Denver, Colorado born Xavier Emmanuel (he/him) is a multi-hyphenate artist-scholar (guitarist, singer/songwriter, producer, filmmaker, photographer, etc.) and Ph.D student in Creative Practice and Critical Inquiry at the Harvard University Department of Music. In 2019 he received his bachelor of arts degree in English (poetry) and Ethnic Studies from Colorado State University. Emmanuel’s poetry thesis contains a collection of creative works including compositions, photographs, poems, short films, and poetic theorization produced under the supervision of professors Camille Dungy M.F.A. and Dan Beachy-Quick M.F.A. His undergraduate Ethnic Studies thesis titled, “Art as Erotic Reclamation,” uses Audre Lorde’s essay, “Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power,” to investigate the differences between art as personal expression and art as a means of economic advancement using profile interviews with sound, movement, and visual artists of color. In 2023 he received his master’s degree in Experimental Humanities and Social Engagement from New York University under the supervision of Jaime Oliver Ph.D. 

Emmanuel’s master’s thesis titled, “When the Music Comes,” is an interdisciplinary project that documents the stories of five New York-based sound artists who publish work made in their home studios. The master’s project engages the intersections of Black Studies, Posthumanism, Aesthetics, Race, Improvisation, Sound, and Music with poetry, profile interviews, theoretical essays, portrait photographs, and a full-length album. His current academic research explores sound, music, visual media, and linguistic theory as subsystems that construct systems of culture in addition to developing language to understand music as fundamental to our human experiences and perceptions of time—an archive of syncretism, movement, and memory.

During his time at NYU, Xavier worked as a graduate researcher with Dr. Nicole R. Fleetwood’s traveling exhibition, “Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration,” where he moderated panels, organized community events and documented the life stories of justice-impacted artists with an interview series titled, “Marking Time Talks Art”. Additionally, Emmanuel has spent the last two years organizing public events and performances that explore the relationship between the sonic, movement, and visual arts including collaborations with the Harvard Art Museums and Princeton University’s National Organization of Minority Architecture Students among others. He has also independently organized and promoted benefit concerts at national and international venues to raise money and awareness for families affected by war.

Emmanuel has given lectures at St. Olaf College and el Centro de Estudos e Revalorização da Música Angolana. In 2018 Emmanuel applied the foundational theories of his Ethnic Studies thesis while participating in the CSU college of Women & Gender Studies’ service-learning program to Ghana. His engagements in intercultural dialogues regarding gendered violence and intergenerational conflict led up to a creative collaboration with Ghanian youth to develop photo-voice projects. By utilizing images to name their politicized experiences, these students demonstrated the powerful connection between art and global shifts in the processes that form communities and systems of governance. While living in Colorado, Xavier worked as an elementary, middle, and high school-level English and Ethnic Studies teacher, youth wilderness guide, as well as a creative consultant with Colorado-based non-profits like Creative Strategies for Change, Young Americans Aspiring for Social and Political Activism, and Big City Mountaineers. 

Emmanuel’s creative work has been featured in solo and group performances and exhibitions throughout the wider area of New York City, at Harvard University’s Paine Hall, Stanford University’s Center for Computer Research in Music Technology, Princeton University’s School of Architecture, Lagos, Nigeria’s 2024 Lagos Biennial, and across the greater area of his home state of Colorado among other national and international venues. His work has received awards and recognition from the American Institute for Graphic Arts, the New York University Alpine Fellowship, Colorado State University, and Lyrical Lemonade among others.