Brian Harker

From College of Fine Arts and Communications

Brian Harker teaches music history and theory at BYU. He holds a Ph.D. in Historical Musicology from Columbia University, and a masters and bachelors in music from BYU.

Harker is the two-time recipient of the Irving Lowens Award from the Society for American Music -- first in 1999 for his article, "'Telling a Story': Louis Armstrong and Coherence in Early Jazz," published by Current Musicology and again in 2008 for his article, “Louis Armstrong: Eccentric Dance, and the Evolution of Jazz on the Eve of Swing,” which appeared in the Journal of the American Musicological Society.

His research interests include topics in jazz, blues, gospel, and other African-American musical genres.