Eric Fillion is director of the International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation (IICSI) and assistant professor at the School of Languages and Literatures (SOLAL) at the University of Guelph. His research explores the social and symbolic importance of music, within countercultures and in Canadian international relations. His ongoing work on cultural diplomacy and Canadian-Brazilian relations builds on the experience he has acquired as a musician. It also informs his current research on the postwar Canadian cultural public sphere: his two main projects examine the emergence of the music festival phenomenon in Canada and the entangled sonic histories of diasporic social movements. An affiliate of the North American Cultural Diplomacy Initiative (NACDI), Eric Fillion is the founder of the Tenzier archival record label and co-editor of the journal Critical Studies in Improvisation. He is the author of JAZZ LIBRE et la révolution québécoise: musique-action, 1967-1975 and Distant Stage: Quebec, Brazil, and the Making of Canada’s Cultural Diplomacy. His latest book, Statesman of the Piano: Jazz, Race, and History in the Life of Lou Hooper (co-edited with Sean Mills and Désirée Rochat), is now available through McGill-Queen’s University Press.
Ph.D. (valedictorian), Concordia University, 2019
M.A., Concordia University, 2012
B.Ed., McGill University, 2002
Email address: eric[@]ericfillion[.]org / eric[@]tenzier[.]org
