Priya Parrotta
historian & musician
for the earth
About
Priya Parrotta is a historian, songwriter, singer, producer, designer and educator dedicated to furthering environmental consciousness across borders. She is the Founder and Director of Music & the Earth International, an initiative which fosters multicultural environmental solidarity and healing through research, writing, multimedia exhibits, interdisciplinary programmes, live events, and original music.
Priya believes firmly in the possibility of a world in which we are able traverse persistent boundaries, heal from historical injustice, and unite to protect the ecosystems we love. A nominee for the 2022 United States Artist Fellowship, she has been recognized internationally for weaving bridges between music and diverse forms of environmental thought and action. Priya is a global citizen in the truest sense: She grew up in Puerto Rico and Washington, DC, with close ancestral and personal ties to India and Italy.
Priya wrote her first book, The Politics of Coexistence in the Atlantic World, when she was twenty-five years old; and her second, completed manuscript is titled To Dream Again: Island Environmentalism through Music. Her current book project is titled The Paradise Industry: Law, Ecology, Media and the Making of Waikīkī Beach. She has also written, recorded and produced three albums of original music dedicated to the small, the meek and the wise: the soul of our one, beautiful planet. Intellectual and artistic independence is a defining feature of her writings and songs. Her ability to circumvent the boundaries within both academia and the music industry, and convey deep, bold observations about the times in which we live, sets her work apart.
Priya was educated in History (Colonialism & Globalization) and Music at Brown University, and briefly studied as a postgrad at the University of Oxford's School of Geography and the Environment. She is now writing a doctoral dissertation in interdisciplinary environmental history at the University of Aberdeen. She has also taken courses in fields such as environmental law and policy, international affairs, political ecology, nonprofit management, online education, ethnomusicology, and music therapy.
Priya has worked for a range of cultural, political and environmental institutions in Washington, DC, including the Smithsonian and the Red Cross. She has also worked as an organizer with GreenFaith, a global interfaith climate network, and was a Founding Leader of The Sanctuaries, the first multifaith arts collective in the US. In her free time, she loves to dance.