Kay Norton
ASU Search
/themes/webspark/renovation/favicon.ico
Kay Norton (Ph.D. Musicology, University of Colorado-Boulder 1990) is Professor of Musicology in the School of Music. She researches music’s association with wellness, American sacred music, and music of the American South, and previously held faculty positions at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, and Brenau Women’s College (now University) in Georgia.

Norton’s interest in synthesizing musicology with research in the health sciences is exemplified in Singing and Wellness: Ancient Wisdom, Modern Proof (Routledge, 2016) and “How Music-Inspired Weeping Can Heal” (Journal of Medical Humanities, 2011). She is a Clinical Professor of Medical Humanities in the Creighton University School of Medicine (Phoenix campus), and has presented for international audiences at the Institute of Cognitive Neurology, Buenos Aires, Argentina (2020); International Association for Music and Medicine, Barcelona, Spain (2018); Neurosciences and Music VI, Boston (2017); Exploring the Mind through Music, Rice University (2016); and International Conference on Palliative Care, Montréal (2014). In 2009 and 2010, Norton led an interdisciplinary faculty team in designing an interactive website to provide caregivers with help in offering musical interventions to people who suffer from dementia. She was co-principle investigator in a grant-funded conference which featured collaborations among ASU’s School of Music and College of Nursing faculties, and internationally renowned scientists from outside ASU (2008). With Esther Morgan-Ellis, Norton co-edited the Oxford Handbook for Community Singing (forthcoming May 2024). In 47 chapters, authors exemplify community singing as an interdisciplinary field of study that encompasses diverse methodologies and objects of inquiry, and in the process bring together recent research from the fields that have historically engaged with the practice of group singing, including group dynamics, ethnomusicology, music history, music education, music therapy, community music, church music, music performance, sociology, political science, Latin American and North American studies, media studies, embodied psychology, theology, and philosophy.

As an Americanist musicologist, Norton's career-long specialization is hymnody, gospel, and sacred song. She is currently working on a contextualized biography of Sallie Martin, Black gospel pioneer (On the Road with Sallie Martin, Mother of Gospel Music, under contract, University of IL press, 2025). Other publications may be found in the Journal of the Society for American Music (2017), American Music (2003), and in festschriften honoring American music scholars Michael J. Budds (2020), John Graziano (2011), J. Bunker Clark (2007), and William K. Kearns (1999). She was lead curator of an interdisciplinary installation, "Dynamic Journey: Transformations of Slavery-era Spaces, Routes, and Sounds" (2007). Norton has presented her Americanist research at professional organizations including the Society for American Music (where she was Vice President for two terms), American Musicological Society, American Folklore Society, and the Society for Ethnomusicology.

Norton teaches courses and seminars on Music and the Brain, Gender and Music, Aesthetics of Music, 1920s American Music, and 19th-century Music.

BOOKS

1. *Singing and Wellness: Ancient Wisdom, Modern Proof. Routledge, 2016.

“Norton’s compelling research shows a deeply engaged scholar ably traversing cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary perspectives in search of answers to the question of how and why singing affects us so profoundly.” —Sarah Schmalenberger, University of St. Thomas

“Norton’s stimulating book draws on both scientific and humanistic disciplines to explain why humans sing and the effects this has on their nature, culture, and wellbeing. With its emphasis on the promotion of health through song it is set to become essential reading for anyone interested in this topic.”—Penelope Gouk, University of Manchester

“Keeping the singing voice at the center, Singing and Wellbeing: Ancient Wisdom, Modern Proof is diagnostic, prescriptive, historically grounded, philosophically attuned, and beautifully pitched.”—Nina Eidsheim, University of California, Los Angeles

2. *Baptist Offspring, Southern Midwife—Mercer’s Cluster of Spiritual Songs (1810): A Study in American Hymnody. Warren, MI: Harmonie Park Press, 2002.

“[Norton] has systematically measured it, analyzed its components and helped us focus on it in such a waythat it shines surprisingly clearer and brighter for all of us.” Mary Louise VanDyke, Bulletin of the Society for American Music 28, no. 2 (summer 2002): 29.

“While retaining standard hymnological inquiries into biographical, bibliographical, and literary matters, Norton sets those interests in a much wider context that also includes race, class, gender, religious and regional history, and musical resources. . . . That Norton has applied such an agenda to Mercer’s text is an important and salutary development in hymnological studies because it aligns the field more closely with contemporary historical and literary methods.” Stephen A. Marini, Notes, the Quarterly Journal of the Music Library Association (June 2003): 884-86.

