Judith Cook Tucker

Adjunct Instructor of Music
World Music in the Classroom

Judith Cook Tucker, [BA Magna Cum Laude NYU (Anthropology/Journalism); MA Wesleyan University, CT (Ethnomusicology/Music Ed concentrating on the music of Ghana and Zimbabwe)] is a pioneer in the field of world music for the classroom. She is publisher and editor-in-chief of World Music Press, (www.worldmusicpress.com) which she founded in 1985 to provide authentic, in-depth and accessible world music resources for educators, and co-founder and president of the newly organized (non-profit) Connecticut Folklife Project, Inc. (www.ctfolklife.org)

Judith is also the lead multicultural consultant for Macmillan/McGraw-Hill’s music textbooks; has written articles on multicultural music for the Music Educator’s Journal, and for almost every issue of Music K-8 Magazine for more than ten years; and has served two terms as the CT-ACDA Ethnic/ Multicultural R&S Chair.

She has led many workshops in world music at national and regional conferences and in-service sessions including: AOSA, ACDA, MENC, KESNE, KONY, KOA, SEM, CMEA, CMS, and twenty-five states.

Judith is the co-author of Let Your Voice Be Heard! Songs from Ghana and Zimbabwe (with Abraham Kobena Adzenyah and Dumisani Maraire) and Roots and Branches: A Legacy of Multicultural Music for Children. She is the composer of “Amigos,” (performed at the First International Choral Festival of Havana, Cuba and a 1993 World’s Largest Concert selection), “Yonder Come Day” and other songs for young choirs. She has been a folk and bluegrass musician (guitar) and Appalachian dulcimer builder and player, and performed with the group Entropy Service, legendary in the Northwest in the early 1970s. She sings alto and tenor in the Danbury Concert Chorus.

In 1998 she was named Arts Advocate of the Year by the Connecticut MEA, and was issued an Official Citation by the CT General Assembly for her “distinguished contributions to music education” over a period of twenty years. She can be reached at Judith@worldmusicpress.com.