Adriana Diaz-Donoso

Dr. Adriana Diaz-Donoso (ella/she/her) is a Music Assistant Professor, Program Director for Music Education, and Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Music and Performing Arts Professions at NYU Steinhardt. A Peruvian bilingual (Spanish/English) educator and scholar, her work is grounded in a commitment to expanding access to meaningful arts education and promoting social justice through the arts.

Her research centers on equity and access to music education, with interests spanning early childhood musical development, the role of arts organizations in community building and social change, and diversity in music teacher preparation. Her dissertation, Musical Investment in Early Childhood: An Exploration of Parent-Child Participation in Organized Early Childhood Musical Activities, examined the intersection of social class and musical parenting, expanding understandings of these practices beyond the white middle-class experiences that have traditionally dominated early childhood music education research. Her current work continues to explore how children, families, educators, and communities engage with music across different cultural and educational contexts.

In recognition of her contributions to early childhood music education, Dr. Diaz-Donoso received the 2026 Dr. Marvin Greenberg Award for Research in Music and Development in Early Childhood Music Education from the Early Childhood Music Education Commission of the International Society for Music Education (ISME) for her project, The Music Children Make in Early Childhood: Pathways to Musical Development in Peru. During the 2025–2026 academic year, she also participated in NYU Faculty Write, a professional development program that supports faculty in translating their research and expertise for broader public audiences.

Her scholarship is informed by more than twenty years of experience as a music educator, teaching artist, program administrator, and consultant in the United States and Peru. She has worked with Columbia Head Start, The Philadelphia Orchestra, Lincoln Center, Teachers College Community School, 92NY, and Peru’s Ministry of Women and Vulnerable Populations. Prior to joining NYU, she managed WeBop, Jazz at Lincoln Center’s early childhood jazz education program, and served as an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Music Education at Teachers College, Columbia University.

At NYU, she brings these connections between scholarship, practice, and community engagement into her teaching. In 2024, she received an NYU Student Activities Grant from the Provost's Office to support experiential learning in her Teaching Music in Elementary Schools course beyond the university classroom. Through experiences at the Louis Armstrong House Museum, Terraza 7, and Jazz at Lincoln Center, pre-service music educators explored jazz as a musical and cultural tradition while developing approaches for incorporating its practices into their own teaching.

Dr. Diaz-Donoso holds an M.A. and an Ed.D. in Music Education, with concentrations in early childhood education and developmental psychology from Teachers College, Columbia University. She earned a B.Sc. from the Universidad Nacional Agraria La Molina in Lima, Peru, and studied music at the Asociación Cultural Béla Bartók and the Universidad Nacional de Música del Perú. She is also a recipient of the Fulbright Scholarship.