Nannyonga Sylvia Antonia Tamusuza

Dr. Sylvia Antonia Nakimera Nannyonga-Tamusuza is a Professor of Music (Ethnomusicology) and Head of the Grants Administration and Management Support Unit at Makerere University. Prof. Nannyonga-Tamusuza is a member of the Makerere University Senate and the University Staff Tribunal and the Honorary Awards Committee and the Makerere University Students’ Disciplinary Committee. Until the beginning of this year, she was the Chair of the Department of Performing Arts and Film at Makerere University for eight years.

Professor Nannyonga-Tamusuza is a member of a number of advisory boards for both academic and community engagements. She is a member of the Advisory Board for the Makerere-Rotary Peace Center and serves on the Finance and Administration, and Academic committees. She is also a member of the Advisory Board, Africa Open Institute for Music, Research and Innovation, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Stellenbosch University, South Africa and has served as a member of SEM’s Strategic Direction Committee, Planning Committee, and Wachsmann Prize Committee. Nannyonga-Tamusuza has also served on the Love and Care Family, International Board.

Professor Nannyonga-Tamusuza has published on popular music, church music, school music competitions, dance as music, sexuality in music and dance, politics and gender in music, the interface between ethnomusicology and music education, identities in diasporic music, music repatriation, and archiving. Her publications include Baakisimba: Gender in Music and Dance of the Baganda People of Uganda (Routledge, 2005) and dozens of articles in peer-reviewed journals and edited volumes. She co-edited Ethnomusicology in East Africa: Perspectives from Uganda and Beyond (Fountain, 2012). Her current research focuses on the decolonization of “African” music education in Uganda and the development of an integrated model for teaching and learning mathematics in secondary schools using performing arts; women’s use of ring tunes and caller tunes to negotiate peace and manage conflict in their homes; and connections between musical performance and South Sudanese protection Strategies.

Professor Nannyonga-Tamusuza has collaborated with faculty, staff, and students at various international institutions. For instance, she has co-taught and co-supervised students at the University of Bergen, Norway; the Norwegian University College of Dance; Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway; Stellenbosch University, South Africa; and Middlebury College, Vermont, USA.