Gage Averill (Ph.D. 1989, University of Washington) is an ethnomusicologist specializing in the popular music of the Caribbean. Formerly Chair of the Music Department at NYU, Professor Averill has also taught at Columbia University, Wesleyan University and as a visiting professor at Princeton. His book A Day for the Hunter, A Day for the Prey: Popular Music and Power in Haiti (University of Chicago Press, 1997) won the Association of Recorded Sound Collections Award for Best Research in the Field of Recorded Folk and Ethnic Music, 1998, and his second monograph, Four Parts, No Waiting: A Social History of American Barbershop Harmony, was named an “Outstanding Academic Title for 2004" by Choice, the review magazine of the American Library Association and was awarded the 2004 Alan P. Merriam Prize recognizing the most distinguished, published English-language monograph in the field of ethnomusicology and the Irving Lowens Award for Best Book from the Society for American Music. 

He is also an editor of Making and Selling Culture (with Richard Ohmann et al, Wesleyan University Press, 1996). His shorter publications have appeared in edited volumes, journals, textbooks, and encyclopedias.

Professor Averill has consulted for the Ford Foundation, the Smithsonian Festival of American Folklife, the National Endowment for the Arts (US), and for various films, festivals, archives, media programs, and copyright law cases. A percussionist and free reed player, he has performed with steelbands, Afro-Cuban ensembles, Afro pop, and Irish ensembles. His research interests include the relationship of music to power, the cultural geography of music (including globalization), and issues of emotion, memory, and nostalgia in music.  He has written recently on applied and public ethnomusicology, world music ensembles, the scholarly projects of Alan Lomax, music and militarism, and on music in peace and conflict.  He is currently editing a 12-CD series from the 1936-37 recordings in Haiti by Alan Lomax.