Patricia Tang is an ethnomusicologist specializing in Senegalese music. She received her Ph.D. in Music from Harvard University in 2001. Since then, Patty has taught at MIT in the Music & Theater Arts Section, where she is currently Associate Professor of Music, and also serves as the Associate Head of the Music program. Patty is a MacVicar Faculty Fellow, and is a past recipient of the SHASS Levitan Award for Excellence in Teaching and the AAUW American Postdoctoral Fellowship.
Patty’s research interests include Wolof music and culture, African popular musics, life history, fieldwork and ethnography. She is the author of Masters of the Sabar: Wolof Griot Percussionists of Senegal (Temple University Press, 2007). She has also published in several edited volumes, encyclopedias, and journals including Ethnomusicology, The Journal of Popular Music Studies, and African Music. Her current research focuses on the globalization of Afropop music, and African immigrant musicians in the diaspora. Patty plays sabar drums with Rambax MIT, and as a violinist and keyboardist, she has performed and recorded with Nder et le Setsima Group, Positive Black Soul, Balla Tounkara, Balla Kouyaté and Lamine Touré & Group Saloum.
At MIT, Patty regularly teaches subjects including Introduction to Musics of the World, Musics of Africa, and Popular Musics of the World. She also serves as faculty advisor to Rambax, MIT’s Senegalese Drum Ensemble. She has co-organized and co-led study abroad programs in Senegal through MIT and Boston University.
Patty is also a certified Essentrics instructor, and enjoys cooking, travel, volunteer work, and bunnies.