Few radio stations can claim to have their own resident ethnomusicologist on staff, and on the air. Fortunately for Valley listeners, 90.7 KFSR is one of them, thanks to the work of 90.7 KFSR host and Fresno State music professor Dr. Hope Munro Smith. Every Wednesday afternoon, from 4:00pm - 6:00pm, Hope brings local listeners, (and those listening around the globe at kfsr.org) an intriguing and eclectic mix of "World Jazz" music from all corners of the earth, and especially the Afro-Caribbean music that she’s an expert in, calypso and soca, as well as the music of the steel band drum bands of Trinidad.
Interestingly enough,
Hope’s love of world music, and thus her eventual doctorate degree in
ethnomusicology from the University of Texas, is due to her love of
radio. As a DJ on station WRUV while studying as an undergraduate music
major at the University of Vermont, she was first exposed to the sounds
of world music from the Caribbean. "I think there’s something that’s
really infectious and joyful with those rhythms, and it’s something
that North Americans can relate to, listening to rock and pop music
growing up," says Munro Smith. "Radio just started out as something to
do as a music major, and I’ve done it ever since."
 Hope went on to work at
Dartmouth University’s WFRD in the summers, near her home, and would
later take her love of world music and radio to Texas, where she hosted
shows on stations KVRX and NPR affiliate KUT, both in Austin at the
University of Texas. While working on her doctorate degree, Hope
traveled to the Caribbean, doing fieldwork in Trinidad and Tobago from
1998-1999. In addition to focusing on the calypso and soca, her work
also explores the involvement of women musicians in these musical
practices and how music and gender intersect in this cultural
environment. She is particularly interested in how popular music helps
people form key symbols of cultural identity as well as overcoming
economic and gender-based oppression. She received her PhD in 2001.
In addition to the role
radio played in Hope discovering her love for world music, it also
helped her find her future husband, Mike, whom she met via her radio
show. Today, Mike and Hope live in Fresno, where Hope works as a full
time professor of music at Fresno State, a position she has held since
2003. Her classes include the Music of Latin America, Introduction to
World Music, and the History of Jazz/Pop/Rock. Hope began her show at
90.7 KFSR in mid 2004, and can now be heard every Tuesday night from
9pm-12pm.
In addition to her
academic and radio work, Hope is also an accomplished musician. She
plays the flute, guitar, congas and steel pan, and has played in a
variety of musical ensembles. These include the University of Vermont
Symphony Orchestra, Dartmouth College’s Barbary Coast Jazz Ensemble and
West African Drumming Ensemble, the University of Texas’s Gamelan Kyahi
Rosowibowo, the University of Texas Brazilian and Afro-Caribbean
Ensembles, and she was a founding member of the University of Texas
Steelband. Here in Fresno, Hope is also actively involved with the
Fresno Folklore Society, and performs with the group Highlands and
Lowlands.
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