Jonathan Henderson is a North Carolina-based multi-instrumentalist, composer, writer, producer, and educator. A PhD candidate in ethnomusicology at Duke University, Jonathan’s academic research concerns how local musical traditions are transformed through recording studio practice and come to articulate new meaning in their international circulation. He has many years experience studying music from the black Atlantic, from Brazil to Senegal to the US South. While pursuing his research, Jonathan remains active as an artist and performer. Most recently he produced the album “Routes” for his band Diali Cissokho & Kaira Ba. The album was recorded both in Senegal and North Carolina and garnered critical acclaim from Songlines, Afropop Worldwide, The Financial Times, and Robert Christgau for Vice, among others. Jonathan has written music for film and theater, including several summers runs with The Paperhand Puppet Intervention. He plays bass with Onyx Club Boys, and is a founding member of and contributor to varied projects including intermedia performance collective INVISIBLE, the protest marching band Cakalak Thunder, folk band Midtown Dickens, and the samba reggae bands Batalá Durham and Oxente. Jonathan has over a decade’s worth of music teaching experience at the secondary and post-secondary level. He holds MA in Music from Duke University and a BA in Cultural Anthropology from Guilford College.
Jonathan Henderson 