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Center for Ethnomusicology News, 2007-2008
The Center for Ethnomusicology and the Graduate Program in Ethnomusicology in the Department of Music at Columbia University
Annual Report for 2007-8
(click photo to enlarge)
2007-8 has been a very busy and successful year for the Center for Ethnomusicology and the Ethnomusicology graduate program at Columbia, and there is an abundance of good news to report!
A New Director
Prof. Aaron Fox is stepping down as Director of the Center as of July 1, and Prof. Ana Maria Ochoa will be assuming the Directorship. Prof. Ochoa, whois returning to Columbia after several years at NYU, is a specialist in Latin American music, media, and cultural policy issues. She holds the PhD in Folklore from Indiana University, and previously taught at Columbia from 2003-5. Prof. Fox will be assuming the Chair of the Music Department beginning in July, 2008, but will remain involved with the Center's repatriation projects.
Gifts
The Center received a donation of a beautiful kayageum (Korean zither) and related books and recordings by Andrew Fisher (CC '65), in honor of his late wife Sharon. We thank Mr. Fisher sincerely for this wonderful gift.
Toshiba Corporation has made a substantial gift to the Medieval Japan Foundation in support of Columbia's Gagaku ensemble and program. We are very grateful for this support.
Welcome!
We extend warm welcomes to the following new members of our community:
Dr. Chie Sakakibara will be coming to Columbia for a two-year post-doctoral fellowship,co-sponsored by the Center with the Earth Institute, the Department of Anthropology, the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity, the Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy, and the Vice Provost for Diversity Initiatives. Among her other projects, Dr.Sakakibara will be working on Columbia's repatriation project with the Iñupiat community in Alaska. Dr. Sakakibara holds the PhD in cultural geography from Oklahoma University, where she is currently a lecturer in Native American Studies.
Lauren Flood, James Napoli, and Samuel Shapiro are the newest members of our graduate program, who will matriculate here in the Fall. Samuel comes to us from Harvard College; Lauren from Drexel University; and James from Ithaca College.
Alessandra Ciucci and Emily Wilbourne are incoming as Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellows in the Department of Music. Dr. Ciucci holds the PhD in ethnomusicology from CUNY and is a specialist in Moroccan music; Dr. Wilbourne holds the PhD in musicology from NYU, and is a specialist in early opera.
Farewell!
We bid farewell with fond wishes to:
Blair Mosner, who has brought an extraordinary level of energy and creativity to the Center's projects over the past two years, and will be leaving us for California in July.
Dr. Brian Kane and Dr. Ruth Rosenberg, our Department's first Mellon Postdoctoral Fellows in Music. Dr. Kane has accepted a position in Music at Yale; Dr. Rosenberg has accepted aposition in Music at The University of Illinois at Chicago.
Dr. Matt Sakakeeny, who has earned his PhD and will be taking up a position in Music at Tulane University after spending the past year on a Whiting Dissertation Fellowship.
Events
This year, for the second year running, the Center co-sponsored the lecture series and conference event "Native American Studies Today," with the Office of the Vice Provost for Diversity Initiatives, The Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race, the Institute for Research on Women and Gender, the Columbia Native American Council, the Departments of Anthropology, History, and Psychology. The series features lectures and panel discussions with scholars working at the cutting edge of Native American Studies including Joe Watkins, Brian Klopotek, Michael Yellowbird, Dawn Martin-Hill, Robert Warrior, J. Kehaulani Kauanui, Sandy Grande, and Carmen Lopez.We were co-sponsors of the Columbia Music Scholarship Conference. This year's conference, POP! Musical Excess and Artifice, featured keynote addresses from Philip Auslander and Nadine Hubbs.
We also co-sponsored events with the Columbia Center for Korean Research, the Korean Students Association, the Harriman Institute, the Music Performance Program, Sounds of China, the Institute for Medieval Japanese Studies, the Fritz Reiner Center and the Composition Program, Dimensions, and the Music Humanities Program.
The Center for Ethnomusicology hosted the Mid-Atlantic Chapter of the Society for Ethnomusicology (MACSEM) Annual Meeting, attended by over 100 registered participants. The two-day event featured six paper panels, a film screening, and a concert by Cosmas Magaya&Paul Berliner, and the Lucia Pulido Trio.
Our own colloquium series featured talks by Peter Manuel, Wendy Fonarow, Fabian Holt, Chie Sakakibara, Ase Ottosson, Kay Shelemay, Sarah Weiss, Simha Arom, and Josh Pilzer. We thank all of our guests for invigorating conversations!
In the coming year the Center will be hosting several conferences,including one on "feedback and listening" co-sponsored with the Society of Fellows and organized by David Novak, a Fellow of the Society and a Columbia Ethnomusicology PhD. A second conference on informal economies and cultural property, organized by Ana Maria Ochoa, has recently been funded with a grant from the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity. Many other events are in the planning stages for next year as well. Please watch ethnocenter.org for details as they emerge.
