Priya Parrotta
Writer, Musician, Activist
About
Priya Parrotta is an author, musician, and environmental education consultant dedicated to fostering ecological consciousness, solidarity and activism across borders. Her work is informed and strengthened by her multicultural background; her training in the historical and geopolitical origins of environmental injustice; her artistic abilities; and her experiences as a climate activist and cultural organizer.
Priya wrote her first book, The Politics of Coexistence in the Atlantic World, when she was twenty-five years old. Her second, completed manuscript is titled To Dream Again: Island Environmentalism through Music. She has also written, recorded and produced an ever-growing repertoire of original music dedicated to the small, the meek and the wise: the soul of our one, beautiful planet.
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 has also taken courses in fields such as international affairs, environmental law and policy, nonprofit management, online education, ethnomusicology, and music therapy. Priya is now writing her doctoral dissertation on the origins of the tropical beach tourism industry at the University of Aberdeen's School of Divinity, History and Philosophy.
In 2017, Priya founded Music & the Earth International, an initiative which fosters decolonial, multicultural environmentalism through music. Prior to this, Priya worked for a range of environmental, cultural and political institutions in Washington, DC, including the Smithsonian and the Red Cross. She also worked as an organizer with a multicultural, multifaith arts collective called The Sanctuaries, and with GreenFaith, a global interfaith environmental activist network.
Priya is a world citizen with close connections to South Asia, the Mediterranean, and the Americas (including, and especially, the Caribbean). A nominee for the 2022 United States Artists Fellowship, she has been recognized internationally for weaving bridges between music and diverse branches of environmental thought and action.