Exploring Life & Business with Georgiary Bledsoe of BaobaoTree

Today we’d like to introduce you to Georgiary Bledsoe.

Hi Georgiary, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
I started out taking piano lessons from a gospel music pioneer – Marjorie Olive. By the time I was in Jr. High School, she was sending me out throughout the region to perform as a choir director and substitute accompanist on organ and piano. When I entered college at Stanford, I first majored in civil engineering because I was also very good at math and science. When I finally did switch my major to music, it was a culture shock, since I’d never sung in German or French, and was unfamiliar with classical music.

I quickly found, however, that I was well-prepared to tread this new music landscape successfully. I ended up in the doctoral program in music at Stanford. We moved to NC and I finished my Ph.D. at Duke. It was there that my music vision came full circle. I wrote a doctoral dissertation on the St. Louis MO gospel music community that I’d been a part of growing up. I began to see with new eyes the power of the Africentric training I’d received and decided to pursue a career dedicated to using all aspects of my musical background to benefit youth, especially underserved youth. My research was and continues to focus on topics at a unique intersection: applied ethnomusicology, African diaspora studies, music education, and social justice. After a Mellon postdoctoral fellowship at Brandeis and a faculty position at Tufts, I founded BUMP, a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering youth through music of the African diaspora – and the organization continues to thrive today.

A couple of years ago I left BUMP to pursue an expanded vision of impacting the music education establishment more broadly. I founded BaobaoTree LLC and co-founded its nonprofit arm, SankofaSongs. BaobaoTree disseminates a transformative Africentric music education framework through professional development, publications, and PreK-12 curricular resources. Sankofa Songs cultivates outstanding Africentric music education practice by nurturing and supporting K-12 music teachers and their instruction through events, primarily SankofaSongs Summer Institute.

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle-free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
It has by no means been a smooth road! One of the biggest challenges has been finding the right space to do this work. While academe might seem like the logical choice, I’ve found that this work requires a more rubber meets the road approach. If the choice is between, on the one hand, articulating my work for an academic audience, hoping that it reaches K-12 teachers in useful ways over time, and on the other hand, articulating my work through robust scholarship paired with its practical application, then the latter is the harder road that I have chosen. What I have found is that there’s tremendous richness outside of orthodoxy, off the beaten path. Through all the bumps in the road, it’s deeply gratifying to do the work that I love and to have a positive impact in the lives of educators and youth.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about BaobaoTree LLC?
BaobaoTree LLC specializes in developing tools for teaching music of the African diaspora, and our nonprofit arm SankofaSongs specializes in supporting teaching in applying those tools. We primarily serve teachers, schools, and school districts.

What sets this work apart from others in the field of culturally relevant music education is a simple but profound proposition. In order to teach a music education curriculum that is relevant to all students in America, we must teach American music and in order to teach American music honestly, and accurately, we must delve as deeply into its Africentric roots as we have its Eurocentric roots.

We’re so excited about the array of services we offer. We offer virtual and in-person professional development workshops for school districts and youth music organizations – locally and nationally. We create K-12 curricular materials, including band, orchestra, and chorus scores and parts, lesson plans, and online resources. The first BaobaoTree Edition, Scott Joplin’s “A Real Slow Drag” for concert band, will be published by GIA this fall. Also due this fall is our first Teacher’s Guide, “Teaching Treemonisha.” In addition to the curricular materials we develop, we provide customized curriculum development services. For example, BaobaoTree recently completed a set of study guides for the National Association for Music Education (NAfME), to support teaching the Aretha Franklin biopic “Respect.

Finally, our nonprofit arm, SankofaSongs produces a Summer Institute which convenes experts and educators from around the country to support teachers’ learning and growth in applying Africentric music education principles. We just wrapped up our 2021 Summer Institute to glowing reviews from music educators across the nation and three countries. 100% of survey respondents said that they will change the way they teach and apply what they learned at the Summer Institute.

The key to our success is carrying out the Africentric values we teach at every level of the business – in our products and services, in our partnerships with universities and other organizations, and among our staff and contractors. These values include community, resilience, and joy!

What do you like and dislike about the city?
I love the vibrant wide-ranging live-music scene across the Research Triangle, plus the sense of community in Durham and the “big-city” amenities available in Raleigh. I least like the gentrification that seems to be driving re-segregation in many parts of the Triangle.

Contact Info:

• Email: [email protected]
• Website: http://baobaotreelearning.com and http://sankofasongs.org
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/georgiary.bledsoe/