JoVia Armstrong Named 2023 Ucross and Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice Announce Fellow

The Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice and Ucross announced today that acclaimed musician, composer, and producer Dr. JoVia Armstrong of Charlottesville, Virginia, is the 2023 recipient of the Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice Partnership at Ucross award. Pianist Shamie Royston received the inaugural award last June. 

Created in 2022 through the vision of Kate Schutt B.M. ’03, a Ucross alumna and trustee who studied jazz guitar at Berklee, the joint music fellowship is intended to promote equity in the jazz field by providing a woman who is a jazz musician or composer with an artist residency of up to two weeks. The residency includes uninterrupted time, studio space, living accommodations, meals by a professional chef, and the experience of the majestic High Plains on Ucross’s historic 20,000-acre ranch in northern Wyoming. The award also includes a $2,000 stipend. 

Armstrong, the second-ever recipient of the fellowship, is an award-winning percussionist, educator, sound artist, composer, and producer, as well as an assistant professor of music at the University of Virginia. Her work fuses various genres, including experimental hip-hop, improvisational jazz and technology, with concepts from Black studies, contemplative science, feminism, and environmental studies. She conducted her residency in late April.

“My stay at Ucross gave me the time and space to work on compositions for upcoming projects without outside distractions,” said Armstrong. “The live/work space allowed me to put my phone on ‘do not disturb,’ work a few hours, and then sit on a comfortable couch to read or even nap after hours of heavy creative thinking. I would repeat the process throughout the day. This way of creating feels better than working under stressful conditions where I'm working against time, or I have a lack of space and resources.”

“Ucross was honored to welcome JoVia Armstrong to Wyoming to celebrate her achievements and support her creative process,” said William Belcher, president of Ucross. “We look forward to continuing to partner with the Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice to champion women in jazz by providing time and space for the creation of new work.”

In 2015, Armstrong was named Best Black Female Percussionist of the Year by the Black Women in Jazz Awards. Between recording and touring internationally, she has performed with groups and artists such as Omar, El DeBarge, Les Nubians, Maysa, Eric Roberson, Frank McComb, Rahsaan Patterson, Black Earth Ensemble, and Musique Noire. Armstrong serves as the secretary for the world-renowned Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), and is endorsed by Sabian, QSC, and GonBops. The Antidote Suite, an album deriving from her dissertation work featuring her group Eunoia Society, received critical acclaim in JAZZIZ, Down Beat, JazzTimes, and the New York Times, among others.

“It is my honor to award Dr. JoVia Armstrong an artistic residency as part of the Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice’s partnership with Ucross,” said Terri Lyne Carrington, founder and artistic director of the Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice. “Dr. Armstrong is a tremendous percussionist, artist, producer, and educator—someone we can all learn from and view as an example of the power and inspiration that can happen when scholarship and creativity in music merge. I cannot wait to see the results of her residency and all that we will learn from it.”

Learn more about the Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice.

Ucross

Located in northeast Wyoming in the foothills of the Bighorn Mountains, Ucross fosters the creative spirit of deeply committed artists and groups by providing uninterrupted time, studio space, living accommodations, and the experience of the majestic High Plains, while serving as a responsible steward of its 20,000-acre ranch. Residencies are awarded to 100 artists each year. Ten artists are in residence at one time, typically a mix of visual artists, writers, composers, and choreographers.

Since the residency program began in 1983, Ucross has supported nearly 2,600 artists, including such distinguished fellows as Annie Proulx, Terry Tempest Williams, Elizabeth Gilbert, Ann Patchett, Anthony Hernandez, and Tayari Jones. National Book Award winners Susan Choi, Sigrid Nunez, and Sarah M. Broom have been residents, as have Academy Award and Tony winners Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, Emmy Award winner Billy Porter, recent Pulitzer Prize winners Michael R. Jackson and Colson Whitehead, and current United States Poet Laureate Joy Harjo.

Ucross participates in more than a dozen creative partnerships with national organizations that enhance its ability to support outstanding individual artists with residencies. National partners include the Sundance Institute, the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Fiction, the Whiting Foundation, the Ford Family Foundation, the Herb Alpert Award in the Arts, the Alley Theatre, UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance, Yale University, the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University, Cave Canem, the Blank Theatre (Los Angeles), and the Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice.