Carl DuPont, an assistant professor of voice in the Department of Music, has been named a 2018 Emerging Scholar by the publication “Diverse: Issues in Higher Education.”
The magazine’s Jan. 25, 2018, edition profiled 15 scholars from colleges and universities from around the country, many of them under 40, who are making their mark at their institutions through teaching, research and service.
DuPont made his first operatic appearance as a soprano in the title role of “Amahl and the Night Visitors” in his hometown of Daytona Beach, Florida, and has been singing ever since.
Now a bass-baritone, DuPont instructs undergraduate students in applied voice, as well as French, German, Italian and English diction. Additionally, he is an affiliate faculty member of the Africana Studies Department and has collaborated with faculty who teach German and dance.
In his nomination letter, Music Department Chair Jay Grymes said DuPont “has committed himself to augmenting the standard canon of European art songs that are studied and performed all over the world with ones that champion blackness and the black experience.”
Grymes added, “In addition to unearthing unpublished and rarely performed works by black composers, he has commissioned new compositions. He performs these pieces all over the country, including at New York City’s Bruno Walter Auditorium and Carnegie Hall, and he recently recorded a compact disc of art songs by black composers.”
DuPont’s scholarly interest focuses on diversity and inclusion in higher music education, specifically the contributions of black musicians, composers and educators to the discipline.
In 2015, he presented his research at the College Music Society’s International Conference in Stockholm and performed the lecture-recital “Pioneering African American Teachers of Singing” at the National Conference in Indianapolis.
In concerts at UNC Charlotte and Carnegie Hall in 2016, DuPont premiered songs by African American composer Jacqueline Hairston set to the poems of Countee Cullen.