Vicky Mogollón Montagne

Vicky Mogollón Montagne (she/ella) is an ethnomusicologist exploring spirituality, violence, and affect in Latin America and the Caribbean, with a particular focus on Venezuela and its diaspora. Her recent work focuses on notions of (in)humanity and intensity in contemporary religious contexts, and popular digital music scenes in Caracas (raptor house, música urbana, and electro-tambor).

Her current book project, Fuerza: Sonic Intensities in Venezuelan Espiritismo Marialioncero, investigates the role of sound in spirit possession and religious experience within Venezuela’s largest spiritual tradition. Fuerza, a key religious principle of vitality and strength, allows practitioners to reappraise legacies of endurance and healing that permeate Venezuela’s current crisis.
Musically speaking, Mogollón Montagne deals primarily with the religious reworkings of salsa and Afro-Venezuelan tambor in Espiritismo Marialioncero contexts. This project has been supported by the Society for Ethnomusicology, the Society for American Music, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Latino, the Venezuelan National Research Institute, and the Tinker Foundation.

Committed to both academic and public-facing scholarship, Mogollón Montagne has collaborated extensively with museums, archives, and cultural organizations, including the Venezuelan National Museum of Science and the Smithsonian (Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage and National Museum of American History), where she contributed to research, public programming, and bilingual communications. She is also an active participant of the growing Afro-Venezuelan tambor music network in the U.S., and has organized workshops, symposia, and community-based musical initiatives that connect scholarship with artistic practice.

Before joining Boston University, she was the Balzan Postdoctoral Instructor at the University of Chicago and the Charles H. Turner postdoctoral fellow at the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music. She earned a PhD in ethnomusicology and a certificate in museum studies from The University of Texas at Austin, a MMus in Advanced Musical Studies from Royal Holloway – University of London, and a BA in Music from the University of Denver.

(Photo credit: Nicolás Medina)