Aden Cicourel is a recent graduate of Pomona College, where he studied Middle Eastern and South Asian history. His work examines historical relationships between sound, music, and modernity. In 2025, he received the Humanities Studio Fellowship, which supported archival research in London and Mumbai for his senior thesis on jazz music in colonial Bombay. Beyond his studies, Aden played guitar in the Pomona College Jazz Ensemble, taught volunteer music lessons through the Draper Center for Community Partnerships, and helped lead the Musicians’ Coalition.
Aden’s Fulbright-Nehru project is exploring the intertwined history of jazz and Hindustani music in the middle of the 20th century. Following India’s Independence, the increase in urbanization, proliferation of acoustic technologies, and the formation of national identity created new musical spaces for cultural exchange and connection between India and the U.S. Relying on archival research, photographs, radio broadcasts, vinyl records, oral histories, literary accounts, and concert footage, the project is uncovering how fusion genres such as raga jazz and Indo-jazz emerged from this period as nuanced symbols of fluid cosmopolitanism and national pride.