Makoto Harris Takao is an Assistant Professor of Musicology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, with an affiliated appointment in East Asian Languages and Cultures. He holds a joint PhD in History and Musicology from the University of Western Australia and has held postdoctoral positions at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development and the Freie Universität Berlin. His research bridges Japanese religious history, global music historiography, and the history of emotions, focusing on transcultural dynamics in early modern Japan and contemporary East Asia. Education: B.A. (Japanese Studies), B.A. Hons (Asian Studies), and Ph.D. (History and Musicology) from the University of Western Australia. Research interests include Kirishitan (Japanese Christian) transculturation, global baroque music, and the interplay between music and colonial/postcolonial politics. His current book projects explore 16th-century Japanese Christian soundscapes and the Okinawan singer Amuro Namie’s entanglement with postcolonial pop politics. He also performs on the viola da gamba in revival projects of early modern Japanese-Christian music. Awards include the Bruce Mansfield Prize in Religious History and an honorable mention from UIUC’s Humanities Research Institute. He serves on the American Musicological Society’s Education Committee and the editorial board of Early Music . Teaching focuses on global music history, the Baroque era, and Japanese popular music. Courses include Global Baroque: Music, Power, and the ‘European’ Tradition and History of Japanese Popular Music .