“Since The Cluster has no music, Norton has created a tune repertory reflective of its musical environment by studying the history of each hymn text and matching them to possible tunes. . . . Kay Norton is to be commended.” Harry Eskew, American Music 23, no. 1 (spring 2005), 108-09.

“Most hymnologists, musicologists, and church musicians never even ask the question about where tunes come from. Kay Norton not only pondered this question but came up with the answer.” C. Edward Spann, Baptist History and Heritage (Summer/Fall 2003): 112-113.

3. *Normand Lockwood: His Life and Music. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1993.

“A welcome book . . . this may be the only book that will be published on this important, oft neglected composer, and there is much of value in it. Recommended to all large academic libraries and to all libraries supporting a music department.” J. L. Patterson, Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries 31, no. 5 (January 1994).

“Norton has constructed an insightful profile of her subject’s personality as a composer, teacher, and human being . . . perhaps the crowning achievement of Norton’s research is the concluding section which is a catalogue of Lockwood’s complete oeuvre, including pieces that remain in manuscript.” Richard L. Bobo, Sonneck Society Bulletin (former name of the Bulletin of the Society for American Music) 20, no. 2 (summer 1994): 35.

BOOK CHAPTERS

*“How a Hymn Captured a Cherokee Community’s Destiny,” in Music, American Made: Essays in Honor of John Graziano. ed. John Koegel. 629-646. Sterling Heights, MI: Harmonie Park Press, 2011.

*"Anne Geddes Gilchrist, George Pullen Jackson, and American Sacred Folksong,” in On Bunker's Hill: Essays on Music in Memory of J. Bunker Clark. William A. Everett and Paul Laird, eds., Harmonie Park Press, 2007.

*“Reading between the Lines: Slaves, Women, and Native Americans Reflected in a Southern Hymnal of 1810,” in “Singing the Lord's Song in a Strange Land”: Hymnody in the History of Denominations and Religious Movements. Religion and American Culture Series, Tuscaloosa, AL: Univ. of Alabama Press, 2003.

"Musical Emissary in America: Nadia Boulanger, Normand Lockwood, and American Musical Pedagogy," in Vistas of American Music: Essays in Honor of William K. Kearns, ed. Susan K. Porter and John Graziano, 321-33. Warren, MI: Harmonie Park Press, 1999.

ARTICLES

“‘Yes, [Gospel] Is Real’: Half a Century with Chicago’s Martin and Morris Company,” Journal of the Society for American Music11.4 (fall 2017): 420-451.

*”How Music-Inspired Weeping Can Heal.” Journal of Medical Humanities, Journal of Medical Humanities 32/3 (September 2011): 231-43.

*”Where Is Thy Sting? Images of Death in Frontier America’s Hymns.” The Hymn (Journal of the Hymn Society of U. S. and Canada) 57, no. 3 (fall 2006): 7-15.

*“Who Lost the South?” American Music 21, no. 4 (Winter 2003): 389-409.

“Normand Lockwood (1906-2002): A Singular Composer’s Life,” American Music Research Center Journal 12 (2002): 93-97.

*(co-authored with Lori R. Hetzel), "Women Collegiate Choral Conductors: Status and Perspectives," College Music Symposium 33/34 (1993-94): 23-40.

"Choral Music During the 1930s," Am. Music Research Center Journal 1 (1991): 55-57.

"The Normand Lockwood Archive and An Overview of His Career," American Music Research Center Journal 1 (1991): 73-74.

*"Normand Lockwood and American Academic Composition," International Federation for Choral Music Bulletin 10, no. 4 (July 1991): 5-8.

*"The Société Nationale de Musique: A Cradle and Sanctuary of French Art," Music Research Forum 4, no. 1 (spring 1989): 11-23.

ENCYCLOPEDIA ENTRIES

*”Southeast.” Grove Dictionary of American Music, 2nd ed. Oxford University Press, 2013. Soon to be uploaded to Grove Music Online. (1,800 words)

“Mercer, Jesse.” Grove Dictionary of American Music, 2nd ed. Oxford University Press, 2013. Soon to be uploaded to Grove Music Online.

"Lockwood, Normand." Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press, 2006.

COMMENTS AND REPORTS

(As chair of program committee) “Reflections: Kansas City Annual Meeting,” The College Music Society Newsletter (January 2003): 2-4; and “A Warm Kansas City Welcome,” The College Music Society Newsletter (September 2002): 1, 4.

(co-authored with Cindy McTee), “Gender and Music Composition: A Personal Perspective.” Society for American Music Bulletin 25, no. 2 (1999): 40-41, 47.

