Many Musics of America

Raquel Paraíso

Raquel Paraíso, a researcher, musician, and educator earned a B.A. in violin performance from the Conservatory of Music in Salamanca, Spain. She holds a Master’s in Violin Performance, a Master’s in Ethnomusicology, and a Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Her areas of interest focus on cultural politics of music and music production of place, identity, and ethnicity in Latin American music at large and Mexican music in particular. Her current research in traditional music from the Mexican Huasteca region examines issues of rituality, symbolism, embodiment, and sound in contemporary gendered, globalized, and transnational scenarios. Her research and field recordings have been published by Oxford University Press, Cambridge Scholars, and Penguin Random House, as well as El Colegio de Michoacán, the National Institute of Anthropology (INAH) and Revista de Literaturas Populares (UNAM). She has presented her work at numerous national and international academic conferences for both academic audience and the general public. In her serie of podcast Músicos tradicionales de México/Traditional musicians from México (Spotify & Raquel’s YouTube channel), Raquel explores new ways to talk about music and musicians while experimenting with expressive ways to write about the topic. Versatile as a musician and scholar, she teaches at the Universidad de las Américas Puebla and is actively involved with the practice and performance of Latin American music with the group Sotavento.