Projects
The Center's project to repatriate Columbia's holdings of Native American music has proceeded with great focus this year. Our project in Barrow, Alaska has occupied center stage, and has been featured in numerous press accounts, including stories on Alaska Public Radio and in the Arctic Sounder. Professor Fox is preparing to make his third visit to Barrow with collaborator Chie Sakakibara in June and July. Other projects involving Navajo, Cape Breton, Appalachian, and Hopi musical holdings are underway and have advanced significantly this year.
The Center's world music ensemble projects, co-sponsored with the MPP and the Institute for Medieval Japanese Studies, have also thrived this year. Bluegrass (directed, for the second year in a row, by ethnomusicology PhD student Toby King) has played numerous concerts, including a very successful end of year concert on May 8. The Gagaku Ensemble made several appearances as well. Last year, we sent four Gagaku students to Tokyo for a month of intensive study with leading traditional artists; this year we will do the same. Gagaku will continue to grow thanks to the work of the Institute for Medieval Japanese Studies in raising $160,000 from Toshiba Corporation to continue funding the development of Japanese music studies at Columbia over the coming three years. The Center for Ethnomusicology expresses special thanks to Louise Sasaki, Noriyuko Sasaki, and Yoichi Fukui of the Tenri Institute for their extraordinary work with the ensemble, and David Novak and Ruth Rosenberg for their work with the ensemble as well.
Congratulations and News From Our Community
Our students, fellows, faculty, and alumni participated in 17 different conferences over the past year, received 18 fellowships and grants, published in more than 20 journals and edited volumes, and won 4 jobs. Congratulations are due to everyone! Below we list some of the many individual accomplishments.
Students
Tyler Bickford delivered papers at the 52nd Annual Meeting of the Society forEthnomusicology (SEM) and at the Mid-Atlantic Chapter of the Societyfor Ethnomusicology, where Mr. Bickford organized a panel on "Children,music, and media in the contemporary US." He has also published an article entitled "Music of poetry and poetry of song: Expressivity and grammar in vocal performance." in Ethnomusicology 51(3).
Daphne Carr presented papers at Experience Music Project 2008 in Seattle, and at a meeting of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM) in 2007. She has had a paper accepted for presentation during next year's IASPM conference in Iowa City, for which she will act as Student Chair. She was also Committee chair ofthe Columbia Music Scholarship Conference. Finally, she is the recipient of a departmental Summer Fellowship.
Simon Calle received a Field Research Travel Grant from the Institute of Latin American Studies at Columbia University.
Andrew Eisenberg was appointed Visiting Lecturer in Music at Northwestern University during 2007-2008. He also presented a paper at the 52nd Annual Meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM).
Melissa Gonzalez won a Dissertation Writing Fellowship from the Ford Foundation for 2008-2009 and an OMA Summer Merit Fellowship for 2008. Ms. Gonzalez also presented a paper at SEM.
Farzaneh Hemmasi won a Lane Cooper Fellowship and a Mellon Interdisciplinary Graduate Fellowship in the Institute for Social and Economic Policy Research at Columbia University. Ms. Hemmasi also has a paper under review in Mahoor Music Quarterly, Iran's preeminent musicology journal. She presented papers at SEM and the Middle Eastern Studies Association, and organized a panel for the American Anthropological Association meeting,
Niko Higgins presented papers at SEM and at the Columbia Music Scholarship Conference. He was a guest soloist for the Yale Jazz Orchestra's spring concert. The Orchestra also opened for the Mingus Big Band at the Iridium, a jazz club in New York. Mr. Higgins also presented at Madras University in Chennai, India.
Brian Karl gave a paper at the AAA meeting in Washington, DC. He is the recipient of an A.J. Racy Arab Music Studies Fellowship, a fellowship from the Institute of Social and Economic Research, and a Summer Research Fellowship from the Middle East Institute at Columbia University. Over the past year, he has been teaching at Fordham University, the New School, and at the Bayview Women's Correctional Facility through the Bard College Learning Center for Women in Prison program. Mr. Karl has been appointed to a 1-year Visiting Professorship in the Department of Anthropology at Colby College for 2008-9.
Elizabeth Keenan won the 2007 Lise Waxer Prize for her paper "Straightyfest, Ladyquest, Ladyfest: Femininity, Sexuality, and Third Wave Feminism at Young Women's Punk Rock Music Festivals." The prize is given by the Society for Ethnomusicology for the best graduate student paper in Popular Music. She gave papers at SEM, The Society of American Music, and at the 2008 Experience Music Project Pop Conference. Ms. Keenan's review of Fabian Holt's Genre in Popular Music (in Current Musicology, Vol. 85) is in press.