“Libby Larsen: 1998 Sonneck Honorary Member,” Conference Report, Sonneck Society for American Music Bulletin 24, no. 2 (summer 1998): 41.

“Interest Group Report, Research on Gender and American Music,” Sonneck Society for American Music Bulletin 24, no. 2 (summer 1998): 44-45.

“24th Annual Conference February 18-22, 1998—Kansas City, MO,” Sonneck Society for American Music Conference Flyer (September 1997): 1.

"American Music Performances Lead to Re-Discovery of Roots," Sonneck Society Bulletin 20, no. 1 (spring 1994): 5-6.

PUBLISHED REVIEWS

Happy Land and The Arkansas Traveler Cds, (music referenced in the Laura Ingalls Wilder Little House books), Journal of the Society for American Music 1, no. 4 (winter 2007): 539-40.

Contemporary Anthology of Music by Women, ed. James R. Briscoe (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997). Society of American Music Bulletin 26, nos. 2/3 (summer/fall 2000): 76.

We’ll Shout and Sing Hosanna: Essays on Church Music in Honor of William J. Reynolds, ed. David W. Music (Fort Worth: School of Church Music, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1998). Society of American Music Bulletin 25, no. 2 (summer 1999): 63.

Recording: Music for Martha Graham III: Norman Dello Joio, Seraphic Dialogues. Exaltation of Larks. Diversion of Angels. Atlantic Symphonietta. Koch International Classics 3-7167-2H1. American Music 16, no. 3 (fall 1998): 366-68.

Jerome Moross, Symphony No. 1, The Last Judgment; Variations on a Waltz for Orchestra. London Symphony Orch., cond. JoAnn Falletta. Koch International Classics 3-7188-2H1. American Music 16, no. 1 (spr 1998): 113-14.

With An Air Debonair: Musical Theatre in America, 1785-1815, by Susan L. Porter, for The Eighteenth Century: A Current Bibliography 15 (1996).

(combined) Claude Debussy: A Guide to Research by James R. Briscoe (Garland, 1990), Claude Debussy: “Pelléas et Mélisande” by Roger Nichols and Richard Langham Smith (Cambridge, 1989), The Music of Claude Debussy by Richard S. Parks (Yale, 1989), and Ravel According to Ravel by Vlado Perlemuter and Hélène Jourdan-Morhange, trans. Frances Tanner (London: Kahl and Averill, 1988) Music Library Association Notes 47, no. 4 (June 1991): 1137-39.

(combined) Cécile Chaminade: A Bio-bibliography by Marcia J. Citron and Jean Langlais: A Bio-bibliography by Kathleen Thomerson (both Greenwood, 1988), Music Library Association Notes 47, no. 3 (March 1991): 760-62.

CONFERENCE Presentations, International

*Paper, “Translating Neuroscientific Concepts Like the Mirror Neuron System for Graduate Music Majors,” International Association of Music and Medicine, Barcelona, Spain, 7-10 June 2018.

“The Martin and Morris Studio (1940-1993): A Landmark in Black Gospel Music Publishing,” Gospel Music Interest Group, Society for American Music Annual Conference, Montreal, Quebec, 22-26 March 2017.

*Research poster, “Offering Music to Terminally Ill Patients: Cautions and Potential Benefits,” 20th International Congress on Palliative Care, Palliative Care McGill (University), Montréal, Quebec, September 2014.

*“Cherokee Baptist Hymn” accepted for 5th Int’l Conference on Baptist Studies, Whitley College, Melbourne, Australia, July 2009.

(Invited), London, England, “Dynamic Journey: Transformation of Slavery-era Spaces, Routes, and Sounds,” a multi-media music and art installation (see Funded Grants section). Created with Stephen Marc and Angelita D. Reyes. Joint meeting of two groups at the University of London—Institute of Musical Research at the School of Advanced Study, and Institute for the Study of the Americas. Invited by Katharine Ellis, Director of UL’s Institute of Musical Research. May 2008.

*“‘Where is Thy Sting?’: Reflections on Death in Colonial America’s Hymns,” Conference, Music & Death in the Eighteenth Century, Institute of Advanced Musical Studies (IAMS), 8-9 February 2003, King’s College London, England.

*“‘From the Braes o’Balquhidder’ to the Sacred Harp: Anne Geddes Gilchrist, George Pullen Jackson, and American Sacred Music,” International Conference of the College Music Society, 10 July 2001, Limerick, Ireland.

