JORDAN ZALIS, PhD, is a multiple award-winning, internationally recognized artist and ethnomusicologist, currently a postdoctoral fellow at the International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation at the University of Guelph (Canada).

His work interrogates the sociocultural, political, and economic implications of sports soundscapes—questioning how the ethics and aesthetics that emerge from community-scale projects might apply to larger forms of national and international governance.

His philosophical and methodological approach, Just Listening, is attracting international attention through workshops and lectures across Canada and beyond.

Jordan has contributed to the edited collections Powers of Sound: Policies, Listening, and Identities (Insular Livros, 2020), Football and Popular Culture: Singing Out from the Stands (Routledge, 2021), and The Sound of Victory: Music, Sport, and Society (NYU Press, forthcoming 2026). His poetry has been featured in MOSAÏCO (Poesia Impossível, 2023).

When not in the field, he’s out in the park practicing environmental soundscape recording, embracing rivers, lakes, oceans, and forests.

Ph.D., Memorial University, Newfoundland and Labrador, 2025
M.A., Music and Culture, Carleton University, 2016
B.Mus. (Hons.), Carleton University, 2014

Email address: jordan[.]zalis[@]gmail[.]com