Priya Parrotta
Writer, Musician, Activist
About
Priya Parrotta is an author, musician, activist, and historian-in-training. She is dedicated to furthering environmental consciousness and justice, especially on tropical islands and coastlines. She is the founder of Music & the Earth International, a multicultural, decolonial initiative to foster environmental awareness, solidarity and healing across borders.
Priya has been recognized internationally for weaving bridges between music and diverse forms of environmental thought and action. A nominee for the 2022 United States Artists Fellowship, she is a world citizen with close connections to South Asia, the Mediterranean, and the Americas (especially the Caribbean).
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 research focuses on the origins of the global beach tourism industry. Her ever-growing repertoire of original music is 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 is now writing a doctoral dissertation in interdisciplinary environmental history (titled The Paradise Industry: Law, Ecology, Media and the Making of Waikīkī Beach, 1890-1930) 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.
Prior to starting Music & the Earth, Priya 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 for interfaith dialogue, multicultural arts, and climate justice. In her free time, she loves to dance.