The American Music Research Center at the University of Colorado Boulder has a new director, one the university hopes will take the center to the next level.

Michael Uy completed his first semester at CU Boulder as director of the AMRC this fall. Before that, he was an assistant dean and faculty member at Harvard University for seven years. He also completed a doctorate in historical musicology at Harvard.

“I think the AMRC is an incredibly important resource for our students and faculty as well as the broader Colorado public,” Uy said. “It has unique or incredibly rare collections that are not found elsewhere in the country or in the world.”

The AMRC holds archival collections on American music, including scores, recordings, personal papers and artifacts documenting the nation’s musical heritage.

It includes a collection from Otis Taylor’s career as a blues banjo artist and the roughly 1,400 boxes that make up the Glenn Miller archive.

John Davis, the dean of the College of Music, is excited about Uy and what he’ll bring to the AMRC.

“He’s in the early middle of his career, and I think he brings fresher ideas and broader perspectives than individuals later in their careers might,” Davis said.

Uy said he was drawn to the AMRC because the unique director position would allow him to engage in administrative, research and teaching work. The beautiful natural landscape of Boulder also appealed to him.

Most of his first semester has been learning and orientation, and Uy said he’s eager to start new initiatives for the AMRC. Initiatives are projects or ideas of ways to realize the AMRC’s missions. That mission is to support research, performance and preservation of all music with a focus on diversity. It’s also committed to public outreach and community engagement.

Uy is especially interested in initiatives surrounding scholarship on Indigenous music and analyzing different types of Indigenous music. Raven Chacon, a MacArthur Fellow and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer, will visit CU Boulder in February and participate in interviews,engage with students and discuss Indigenous music.

The center also is planning a week-long hip-hop workshop for students to work closely with a Grammy-nominated artist.

“I take a very broad understanding of American music,” Uy said. “(I view) American music as a kaleidoscope with many many diverse practices and cultures. I think that representing the full kaleidoscope our cultures here in this country is important to recognize, to celebrate, to support and document all of the music that is made here. These initiatives are some ways of doing that work.”

Uy also plans to allocate attention and resources to the 30% of the AMRC’s collections that remain unprocessed and inaccessible to outsiders.Davis said the AMRC is not only a historical center. It’s vibrant and multidirectional, aiming to further the future of music, music research, music performance, compositions and music scholarship.

“The AMRC sits right at that juxtaposition of the importance of the past and the need to address the future,” Davis said.

The AMRC holds events and programming not solely restricted to CU Boulder affiliates.

Uy is planning events that are open to the public and welcomes collaborations with local musicians and artists. For more information on the events and collections, visit colorado.edu/amrc.