Dr. Sherri Canon is an ethnomusicologist and drummer/percussionist. Her teaching experience includes Western music theory, popular music history, jazz appreciation, world music, drums, percussion, and piano. With thirty years experience as a drummer and percussionist, Dr. Canon has a deep history in the Austin, Texas music scene, having performed and recorded with a number of pop and rock bands. After studying music for a year at the University of Ghana in the 1990s, she directed African music ensembles in Austin for several years. A notable music teacher, Dr. Canon was awarded “Best Drum Teacher” by the Austin Chronicle.

Dr. Canon’s research and publications on the African immigrant Diaspora explore the links between music and dance, lifecycle rituals, identity, and kinship for West African immigrants in Southern California. She contributed a chapter about Ghanaian and Senegalese immigrant baby naming ceremonies to the book, African Minorities in the New World (2008), and a chapter about the late Nigerian popular musician, Chief Stephen Osita Osadebe, to the book, Nigeria in the Twentieth Century (2002). Her doctoral dissertation Music, Dance, and Family Ties: Ghanaian and Senegalese Immigrants in Los Angeles is available here through the library of the University of Texas at Austin.
In addition to her teaching assignments at California College of Music, Dr. Canon is adjunct faculty at Los Angeles Mission College, one of the nine campuses of the Los Angeles Community College System.
B.A. in Music (Percussion), University of Texas at Austin
M.M. in Ethnomusicology, University of Texas at Austin
Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology, University of Texas at Austin