Portia Maultsby

Dr. Portia K. Maultsby is a professor of ethnomusicology in the Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology and Director of the Archives of African American Music and Culture at Indiana University. She is also the founding director of the Indiana University Soul Revue, a 43-piece touring student ensemble specializing in black popular music. For 10 years, Maultsby directed the ensemble, which produced the vocal group After 7 and several other vocalists and instrumentalists who have performed with well known R&B groups.

Maultsby teaches courses on African American music and topics in ethnomusicology. Her research and publications have centered on African American religious and popular music. She has lectured on these topics throughout the US, and in Russia, Cuba, Zimbabwe, Malawi, England, Norway, and the Netherlands. She is co-editor of African American Music: An Introduction (Routledge Press, 2006). Maultsby currently writing a book titled From the Margins to the Mainstream: African American Popular Music (1945-2000). Other publications appear in American and European journals and edited volumes.

Maultsby has also been involved in film and radio production. She has served as researcher and advisor the documentary films, That Rhythm ... Those Blues produced by George Nierenburg and Record Row: The Cradle of Rhythm and Blues, produced Mike McAlpin for PBS. She also selected and edited music for the black history documentary Eyes on the Prize II, produced by Blackside Productions for PBS. She appears on camera in “Southern Soul,” program four of the BBC documentary series Soul Deep: The Story of Black Popular Music.

Maultsby is the recipient of many honors and awards. During the 1999–2000 academic year, she was a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences in Stanford, California. In spring 1998, she was the Belle van Zuylen Professor of African American Music in the Department of Musicology at the University of Utrecht, the Netherlands. In 1986, Maultsby was senior scholar in residence at the Smithsonian Institution, Museum of American History. She also is the recipient of several grants and fellowships, including a research fellowship awarded by the Indiana Committee for the Humanities, and another by the Ford Foundation and the National Research Council.