*“Who Lost the South? Correcting the History of American Hymnody,” “MusicalIntersections” Conference of 14 Scholarly Societies in Music, Society for American Music, 2 November 2000, Toronto, Ontario.

CONFERENCE PAPERS, National

Paper, “Using Aesthetics to Help Students Recognize the Long Reach of Romanticism in Music,” North American Conference on Nineteenth-Century Music, 7-9 June 2017, Nashville, TN.

Conference Fellow, “Singing and Wellbeing: Ancient Wisdom, Modern Proof,” Exploring the Mind through Music Conference, sponsored by the National Science Foundation, Houston Methodist Hospital, and Rice University, 6-10 June 2016, Houston.

Guest Speaker, “The Martin and Morris Music Publishing Company, 1940-1993),” Gospel Music Interest Group, Society for American Music Annual Meeting, 22-26 March 2017, Montréal, Quebec.

*“A Model for Synthesis in Gospel Music Research,” for Seminar “What Is Gospel Music?” Annual Conference of the Society for American Music, Lancaster, PA, March 2014.

Keynote address and paper, “Neural Mapping and Brain Chemistry: How Singing is Good for You,” Your Brain Needs Music Symposium, American Music Research Center, College of Music, University of Colorado, Boulder, 2013.

“Mercer’s 1810 Cluster Hymnal: Transmitting the Past and Shaping the Future,” based on my 2003 book, Southeastern Division, American Guild of Organists, Columbia, SC, 2013.

*“New Evidence that Singing Is Good for You,” Annual Conference of The College Music Society, Richmond, VA, 2011.

*“Womb to Tomb: Science, Music, and the Mother’s Voice.” 20th Anniversary Feminist Theory and Music Conference, Herberger Institute School of Music, 2011.

*Poster Presentation, “Dynamic Journey: Transformation of Slavery-era Spaces, Routes, and Sounds,” a multi-media music and art installation. Created with ASU Faculty Stephen Marc and Angelita D. Reyes. Annual Conference of the Society for American Music, Denver, CO, 2009.

*Keynote address and paper, “Only When I Sing Do I Feel Loved,” (A Medical Humanities Presentation on Music’s Benefits), Music and Health in America Symposium, American Music Research Center, College of Music, University of Colorado, Boulder, 2007.

“The Music of Slavery and Anti-slavery: Researching and Teaching Hymnology,” Slavery and Anti-Slavery: A New Teaching Workshop, Arizona State University Department of English, 2006.

*“‘Slight tinctures of skin shall no longer engage’: How the Tinsawattee School Defied Its Mission,” (paper on Native American hymn singing in 19th-century Georgia), Annual Conference of the Society for Ethnomusicology, Atlanta, 2005.

* “Normand Lockwood’s Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking,” performance conducted by Gregory Gentry, lecture by Kay Norton, Annual Conference of the Society for American Music, Cleveland, OH, 2004

*“‘From the Braes o’Balquhidder’ to the Sacred Harp: Anne Geddes Gilchrist, George Pullen Jackson, and American Sacred Music,” Annual Meeting, American Folklore Society, Albuquerque, NM, 2003

* “Reading between the Lines—Slaves, Women, and Native Americans Reflected in a Southern Hymnal of 1810,” Hymnody in American Protestantism Conference, Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals, Wheaton College, 2000

* “Deconstructing the Apostle Paul: Women and Music in Early Nineteenth-Century Southern Worship,” Rocky Mountain Chapter, American Musicological Society, Tempe, Arizona, 2000

*“Return at 5280 Feet: Normand Lockwood’s Three University of Denver Operas,” Annual Meeting of the College Music Society, Denver, 1999

“Mercer’s Cluster of Spiritual Songs (1810): The Interpretation of an Artifact,” University of Hawai’I, Manoa, 1997

(joint conference lecturer) with Gary W. Hill (conductor) and Alison Smith (practitioner, Alexander Technique), “Healing in Humanities: Music Hath Charms to Soothe the Savage Breast,” Annual Healing/Humanities Conf., UMKC School of Medicine, 1997

*“Reflections on the Surface of Time: Normand Lockwood at 90,” Rocky Mountain Chapter, College Music Society, Colorado Springs, CO, 1996

*“Mercer’s Cluster: Baptist Offspring and Southern Midwife,” Annual Meeting, Sonneck Society for American Music, Washington, DC, 1996

*"Dissenters in The Most Delightful Country of the Universe: Baptists in Georgia, 1733- 1793," Annual Meeting, College Music Society, Savannah, 1994

