Prof sees music as soundtrack for justice movements

 

When he moved in 2021 from Michigan to Spokane, Jadrian Tarver joined Gonzaga University as a postdoctoral lecturer in applied voice. After two years, he was appointed in fall 2024 to a tenure-track position as assistant professor of voice—the first Black faculty member in that role. In fall 2025, he became the first Black director of vocal studies.

He teaches applied voice, vocal arts ensemble, vocal pedagogy and Gospel Song literature for composition students who are creating music.

Soon after he came to Spokane, he became music director of Manito United Methodist Church.

In 2024, he co-founded and began directing United Black Voices of Spokane with 12 singers of Black descent from five historic Black churches—including Calvary Baptist, Morning Star Baptist and Holy Temple Church of God in Christ. They sing Gospel, spirituals, blues, classical and the gamut of Black American music.

In a recent concert, they joined Gonzaga's Musea choir for students learning gospel, spirituals and Rhythm and Blues (RnB) music.

"Music is a catalyst and soundtrack for many social justice movements, like 'We Shall Overcome' and 'This Little Light of Mine' in the Civil Rights Movement," said Jadrian, who teaches a first-year seminar, "Music and Social Justice," which covers not just the Civil Rights Movement but also the way music influences artists to speak and use their voices—be it classical or folk.

"Music is there when we face adversity. Songs are quintessential to nurture community. Spirituals and music for the secular and the sacred are restorative and provide healing," said Jadrian. "Like encoded imagery, freedom songs guide Black people to get from one point to the other.

"Music is always there. Even in its rests and silence, the heart is still beating and neurons are still firing. A pause is designed to reset and recalibrate us. Music also calls us to rest," he said.

"I believe in adult learning—andragogy as well as pedagogy. In the solo-sung literature course that I offer for student composers, one 85-year-old man drives from Coeur d'Alene to work with 20-year-olds.

"He lived during the civil rights movement, heard Aretha Franklin's "Respect" when it came out and heard Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. speak," said Jadrian. "I just see those on video.

"There is beauty in accessing learning from a cross-generation experience," Jadrian said. "I learn from students of all ages in my classes, as I learned for many generations in my family."

Jadrian grew up in Haines City, Fla., a small town in a singing, preaching and teaching family.

He was surrounded by and influenced by his sharecropper grandfather, who was born in 1912; his seamstress grandmother, born in 1920; his mother, who was a care professional, and his aunts, who were teachers, born in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, and many cousins.

The community knew and cared about each other—be it lending sugar or sharing use of a microwave.

"My grandfather said, 'Charity begins at home and spreads abroad,' which means we are to take love and kindness with us, so people feel at home and safe," said Jadrian, who has done that in Atlanta, East Lansing and now Spokane.

As a youth, Jadrian was involved with the NAACP youth council, marches and work for community revitalization. Along with being involved in the community during high school, he was pianist and music director of New Beulah Missionary Baptist Church.

He described himself as Bapticostal, because although he attended a Baptist church, his home worship experience was more spiritually expressive and rooted in Pentecostal traditions.

He studied music at Bethune-Cookman University in Daytona, founded in 1904 by Mary McLeod Bethune, who paid $1.50 to buy the property to start the Daytona Educational and Industrial Training School for Negro Girls. She was an educator, civil rights leader and advisor to U.S. presidents.

"She sold sweet potato pies to raise the money to start the girls' school that grew to a university," Jadrian said, reciting its mission "Enter to learn. Depart to serve."

He studied there from 2006 to 2010, earning a degree in music education and serving as pianist and music director of St. John Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, working with the community and choir, and singing as cantor at the Catholic Church, which was active in community outreach.

Next, he studied vocal performance at Georgia State University in Atlanta, where he started a recital series, Sankofa, with friends who sang underrepresented and Black composers, including French, German and Caribbean composers.

"It was a pivotal moment for my interest in Black art songs and classical music for voice—like Beethoven, Schumann and Fauré. I also learned of the African American composer Robert Owens, who spent most of his adult life in Germany," Jadrian said.

At Bethune-Cookman, his instructor, Curtis Rayan, a Black tenor, introduced him to Black composers and opera singers and Black contributors to classical music literature.

He knew of Gospel music, spirituals and freedom songs, but Curtis introduced him to classical Black artists.

Jadrian earned a master's degree in 2012 and moved to Atlanta where he taught underprivileged students at the Atlanta Music Program. He also was the music instructor, teaching beginning band and choir, at Brandon Hall Boarding School from 2015 to 2018.

"I learned that regardless of economic status, students want to be heard, listened to, valued, seen and loved," he said.

He also kept "head-over-heels busy" teaching and performing for the Atlanta Opera, Peach State Opera and Capitol City Opera. In addition, he was staff singer and interim assistant music director for First United Methodist Church.

After he left Georgia University, he went to Michigan State University in East Lansing, where he earned a doctoral degree in vocal performance from 2018 to 2021.

There, he started Color Me Music to connect people in the musical world because so many music students are in silos based on their instruments.

To build ties, he worked with the dean of college curriculum and became project manager of Diversity Equity Inclusion and Belonging (DEIB), working with the College of Music at Michigan State and its Wharton Performing Arts Center to create cultural opportunities for students and conversation on DEIB. He was also director of music at Eastminster Presbyterian Church.

After Jadrian graduated, a friend told him that Gonzaga was looking for someone to teach social justice music, voice lessons and voice education.

"The job fit what I do," he said.

In his work directing the choir at Manito UMC, Jadrian said he appreciates being involved in a community-focused church that serves more than 400 neighbors who use the building for AA groups, preschools, youth symphony and Comstock Neighborhood Council.

"Manito UMC lives what it preaches, and people live what they believe," said Jadrian, who appreciates the sense of community he has found.

"In a profession like music, no matter where I go, I make my home," he said, adding he is making Spokane home and his partner, nurse educator Carrundlas Mathews, has recently joined him from Dallas.

Jadrian has also felt at home in different churches, finding fluidity moving from denomination to denomination and working with Blacks, whites and Latinos.

"From my faith experiences in many denominations, I see commonality. I believe that following Christ, loving God and loving our neighbors leads us into justice work with disenfranchised people," he said.

"We are not all the same. We hold different beliefs, but can work together," Jadrian affirmed.

He said his faith is influenced by the women in his life. His mother and aunts were not only devout but also charitable.

"I also saw them in a journey of faith feeding the hungry and clothing people," he said.

His aunts, who were teachers, brought shoes, clothing and food for students who did not have those things. They did not want a student to feel left out. They might also take an unhoused child into their home.

"I credit them with my faith walk," Jadrian said.

For information, call 313-6738 or email tarver@gonzaga.edu.