Rate My Professor Lydia Warren

Dr. Lydia Warren serves as Director of the Frank and Jane Gabor West Virginia Folklife Center at Fairmont State University, a position she assumed in November 2022. Her academic background includes a Ph.D. in Critical and Comparative Music Studies from the University of Virginia in 2021, a B.A. in Music from Smith College in 2014, a Five College Consortium Certificate in Ethnomusicology, and an A.S. in Music from Middlesex Community College in 2011. Prior appointments encompass Director of the Morton Museum of Collierville History in Collierville, Tennessee from January 2020 to September 2021, Pre-Award Coordinator at the University of Memphis from September 2021 to October 2022, Teaching Assistant at the University of Virginia from August 2014 to December 2017, and Instructor and Ensemble Leader at the Real School for Music in Burlington, Massachusetts from January 2009 to August 2013. Warren has facilitated over $5 million in grant funds and served as a panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts, USArtists International, and others.

Warren's scholarly work examines musical labor, tourism's effects on music communities, and Appalachian folklife. Key publications include the chapter “Tips, Tourists, and Musical Labor on Beale Street” in The Palgrave Handbook of Critical Music Industry Studies (2024), derived from her dissertation research, and contributions to West Virginia Public Broadcasting, YNST Magazine, and a book review in the Journal of the Society for American Music (2023). She received the Gerald E. and Corinne L. Parsons Fund Award for Ethnology from the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress in 2023 for her project on preserving the West Virginia hammered dulcimer tradition. Additional honors include the Leadership in the Arts Award from the Fairmont Arts and Humanities Commission in 2025 and the West Virginia Community Development Hub Champions for Change Fellowship in 2024. At Fairmont State University, she teaches Folklore Capstone and Music Business courses, curates programming such as music concerts and folk arts workshops, and leads grant-funded initiatives from the West Virginia Department of Arts, Culture and History. Warren has presented at the American Folklore Society, Appalachian Studies Association, and International Association for the Study of Popular Music conferences, delivered invited lectures at West Virginia University and the University of Memphis, and contributes to boards including the WV Humanities Council and Marion County Convention and Visitors Bureau.