Adriana Helbig (BA in German and Music with honors
from Drew University in 1997; MA and MPhil in Ethnomusicology from
Columbia) has completed and defended (May 2005) her dissertation, which
analyzes the influences of international development aid on Roma music
traditions in Ukraine. Her research interests include the relationship
between music and politics, music and social movements, music and
migration, and issues of race, class, and gender in Eastern European
hip hop. She works with Roma non-government organizations in Ukraine,
translates the largest Internet-based Roma newspaper in the CIS into
English (www.romaniyag.uz.ua/en), and consults members of the Ukrainian
government on national minority affairs. In 2006, she participated as a
policy analyst in the Civil Society and Democracy in Ukraine project
sponsored by the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies in
Washington D.C. Her published works in English include an article
titled “The Cyberpolitics of Music in Ukraine’s 2004 Orange Revolution”
Current Musicology 82; a book chapter titled “Changing Discourses of
Race and Place: NGOs, European Integration, and the Roma in Ukraine” In
Civil Society and Democracy in Ukraine. Edited by Paul D’Anieri,
Dominique Arel, and Blair Ruble. (Baltimore: John Hopkins University
Press, forth.); and a book review of The World of Mykola Lysenko:
Ethnic Identity, Music, and Politics in Nineteenth and Early Twentieth
Century Ukraine. By Taras Filenko and Tamara Bulat. (Toronto: Ukraine
Millennium Foundation Press, 2001). World of Music Vol. 48 (1):
100-102. Her article “Ukraine: Performing Politics” published in
Transitions Online No. 156 (February 27, 2006) was reprinted in
Italian, Hungarian, and Russian translation on various policy websites
and list-services. A member of SEM and ICTM, she is also affiliated
with the Ukrainian Studies Program at Columbia University and will
teach a course on post-socialist music traditions in the Spring of
2007. A classical pianist who received her training at the Vienna
Conservatory, she has taught the Music Humanities course at Columbia
University and presently teaches Music History at Fordham University.
Her doctoral research in Ukraine was sponsored by a Fulbright U.S.
Student grant.
Email: anh5@columbia.edu
Click here to download Adriana’s dissertation titled “Play for me, Old Gypsy: Music as Political Resource in the Roma Rights Movement in Ukraine”
