Esther Morgan-Ellis, Ph.D.

Dr. Esther Morgan-Ellis studies and writes about participatory music-making practices of the past and present. Her historical work on the American community singing movement is represented in the monograph Everybody Sing! Community Singing in the American Picture Palace (2018), the edited collection Critical Approaches to Musical Meaning (2022), and journal articles for Musical Quarterly, American Music, Journal of the Society for American Music, and Journal of Historical Research in Music Education. She has also published studies of contemporary participatory practices including old-time revivalism (Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education), hymn singing (Journal of Music, Health, and Wellbeing), and Sacred Harp singing (Frontiers in Psychology, International Journal of Community Music). She is currently co-editing the Oxford Handbook of Community Singing.

Dr. Morgan-Ellis is also active in the field of music history pedagogy. She is editor/lead author of Resonances: Engaging Music in Its Cultural Context (2020), an open-access music appreciation textbook used around the world, and author of three chapters on Appalachian music for Accessible Appalachia: An Open-Access, Introductory Textbook in Appalachian Studies (2022). Her writing appears frequently in Journal of Music History Pedagogy, and she is currently editing a volume titled Crossover, Exchange, Appropriation: Navigating Stylistic Boundaries in the Music History Classroom for Routledge.

Dr. Morgan-Ellis is Vice President/President Elect of the South-Central Chapter of the American Musicological Society (AMS), co-chair of the AMS Pedagogy Study Group, and a member of the AMS Council. At UNG, she serves on the Advisory Boards for UNG Press, the Appalachian Studies Center, and LEAP.

Dr. Morgan-Ellis is a professional cellist and appears regularly with regional orchestras. She is also active as a fiddler and fiddle teacher. She is President of the Georgia Pick & Bow Traditional Music School and teaches with Pick & Bow and the Alabama Folk School. At UNG she teaches music history, world music, music in Appalachia, and music appreciation, and she directs the orchestra in Dahlonega.

Forthcoming: Oxford Handbook of Community Singing. Co-edited with Kay Norton. New York City: Oxford University Press, 2023.

Resonances: Engaging Music in Its Cultural Context. Editor and lead author. Dahlonega, GA: University of North Georgia Press, 2020.

Everybody Sing! Community Singing in the American Picture Palace. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2018.

Forthcoming: “Meditated Community Singing.” In Oxford Handbook of Community Singing, ed. Esther M. Morgan-Ellis and Kay Norton. New York City: Oxford University Press, 2023.

Forthcoming: “A Century of Singing Along to Stephen Foster.” In Critical Approaches to Musical Meaning, ed. Jason Geary, Seth Monahan, and Michael Puri. Oxford University Press, 2022.

Forthcoming: “Leslie Uggams, Sing Along with Mitch (1961-1964), and the Reverberations of Minstrelsy.” Journal of the Society for American Music. 2022.

Forthcoming: “Yelling Whitman (or, Once More, with Feeling): Teaching Prosody by Performance.” Co-authored with Samuel Prestridge and Laura Ng. Pedagogy: Critical Approaches to Teaching Literature, Language, Composition, and Culture. Volume 22. 2022.

Forthcoming: “The Making of ‘Appalachian Music’,” “Fiddle and Banjo Music of the Southern Appalachians,” and “Unaccompanied Singing Traditions of the Southern Appalachians.” In Accessible Appalachia: An Open-Access, Introductory Textbook in Appalachian Studies, ed. Lisa Day. Eastern Kentucky University, 2022.

“Non-participation in online Sacred Harp singing during the COVID-19 pandemic.” International Journal of Community Music. Volume 14, Number 2-3. 2021. Pages 223-244.

“Virtual Hymn Singing and the Imagination of Community.” Journal of Music, Health, and Wellbeing. Autumn. 2021.

“‘Like Pieces in a Puzzle’: Online Sacred Harp Singing During the COVID-19 Pandemic.” Frontiers in Psychology. 2021. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.627038

“‘Making the many-minded one’: Community Singing at the Peabody Prep in 1915. Musical Quarterly. Volume 102, Number 4. 2019. Pages 361–401.

“Learning Habits and Attitudes in the Revivalist Old-Time Community of Practice.” Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education. Number 221. 2019. Pages 29-57.

“A Faculty Learning Community for Contingent Music Appreciation Instructors: Purpose, Structure, Outcomes.” Journal of Music History Pedagogy. Volume 9, Number 2. 2019. Pages 173-193.

“Undergraduate Research and Affective Learning: Examining a Contemporary Music Research Project.” Journal of Music History Pedagogy. Volume 8, Number 2. 2018. Pages 174-187.

“Warren Kimsey and Community Singing at Camp Gordon, 1917-1918.” Journal of Historical Research in Music Education. Volume 39, Number 2. 2018. Pages 171-194.

“Edward Meikel and Community Singing in a Neighborhood Picture Palace, 1925–1929.” American Music. Volume 32, Number 2. 2014. Pages 172-200.