George Arevalo

Adjunct Assistant Professor
Ethnic and Race Studies

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Jorge Arévalo Mateus is an ethnomusicologist, arts & culture director, educator, musician and archivist. He holds a doctorate in ethnomusicology (Wesleyan University, 2013) and is currently project director for the FolkCOLOMBIA Escuela (Center for Traditional Music and Dance, NYC). He has served as executive director for the Association for Cultural Equity/Alan Lomax Archive at Hunter College (CUNY); curator and head archivist of the Woody Guthrie Archives and Foundation, where he received a GRAMMY in 2008, co-producing the Best Historical Recording (“The Live Wire: Woody Guthrie in Performance, 1949”) and an ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award for the accompanying monograph. He was assistant director of the Louis Armstrong and House Archives at Queens College (CUNY) and has provided consultant services to the Raíces Latin Music Museum and Archives (Boys and Girls Harbor, Inc.), The Dance Theatre of Harlem, and the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian, among other public and private institutions.

Arevalo Mateus’ areas of expertise include performance of Latin-American and Caribbean traditional and popular musics, American Folk and Jazz, World Music, and policy development and management for cultural and social equity initiatives.

He is an adjunct assistant professor, teaching courses in LatinX, Ethnic and Cultural Studies, and World Music cultures at the Center for Ethnic Studies, Borough of Manhattan Community College (CUNY) and Hunter College (CUNY), the New School for Social Research and Marymount Manhattan College and has published essays and articles in academic publications and professional journals, such as Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM Journal), CENTRO, Center for Puerto Rican Studies, and the Journal of Popular Music Studies, and has presented academic papers throughout the US, South America, and Europe, including UNESCO-NGO forums.

Expertise

Degrees

Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology, Wesleyan University – June 26, 2013

Ph.D. Ethnomusicology coursework, Graduate School and University, CUNY, 1998-2004

M.A. in Ethnomusicology, Hunter College, CUNY – June 1998

B.A. in Music, Hunter College, CUNY June 1998

Courses Taught

Research and Projects

Selected music compositions and performances

2011 “Music for Pablo Tac Chapel,” an original score for James Luna’s “Pablo Tac Chapel,” performed in the Vantage Point: The Contemporary Native Art Collection
exhibition, National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., 25 September 2010-7 August.

2009 Emendatio, with composition and audio soundscapes presented at the George Gustave Heye Center of the National Musieum of the American Indian,
Smithsonian Institution, New York City.

2007- Emendatio, with composition (“Renewal”) and audio soundscapes

2008 presented at the Eiteljorg Museum of the American Indian and Western Art, Indianapolis, Indiana.

2005 “Renewal” (2005) a score composed and produced for James Luna’s Emendatio multimedia installation. National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian
Institition. Exhibited during the Biennale di Venezia, Italy, June 9-12

Selected Recordings

2011 Woody Guthrie. Live Wire. Rounder Records (co–producer)
2012 Night Owl, Black Mambo Dreams, Arevarc Music (leader)
2012 Guillermo Gregorio. “Coplanar 1,” Vol. 21 Leonardo Music Journal, MIT Press (musician)
2007 Woody Guthrie. The Live Wire, Woody Guthrie in Performance, 1949. Woody Guthrie Publications, Co–Producer (Ibid.)
2006 The Terrorists. Forces: 1977–1982. ROIR RUSCD 8277 (musician).
2005 Jorge Arévalo Mateus. Renewal. ArevarcMusic 1 (musician).

Publications

Honors, Awards and Affiliations

GRAMMY Award for producing The Live Wire, Woody Guthrie in Performance, 1949. National
Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, 2008.

ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award of the American Society of Composers, Authors, and
Publishers for the monograph/recording The Live Wire, 2008.

Schuster Award, Achievement in Arts and the Humanities, Hunter College, CUNY, 1998

Doris C. Cunha Award, Achievement in the field of Music, Hunter College, CUNY, 1998

Additional Information

MAC650 Artspace. Director and Artist-in-Residence, Latin Jazz Workshop.
Middletown Artists Cooperative, Middletown, Connecticut, 2008-2009.
MAC650 Artspace. Sponsored performances and curated exhibitions with composer David
Amram, Uruguyan new music ensemble Pechitos Ecuestres, visual artist Moose T. Farrell,
and Colombian photographer Juan Pablo Assmus.
Middletown Artists Cooperative, Middletown, Connecticut, 2007-2009.

Music and Performance Studies
Jazz guitar with Chuck Wayne, John Scofield, Sam Brown and Anthony Purrone.
Blues guitar with Cornell Dupree.
Classical Guitar with Robert Mamary at the Westchester Conservatory.
Pedal Steel guitar with Josh Dubon.
Piano with Peter Basquin.
Latin bass (salsa) with Guillermo Edgehill.
Jazz ensemble with Pheeron Aklaff (Wesleyan).
Anthony Braxton Ensemble (Wesleyan)