Harvard Class of 2026
This is week four of Brady’s graduation celebration and today is graduation day. These are a few highlight of his accomplishments at Harvard and Berklee School of Music over the last four years. Congratulations Brady.
“In my thesis, I utilize poetry (verse) and creative nonfiction essays to tie together the musical, historical, and spiritual vernaculars I inherited. I retell Indigenous fables, trace my lineage, and begin to unpack some of that history. Perhaps most surprising and significant the realization that these Pentecostal and Chickasaw traditions, against all odds, shares much in common. Music is a language with unparalleled gathering-up capabilities. It calls out to our ancestors before us and paves a way for our descendants. It transcends our understanding of time as a linear phenomenon. It connects and unites communities. The full thesis explores this in much greater detail, of course, but the same general understanding persists; we, like those before us, are drawn to music because it teaches us how to come together when we need it most. In this modern age, it’s extremely rare to find someone who claims just one identity-that is to say, we are all made of diverse histories and communities that make us unique. This project was a way for me to learn more about my Indigenous ties, in the same way that it also helped me better understand my Pentecostal upbringing and belonging. My music behaves similarly by rejecting any singular category.” Brady Billingsley
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