Toby King presented a paper at SEM.
Morgan Luker published an article in Latin American Music Review, presented papers at SEM and at a 2007 conference on Social Theory, Politics and the Arts at NYU. Mr. Luker also presented papers overseas, at the British Forum for Ethnomusicology in London, and in Mexico, at the IASPM Conference in Mexico City.
Tim Mangin presented at a conference of the African Studies Association. Mr. Mangin also delivering invited talks at the University of London and Jazzinstitut Darmstadt, Germany.
Marti Newland has won an Academic Quality Fund Research Grant from the Center forthe Study of Race and Ethnicity. She has published entires on Moses Hogan and Lena McLin in African American National Biography (Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Ed, Oxford University Press), with three entries ("Spirituals", "Jubilee Singers", and "Blacks in Opera 1969-Present") forthcoming in Emmet Price, Tammy Kernodle, and Horace Maxile's Encyclopedia of African American Music (Greenwood Press).
Lauren Ninshovili has been awarded a Whiting Fellowship, and was offered a Harriman Institute Junior Fellowship for 2008-2009 (declined). She won the Georgian Studies Award for Best Graduate Paper, given by the Georgian community in New York, in cooperation with the Georgian Studies Center at the Harriman Institute. Ms. Ninoshvili presented papers at the Annual Conference of the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies, SEM, and at a symposium on Georgian music at Columbia University. She published a paper in Nation in Formation: Inclusion and Exclusion in Central and Eastern Europe (Baker, Gerry, Madaaa, Mellish, Nahodilova, eds; UCL school of Slavicand Eastern European Studies), and has two more pieces forthcoming—one in Cultural Archetypes and Political Change in the Caucasus (Tsitsishvili and Arutiunov, eds; Nova Science Publishers), and one in a special issue of Popular Music and Society.
Dr. Matt Sakakeeny defended his dissertation (entitled "Instruments of Power: New Orleans Brass Bands and the Politics of Performance") on May 7th. He has accepted a position as Assistant Professor of Music at Tulane University. He also presented a paper at SEM.
Ryan Skinner has been awarded a Charlotte W. Newcombe Dissertation Writing Fellowship from Woodrow Wilson Foundation, a GSAS/Music Department Summer Research Grant, and a Whiting Fellowship (declined). His list of publications for 2007-2008 includes Sidikiba's Kora Lesson (Beaver's Pond Press) a children's book with accompanying CD for which Mr. Skinner provided watercolor illustrations, and an article in Mixed Magazine; papers in Restless Minds: Migrations and Creative Expressions in Africa and the African Diaspora (Toyin Falola and Niyi Afolabi, eds; Carolina Academic Press), a volume on intangible heritage (edited by Jan Jansen; Mande Worlds Series,LIT/Transaction), and The Journal of American Folklore are forthcoming.
Maria Sonevytsky is the recipient of an American Councils Eurasian Regional Language Training Grant as well as an IREX Dissertation Research Fellowship. In the past year she has published in World of Music, The Journal of Popular Music and Society, and the Journal of Popular Music Studies. She presented at a meeting of the International Council for Traditional Music in Vienna as well as at Annual Conference of the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies in Cambridge, UK.
Anna Stirr is the recipient of a PEO Scholar Award and a dissertation fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS). She has publications forthcoming in a volume of papers from SASON International Nepal Studies Conference in 2006, and in World Literature Today. Ms. Stirr participated in SEM, an SSRC Workshop, and a conference on South Asia.
Faculty and Postdoc News
We welcome Ana Maria Ochoa back to Columbia as Associate Professor of Music, Director of the Center for Ethnomusicology, and Chair of the Ethnomusicology Graduate Program Committee.
Dave Novak, a Columbia Ethnomusicology PhD who is now a member of the Columbia Society of Fellows received a book contract based on his dissertation on Japanese experimental and "Noise" music from Duke University Press and published an article on Japanese listening culture in Popular Music. He also presented a paper during a session for which he acted as co-chair during SEM.
Chris Washburne's book Sounding Salsa is forthcoming (June 2008) from Temple University Press. In February, his band NYNDK released its second CD on Jazzheads Records. He has recently received a grant to fund his new research on Jazz and cultural policy in Denmark.
Aaron Fox published definitional essays in the International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences and the Elsevier Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics. He will be assuming the chairmanship of the Music Department in July, 2008.
Alumni News
Adriana Helbig (PhD 2006) has accepted a tenure-track job at the University of Pittsburgh, after spending the last year as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Music at University of Illinois, . She also presented apaper at SEM.
Paul Yoon has accepted a position in Music at the University of Richmond, after spending the past three years at Bowling Green University.
Upcoming Events
No upcoming events available