Priya Parrotta, PhD
historian & musician
for the earth
About
Dr. Priya Parrotta is an environmental historian, composer and singer whose work dismantles and transcends borders to unite humans with each other and the more-than-human world. She is the Founder and Director of Music & the Earth International, an academic and artistic initiative which explores and celebrates the role of music in fostering environmental dialogue across borders. Priya is a Senior Fellow with the Safina Center and a nominee for the United States Artists Fellowship in Music.
Priya believes firmly in the possibility of a world in which we are able to traverse persistent boundaries, heal from historical injustice, and unite to protect the ecosystems we love. As a scholar, Priya seeks to understand the art and practice of coexistence, amidst the complexities of the modern world. Her first book, The Politics of Coexistence in the Atlantic World, authored at the age of twenty-five, explores the ways in which colonial divides in the Caribbean were subverted by the cultural pluralism which so defines this region. She has completed an extensive archival study titled The Paradise Industry: The Making of Waikīkī Beach, 1890-1930, which details how relations of reciprocity in the coastal neighborhood of Waikīkī, Hawai'i, were fractured as a small group of commercial elites created the beach tourism industry in the late Gilded Age. She has also written a collection of academic and popular essays titled To Dream Again: Island Environmentalism through Music.
Priya’s original music draws upon her extensive engagement with music from South Asia, Latin America and the Mediterranean; her training as a classical vocalist; and her love of genres such as jazz and soul. She has written, sung and produced albums which sweep across the world’s diverse musical genres, and celebrate the varied connections between humanity and the biosphere. Her internationally acclaimed songs express environmental critiques, hopes, and calls to action in ways that resonate across geographical, cultural and social divides. She has also recorded over one hundred covers, dedicated to sensitivity and kindness. Through her music, she seeks to support a healing planetary consciousness in our fragmented and anthropocentric world.
Priya received her undergraduate education in History and Music from Brown University, and briefly studied as a postgrad at the University of Oxford's School of Geography and the Environment. She holds a PhD in History, completed in two and a half years, from the University of Aberdeen’s School of Divinity, History and Philosophy. Priya has previously worked for the Smithsonian and the Red Cross, and has collaborated extensively with the Conservatorio de Música de Puerto Rico. She is a member of the Royal Historical Society and was a Founding Leader of The Sanctuaries, the first multifaith arts collective in the US. She currently, delightedly serves on the Advisory Board of the Ark of Compassion, an organization which creates accessible, welcoming pathways for people considering adopting a vegan lifestyle.
A multicultural, world citizen with roots in India and Italy, Priya was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico and lives in Washington, DC.