Overview
Jacob R. Wren (he/him) once sold guitars, basses, banjos and more at the iconic House of Guitars in Rochester, NY. He soldered horns, rebuilt clarinets, and restored flutes in a closet-sized workshop. He even helped gut and restore a 1924 Aeolian pipe organ built for a long-dead circus magnate, which is soon to be reinstalled at the Ringling Museum’s Ca’ d’Zan in Sarasota. Now Jacob is a Ph.D. student in Cornell’s Music and Sound Studies program, where he applies a decade of experience in the musical trades to scholarly inquiries into musical labor; working-class expression; and American folk and roots traditions. His hands know what his theory suspects: it’s just sound, but it’s never just sound.
Before coming to Cornell, Jacob earned a B.A. in Music and an M.A. in Historical Musicology from SUNY University at Buffalo. His research there focused on American old-time and string band music, particularly its political capacities. He is also deeply interested in how sonic technologies have shaped the ways oral traditions circulate and speak politically. One project on Doc Watson’s acoustic flatpicking traced how evolving microphone technology during the 1960s enabled Watson to subtly translate African American fiddle traditions onto his guitar. That move allowed Watson to present such music to audiences who, amid the Civil Rights Movement, might otherwise have rejected it.
Jacob continues to blend his research interests into his practice as a guitarist and songwriter. He began playing guitar as a child on a cracked old nylon-string hand-me-down, and has since developed a distinctive style rooted in folk and old-time traditions. In 2022, he was voted one of Rochester, NY’s top four country and folk artists by CITY Magazine.