Lara Pellegrinelli Named Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice Visiting Scholar

Journalist, scholar, and researcher Lara Pellegrinelli has been named a visiting scholar with the Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice (JGJ) for the 2025–2026 academic year. Earlier this summer, Pellegrinelli and the institute released the inaugural report, “Jazz Counts: Measuring the Jazz Faculty Gender Gap in Higher Education,” the first study of its kind to document gender disparity in jazz education. As a visiting scholar at Berklee, Pellegrinelli will lead programming and discussions related to the role of data in the movement for gender justice, working with Berklee students and faculty on solutions to this important issue. 

“I am honored to join Berklee this fall as a visiting scholar,” said Pellegrinelli. “Working with this institute on the Jazz Counts study and upcoming initiatives has been a joy. I look forward to all of the programming to come this semester—I am certain it will make an impact in the Berklee community and beyond.” 

Pellegrinelli is a freelance journalist and scholar with bylines in The New York Times and the Village Voice. Earlier this month, she was announced as the 2025–2026 Jazz Scholar of the Library of Congress. Musical America named her one of its top professionals of 2022.

Pellegrinelli was the commissioned writer for Miller Theatre at Columbia University and its Composer Portraits series from 2018 to 2023. She began reporting locally in New York for WNYC, producing segments for Soundcheck, its daily music talk show. She has been a contributor to NPR's arts coverage since 2008, reporting stories that have been heard on Morning Edition, All Things Considered, and Weekend Edition. From 2011 to 2014, she was the coordinator for educational outreach and audience development for NPR's Live from the Village Vanguard and wrote regularly for A Blog Supreme. In 2021, Pellegrinelli led a team of reporters in a data analysis of the NPR Music Jazz Critics Poll, resulting in the NPR Music feature "Equal at Last? Women in Jazz, By the Numbers."

An ethnomusicologist by training, Pellegrinelli received her doctorate in music from Harvard University. Her dissertation, "The Song Is Who? Locating Singers on the Jazz Scene," is the first ethnographic study of jazz singing. She is a faculty member at the Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University and the New School in New York City.  

“We are so excited to have Lara Pellegrinelli join us as a visiting scholar,” said Terri Lyne Carrington, founding and artistic director for the Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice (JGJ). “Lara is a tremendous example of the scholarship we hope to impart on our students and all who encounter JGJ. She will make a tremendous impact on our institution, and I look forward to seeing it unfold.”