*"Chopin's Third Ballade: A Manifestation of the Romantic Journey," Annual Meeting of Music Theory Midwest, Kansas City, 1991

*"Developing the Concept Abstract with Regard to Twentieth-Century Music," Annual Meeting of the College Music Society, Washington, DC, 1990

"Choral Music in the 1930s" for symposium "Why American Music?," Opening of the American Music Research Center at the University of Colorado, Boulder, 1990

*"The Société Nationale de Musique: A Cradle and Sanctuary of French Art," Western Regional Meeting of the American Musicological Society, 1988

INVITED PRESENTATIONS AND PERFORMANCES

Invited Speaker, “Womb to Tomb: Singing, Science, and the Mother’s Voice,” Rice University Medical Humanities Conference, 12 November 2016, Houston.

Invited Speaker, “Singing and Wellbeing,” Eastman-Rochester Organ Initiative, Eastman School of Music, 26-28 October 2016, Rochester, NY.

Keynote speaker, Longyear Colloquium Series, John Jacob Niles Center for American Music, University of Kentucky, March 2012. Presentation title: “They Believed, Belonged, and Bloomed through American Sacred Song"

Presenter, Arizona Academic Decathlon, “1930s American Music,” ASU, 6 November 2010; “Music of the Civil War,” ASU, 3 November 2007.

Keynote speaker, “Re-Fusing D-Vision,” Artists & Academics United for Change Conference, English Club, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, ASU, 13 November 2009.

Director Todd Graff used a clip from “My Country ‘Tis of Thee” which I conducted,

http://antislavery.eserver.org/video/antislaveryensemble/arizona-state-university-antislavery-ensemble.html/ in the film BANDSLAM produced by Walden. Film released 14 August 2009. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0976222/

Research poster, “How Negative Emotion Expressed in Music Can Heal,” Second Mayo Clinic/ASU Research Symposium, Biodesign Institute, Arizona State University, 4 February 2006.

__________. Innovations in Medical Education Event and The Bright Idea Network, University of Arizona College of Medicine, Phoenix, 19 April 2006.

Lecture, “Writing Lyrics as Therapy: ‘The Blues Is the Truth,’” Best Practices of Medical Educators Series, University of Arizona Health Sciences Center, 19 January 2006.

Scholarly performance, Rehearsed, conducted, co-produced the ASU Antislavery Ensemble in performance and video recording of hymns from Jairus Lincoln’s Antislavery Melodies (1843). ). Joint project of Joe Lockard and Kristen Larue (ASU English Department) and various singers from ASU English, ASU School of Music, and ASU School of Nursing. View and hear at http://antislavery.eserver.org/video/antislaveryensemble

Interviewed Pam Helms (granddaughter of folklorist George Pullen Jackson—subject of two articles of mine) and perusal of Jackson’s archival materials in her possession, Atlanta, 2005.

Lecture, “How Negative Emotion Expressed in Music Can Heal,” Best Practices of Medical Educators Series, University of Arizona Health Sciences Center, 13 January 2005.

International residency Lectures on "Ancestors of Jazz" and "American Music after Three 20th-Century Wars" at the Conservatory of Music in Oostende and at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Ghent, both in Belgium, 11-14 October 2004.

National residency “Seminar on Music in the Life of the South,” University of Alabama, 5-7 April 2000, Tuscaloosa. Public lecture, “Deconstructing the Apostle Paul: A True Story of Women, Church, and Music in the Antebellum South.” Seminar, “Who Lost the South? Understanding (and Correcting) the History of American Hymnody.” Seminar, “Primitive Baptist Musical Traditions.”

Consultant for American music, PBS series “The American Experience” Consultant to Rena Kosersky, Public Broadcasting System, November 2002. Series titled “The Last Battle of the Civil War” (scheduled airing January 2004). Reconstruction period hymns popular with white and black Americans. [Rena Kosersky has been Archival Music Supervisor for such PBS “American Experience” programs as “Abraham and Mary Lincoln: A House Divided” and “The Jubilee Singers.”]

Lecture, “The Blues is the Truth: Healing and Music,” Spring Meeting of the Central Group on Educational Affairs, Association of American Medical Colleges, Kansas City, 26 March 1999. (piano/voice)

Lecturer/pianist, “Normand Lockwood’s To Margarita Debayle,” Rocky Mountain Chapter, College Music Society, 30 March 1996, Colorado Springs, CO (lecturer and pianist)

Lecturer, conductor, "Exploring the Base of the Iceberg: Some Unpublished Works of Normand Lockwood," Annual Convention, Music Teachers National Association, 1992, Milwaukee, WI