Eric Fillion has published a co-edited volume on Ontario-born jazz pianist Lou Hooper entitled Statesman of the Piano: Jazz, Race, and History in the Life of Lou Hooper through McGill-Queen's University Press (2023).
Dr. Fillion, who currently holds the department's Buchanan Postdoctoral Fellowship and teaches as an adjunct professor, worked alongside co-editors Sean Mills (Queen's PhD, 2007) and Désirée Rochat to assemble a striking collection of primary source documents including Hooper's previously unpublished autobiography and a number of scholarly commentaries on this iconic figure of Canadian jazz. With Statesman of the Piano, Fillion and his co-editors hope to spark new conversations about Hooper’s legacy while shedding light on the cross-border travels and wartime experiences of Black musicians, the politics of archiving and curating, and the connections between race and music in the twentieth century.
Congratulations Dr. Fillion on the completion of such an important project in Canadian music history!
