Dawn Norfleet

Dr. Norfleet hails from a musical family. Both her parents were professional musicians when they moved to the Los Angeles area. Her brother Michael is a respected keyboardist, producer, and singer. Dawn started singing at five, took up the flute in the fourth grade, briefly played saxophone in the high school jazz band, and was improvising and composing by the time she was fifteen.  After graduating from Wellesley College, she earned her M.A. in Music Composition and a Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology at Columbia University, with a focus on African-American Music. Inspired and intrigued by the improvisational freestyle element in rap music, Norfleet’s dissertation, Hip-Hop Culture in New York City: The Role of Verbal-Musical Performance Defining Community, was lauded by scholar Kevin C. Holt as, “one of the first studies of Hip-Hop to incorporate extensive ethnography…” Concurrent with her academic studies, she also immersed herself in the New York jazz scene before returning to the Los Angeles are. Her writings have appeared in several publications including Quarterly Black Book Review, Stagebill, Black Enterprise, and in the scholarly reference books, African American Music: A Handbook, and The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music: The United States and Canada.

As an ensemble leader, Norfleet has performed with many accomplished musicians including Andy Milne, Bertha Hope, Greg Manning, Helen Sung, Lonnie Plaxico, Marcus Baylor, Marvin “Smitty” Smith, and Vijay Iyer. In Los Angeles, she has performed her eclectic jazz originals at LA Philharmonic’s Noon to Midnight Festival, Jazz at LACMA, Grammy Museum, Skirball Cultural Center, and California African American Museum.  She also recorded with Kamasi Washington and performed as a choral vocalist at Coachella, The Hollywood Bowl, and Walt Disney Concert Hall. She also performed with the brilliant musical visionaries, Greg Tate, David Ornette Cherry, and Sunship Theus, and was a chorister in Wynton Marsalis’ epic orchestral jazz masterpiece, All Rise! at the Hollywood Bowl.

Dr. Norfleet is also a world-class composer of broad cosmopolitan and global influences, as evidenced by her first commission: a 2020 American Composers Orchestra project featuring the internationally-renowned, Brazilian-American musician, Clarice Assad.  The brilliant vocalist-pianist virtually premiered Norfleet’s vocal percussion-powered “Vapayu (Voice and Piano As Yet Untitled)”, and “A Meditation,” a reflective and melodious opus. After being awarded a Chou Wen-chung Fellow by the Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music (GLFCAM) for two consecutive years, Dr. Norfleet was awarded numerous GLFCAM co-commissions, subsequently. Other commissions and premieres include: pianist Liza Stepanova Ensemble For These Times (May 2024), “Troubled Water: Music by Women Composers,” (January 2023); the Caines School of the Arts at Utah State University’s “Crossing Borders Festival” (March 2023) and the Chamber Orchestra at St. Matthew’s, in Pacific Palisades (March 14, 2025).

Dr. Norfleet’s experiences as an instrumentalist, composer, and academic fuel her work as an educator. Currently, she is a member of the Jazz Studies Faculty at the University of California, Irvine where she also teaches a writing enrichment course on the topic of hip-hop culture.  Additionally, she teaches a course in African American Music at UCLA. Her previous teaching positions include distinctions as the Albert Seay Distinguished Professor of Music at Colorado College, and Scholar-Artist in Residence at Grinnell College.  She was a lecturer at California State University, Pomona, University of California at San Diego, and Ramapo College of New Jersey. Maintaining her connection with youth in her community, she leads workshops for public school educators at Grand Vision Foundation’s Meet the Music program, The Music Center, Skirball Cultural Center, and Los Angeles County Museum of Art.  She has also presented lectures at Occidental College, University of California Davis, Washington State University, and Lewis and Clark College.

An artist dedicated to diversity, inclusion, and service, Dr. Norfleet mentors high school composers and musicians from underrepresented communities, via the Luna Composition Lab and as a Jazz Girl Day instructor at UCLA.  Since 2009, she has volunteered as a music mentor for NAACP’s national youth initiative for outstanding high school students, and serves as a member of the National Association of Negro Musician’s Los Angeles branch, The Georgia Laster Association of Musicians. Giving back to her alma mater, Wellesley, she was elected Class President (2022-2027) after serving a five-year term as Class Secretary.

The breadth and depth of Dr. Dawn’s musical artistry parallels the compelling complexity of today’s music, and it will influence the shape of that music to come.

For Booking and Score Inquiries, click here.

Degrees

Ph.D. – Ethnomusicology: African American Urban Music focus

M.Phil – Ethnomusicology: African American & East African Music focus

M.A. – Music Composition

B.A. – Wellesley College

Exchange Student - Wesleyan University

Commissioned Works & World Premieres

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“Dayclean” for String Quartet (ensemble TBA, 2026)*

“Before Day” for Violin and Cello, Utah State University, March 31, 2025*

“Trek of the Fantast” for the Chamber Orchestra at St. Matthews, March 14, 2025*

“Blues for Tovaangar” for Liza Stepanova, Music in May Festival, May 2024*

“And Pass” and “Her Lips Were Copper Wire” (Poems by Jean Toomer, 1897-1964) for Utah State University*

“Prólogo and Celestine” for Piano and Violin, Ensemble for These Times, January 2023

“Chicaneries for Solo Viola”, SPARC Grant and Calvin Green, April 2021

“Vapayu” and “A Meditation” for Voice and Piano (performed by Clarice Assad) for American Composers Orchestra, August 2020

“Prayer” based on text by Jean Toomer for unaccompanied choir and soprano solo, premeired by the Leigh Morris Chorale, St. Paul, MN. (Prize for Emerging Choral Composers) 2002

“Home of Champions” co-composed by Kevin Deane, City of Inglewood Arts Commission finalists, 2019.

*Co-commissioned by GLFCAM.

Performances & Readings

Seed for Orchestra (World Premiere) performed by the Bloomington Symphony Orchestra (World Premiere), 2020

From “Karintha”, for soprano and piano based on a poem by Jean Toomer.  Presented by Jessica Rivera, soprano and Molly Morkoski, piano. Oakland, CA December 2018

“Beehive”, based on poem by Jean Toomer.  Presented by Duo Cortona, Columbia, SC, October 2017

Seed for Orchestra (Reading).  Presented by American Composers Orchestra and the Jazz Composers Orchestra Institute, Miller Theater, New York, NY, 2016.

Publications: 

African American Music: an Introduction, “Hip-hop and Rap”, first and second editions (2006 and 2015).

Garland Encyclopedia of World Music: the United States and Canada, “Hip-hop and Rap” (2000)

Black Enterprise Magazine, “Building a Home Recording Studio and Turning a Profit”, feature article (December 1999)