeloader, which worked, and then you have to kind of half-hole the whistle.” Though the chromatics may have been difficult, for Harte, the possibilities were always endless. “I remember learning She Moved To The Fair on the guitar,” he shares, recalling another memory, “I started because of Jimi Hendrix, and I was obsessed with distortion and playing with all these effects—Crazy things, and trying to do blues solos over it. So it just seemed natural, because I would hear that in the house.”
Though Harte found his early footing in the gifted and chosen influences of Irish traditional, jazz and funk-adjacent music, his hunger to explore new corners of the musical diaspora would continue to generate over time. “The next step I took was a reverse journey from the new world to the old world in many ways, not only with Irish stuff, but really seeking the music of West Africa.” This budding journey led into new avenues of creative expression for Colin. “Rhythmically, there's a lot more going on. There's a lot more drums, a lot more percussion.”
Dr. Colin Harte performing alongside musicians Amos Gabia, Raymond Odai Laryea, Dylan James, and Isaac Alderson at the AAIDN 2024 Leadership Awards Gala on November 7th.
Notably performing an exceptional fusion of Irish melodies and West African percussion at the African American Irish Diaspora Network’s 2024 Leadership Awards Gala alongside musicians Amos Gabia, Raymond Odai Laryea, Dylan James, and Isaac Alderson on November 7th, Harte and his work continue to illuminate the true excitement revealed within the spirit of integration. “There's this kind of expansive nature. Working with Amos was an eye opener,” says Colin, alluding to the long history of collaboration the two artists share. “I said, ‘You know, Amos, we should start seeing if we could mix these two [genres] in some shape or form.’ We just started trading ideas,” he says, “I would try and play on the bodhrán, and then I'd ask him to play jig rhythms on the djembe.”
A significant goal for Colin was to achieve playing the bodhrán in any context. “As an American,” he continues, “you don't really understand, or at least it's not taught—you just have a different understanding of time and rhythmic interaction and exposure to a wide variety of things.” Working with West African percussionist Amos led to a myriad of new questions. “Does it make sense? How can I do that? And vice versa? It was a personal thing, and Amos is… You pick the right musicians, you can do anything, you know what I mean?” The blend they developed was alchemized out of a process of trial and error, guided by an attempt to bridge the ancient and the new. “Some people compartmentalize. I kind of synthesize,” says Harte, “It just seemed very natural. But I think other people might’ve thought I was nuts or something, you know?”
Something of an enigma, Dr. Colin Harte carries with him an artistic radiance that seems to transcend the laws of linear time. Published in many academic forums and featured in numerous conferences, acknowledging the historical connections of the Irish and West African diasporas is nothing new for Harte, known to have arranged compositions for museum exhibitions and authored The Bodhrán: Experimentation, Innovation, and the Traditional Irish Frame Drum.
At the same time, Colin emphasizes the importance of directing our attention to the present moment: “You know, these things, these interactions, are happening now, do you know? I mean, historically, that did happen. But what does this look like now, as opposed to playing something from way back when, and just trying to reimagine it?” Active in the New York jazz, Latin and Irish traditional music communities, Colin’s grasp on the musical landscape is nothing short of vivacious. “And this is happening in Ireland as well,” says Harte, “I mean, I went to a bodhrán maker I knew—I walked in and there was a woman from Ghana, and she was showing me how to play the bodhrán. And I was laughing. I said, ‘Yeah, this is, you know, this is the new world we live in.’ So why not?”
Dr. Colin Harte is currently collaborating with the New York Irish Arts Center to present the critically acclaimed Crossroads Concerts, which feature the fusion of Irish traditional music with that of numerous cultures. With a 7:00 PM standard start time, the upcoming concerts will include Indian fusion on February 27th, Ghanian West African fusion on March 27th, Arab fusion on April 24th, Brazilian Samba fusion on May 29th and Shinnecock Nation fusion on June 12th.