Laura Risk

Laura Risk is Assistant Professor of Music and Culture in the Department of Arts, Culture and Media at the University of Toronto Scarborough, with a graduate cross-appointment at the Faculty of Music at the University of Toronto. Her research examines the formation of musical genres and the mechanics of innovation within aural musical communities, with a focus on traditional music from Quebec. More recently, she has been researching the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on musicians and the musical economy. She has published articles in Ethnomusicology, MUSICultures, and Critical Studies in Improvisation, and is co-editor of a recent triple special issue on “Improvisation, Musical Communities, and the COVID-19 Pandemic” for Critical Studies in Improvisation. Her writings have also appeared in The Globe and Mail and Strings Magazine.