Children's Music
Dr. Ermolaeva began her career as an early childhood music educator when she became a licensed Music Together© instructor in 2014. From 2017-2021, Dr. Ermolaeva taught at the Music Together Princeton Lab School (in Hopewell and Princeton, NJ).
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Bringing together her training as a musicologist and her experience in early childhood music education, Dr. Ermolaeva served as one of the founding members of the Song Advisory Board at Music Together Worldwide©, which examined the historical origins of children's songs and their appropriateness for the early childhood music classroom.
Ermolaeva's research explores cultural appropriation (particularly of Native American music) in American children's music and the racist origins of many American children's songs in blackface minstrelsy. Dr. Ermolaeva published her findings on "I've Been Working on the Railroad" in her article "Dinah, Put Down Your Horn: Blackface Minstrel Songs Don't Belong in Children's Music Class" - which now has received over 250,000 views.
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Dr. Ermolaeva served as the keynote speaker the the annual Music Together© Conference and has presented her research on children's music as a guest speaker at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, the University of Northern Kentucky, and at the annual meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology. Dr. Ermolaeva can be contacted to present guest lectures and workshops here.
Published Research
"Dinah, Put Down Your Horn: Blackface Minstrel Songs Don't Belong in Music Class."
Published in Medium.com on October 30, 2019. ​
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Abstract: Music educators throughout the United States are starting to remove songs like “Oh! Susanna,” “Jimmy Crack Corn,” and “Camptown Races” from their lesson plans due to their racist roots in blackface minstrelsy. While the offensiveness of dressing in blackface is widely acknowledged, the ubiquity of blackface minstrel songs, particularly in American children's music, is relatively unknown. Blackface minstrel songs, like "I've Been Working on the Railroad," must be recognized for what they are and removed from children’s music programs if we want to move forward toward justice and equity as a society.