Shelby Arias-Runyan

Shelby Arias-Runyan is a pianist and music theorist originally from central Florida. In addition to teaching within Yale’s Department of Music, she leads sessions at the Yale University Art Gallery for K-12, university, and community groups as a Wurtele Gallery Teacher. Central themes in her research include Latin American, Caribbean, and U.S. Latino popular musics; music and identity; and intersections of music theory with media theory. Her dissertation, tentatively titled “Form, Format and Media in Recorded Latin Music, 1970–2025,” investigates how musicians’ uses of sound recording technologies drove the evolution of Latin music as a commercial category, from the rise of salsa to digitally-produced pop.