Oliver Greene portrait

Oliver Greene

Oliver N. Greene, Jr., a native of Georgia, served as an associate professor at Georgia State University where he taught courses on world music, popular American music and African music, carnival traditions of Trinidad and Brazil, and music history. He holds a Ph.D. in musicology (emphasis, ethnomusicology) from Florida State University, Master of Music degrees from Southern Methodist University (applied voice and sacred music), and a Bachelor of Music degree from the College Conservatory of Music, University of Cincinnati (applied voice). He is the author of The Garifuna Music Reader (2018), an edited manuscript on music and ritual traditions of the Garifuna of Belize. His documentary film Play, Jankunu Play: The Garifuna Wanaragua Ritual of Belize (2007) has been shown at numerous universities, arts venues, international conferences and film festivals. He has published articles in Caribbean Quarterly, Fire!!!: The Multimedia Journal of Black Studies, Black Music Research Journal, Senderos: Revista de Etnomusicologia, Continuum Encyclopedia of Popular Music of Music, The Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World, Garland Encyclopedia of World Music, and the Concise Garland Encyclopedia of World Music. He authored chapters in the books Understanding America; the essential contribution of Afro-American music to the sociocultural meaning of the continent (2022), Sun, Sea, and Sound: Music and Tourism (2014), and The Garifuna: A Nation Across Borders (2005). He was a recipient of a Rockefeller Fellowship at the Center for Black Music Research in Chicago. Recent publications and current research focus on the music of the Black Masking (Mardi Gras) Indians of New Orleans. As a baritone, Oliver Greene has performed in solo and small ensemble concerts, concerts with orchestra, and theatrical productions in Italy, Switzerland, Bermuda, and US.