Musician and professor Braxton Shelley

A gospel scholar shapes music theory.

Braxton Shelley sits at a keyboard

Braxton Shelley

Photograph courtesy of Braxton Shelley

When Braxton Shelley was five, he approached his church’s organist, fascinated by the man’s movement of hands and feet. The organist told Shelley, now assistant professor of music, to ask his grandmother to arrange lessons. She did. By nine, he was an accompanist at his church in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. At 15, he was promoted to minister of music at another church nearby—a kid instructing adults. But he earned their trust in rehearsals. “The central leadership capacity is listening,” he explains. “Listening to the folks you lead and having a sense of where they are, what they’re thinking, what they want, what they like.” He entered Duke in 2008, expecting to major in public policy and become a politician, but was instead gripped by music theory. It helped him translate his deep relationship with music into academic terms, but also made him realize how little attention the field paid to black gospel tradition. “There was this gap between the music I made—and that millions view as a primary devotional lexicon—and the academy, which had nothing to say about that.” As a Ph.D. student at the University of Chicago, he sought to fill that gap, writing the first dissertation to analyze gospel music as others would study Mozart symphonies. He also earned a master’s in divinity and was later ordained. “The practice [of ministry] helps me know what intellectual itches to pay attention to,” he says, “and the analysis helps me be a better practitioner.” He joined the faculty in 2017, at 26. “I kind of never got away from being too young for everything,” he jokes. His focus on listening is useful when leading student seminars in musicology, which he compares to playing a perpetual game of volleyball—always keeping the ball up. “I think it helps,” he says, “that I’m an improviser at heart.”

Read more articles by Jacob Sweet

You might also like

Bringing Korean Stories to Life

Composer Julia Riew writes the musicals she needed to see.

Thomas Andrew “Tom” Lehrer

The mathematician and satirist kept Harvard in his thoughts—and lyrics.

The Woman Who Rode Horses Into the Water

Scrapbooking a woman who rode horses into the sea

Most popular

How MAGA Went Mainstream at Harvard

Trump, TikTok, and the pandemic are reshaping Gen Z politics.

Harvard Panel Debunks the Population Implosion Myth

Public health professors parse the evidence surrounding falling U.S. birth rates.

Your Views on Harvard’s Standoff, Antisemitism, and More

Readers comment on the controversial July-August cover, authoritarianism, and scientific research.

Explore More From Current Issue

Renaissance portrait of young man thought to be Christoper Marlowe with light beard, wearing ornate black coat with gold buttons and red patterns.

Shakespeare’s Greatest Rival

Without Christopher Marlowe, there might not have been a Bard.

Room filled with furniture made from tightly rolled newspaper sheets.

A Paper House in Massachusetts

The 1920s Rockport cottage reflects resourceful ingenuity.

Man, standing in small group of people outside the courthouse, holding a sign that reads "HANDS OFF HARVARD" in red letters

Harvard’s Summer in Court

What Columbia’s settlement means for the University