Mary Ellen Junda, Emeritus Professor of Music at the University of Connecticut, is recognized as an innovative educator, conductor, scholar and recording artist. Her teaching, research and creative activity centers on social justice, social consciousness, culture and song.

Dr. Junda is founding director of UConntabile, the university’s treble chorus, and Earthtones, the world music vocal ensemble. Earthtones’ unique multi-media performances have included the music, history and culture of Trinidad and Tobago, the Civil Rights Movement, Vietnam War Era, Gullah Geechee people, Irish-American experience, Work Songs, Woodstock Music Festival and Eastern Orthodox liturgical music. Dr. Junda was awarded the Howard Foundation Fellowship in Music Performance from Brown University in recognition of her exemplary choral musicianship and was honored to conduct the OAKE National Youth Choir in 2002 and 2022. Her Singing with Treblemakers recordings earned four Parents’ Choice Awards, including a coveted Parents’ Choice Classic Award, and continue to be recognized globally as models of children’s vocal artistry on several music streaming services.

Dr. Junda developed Sing and Shout! A History of America in Song as a unique university general education academic course that integrates history and culture with communal singing and song-writing. As a Summer Scholar for the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Institute on Global Music and Culture she further refined her pedagogy, with subsequent articles featured in The Choral Journal, General Music Today and College Music Symposium, and as co-author in the International Journal of Education and the Arts.

Dr. Junda was co-director for four NEH Landmarks in American History and Culture Programs, Gullah Voices: Traditions and Transformations (awarded $760,000); co-author of the lead chapter in Songs of Social Protest: International Perspectives; and co-author of an article in International Journal of Critical Cultural Studies. Recent conference presentations include the 2023 OAKE National Conference; 2021 IKS Conference, 2020 ACDA Eastern Division Conference; 2019 OAKE Eastern Division Conference; 2019 Choral Symposium: Relevance; College Music Society National Conference; International Symposium for Singing, Canada; Songs of Social Protest, Ireland; and Protest Songs and Social Justice, Portugal.

Dr. Junda earned a B.M. magna cum laude from the University of Hartford, M.M.Ed from Holy Names University and an Ed.M. and Ed.D. from Teachers College, Columbia University. She served as president of UConn-AAUP from 2020-2022, working to ensure that 1800+ faculty retain their rights to academic freedom.

Janice Allen-Brooks was born in Philadelphia, and was raised in Roxbury, MA which was a predominantly Jewish community during the 50’s and early 60’s. Her father was a machinist whose job transferred him to Boston where he, his wife, and their six children resided in a beautiful 8 bedroom victorian on Gaston Street. Janice and her siblings were quickly enrolled in the local schools and neighborhood programs like Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts.

Church which was Janice’s family’s favorite place to be. At the Blue Hill Christian Center they learned the wonderfully empowering “Freedom Songs”. They were all in the Freedom Choir led by the Reverend Doctor Virgil Woods’ wife. Her family was so fortunate to be able to work with Rev. Woods who worked with Dr, Martin Luther King. They were involved with singing in many Freedom Rallies throughout Massachusetts. “The words and the movements as we sang these empowering songs put so much joy in my heart. This is when my love for music started to accelerate,” remembers Janice. Being a child of the Civil Rights movement was a huge part of not only Janice’s music career but also of her growth, development and awareness of how strong and resilient her people were.

Music became her career. After graduating from Berklee College of Music and the Kodály Music Training Institute, she taught, sang, and performed with such greats as Duke Ellington, Max Roach, Billy Taylor, Babatunde Olatunji, and Ms. Bessie Jones, at the Elma Lewis School of Fine Arts in Roxbury. She went on to teach in several Boston Public Schools through KMTI and then to the Park School where she taught for 33 years. Her choir “Inspirational Freedom Choir” which was named after her childhood choir performed at many venues such as the “Esplanade” for Nelson Mandela, The “White House” for Michelle and Barack Obama, “Faneuil Hall,” and many many charities over the years. Not only has Janice conducted many children and adult choirs but she feels doubly fortunate to have been a featured soloist in many productions; Black Nativity, Wheelock Family Theater productions, and the Revels to name a few.

As a matter of fact, Janice served as Miss Bessie Jones’ understudy during the run of “Sea Islands Revel” as Miss Bessie was getting up in age.

Janice has traveled nationally and internationally throughout Japan and West Africa with her one woman show as a “songteller”, with concerts, workshops and teacher training.