Among Aboriginal musicians from remote Central Australian desert communities, performances in white-dominated towns are commonly portrayed as desirable occasions for engaging with a white-dominated socio-musical realm. This seminar explores how such racially informed cross-cultural notions are put to work in the accumulation of Aboriginal male and musician status. I then describe how Aboriginal town gigs are in fact organised, carried out and evaluated by various Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal stakeholders. I suggest that instead of producing congenial cross-cultural exchanges, most Aboriginal town gigs are particularly powerful and passionate mono-cultural happenings for the reproduction of real and imagined division of “blackfella” and “whitefella” domains, with distinct forms of sociability.

Join us on Sunday, December 2d from 6 to 8 PM for an evening of fun and lively music with the Columbia Klezmer Band and Columbia's own "Lion in the Grass" Bluegrass ensemble! Refreshments will be served. This event is free and open to the public.

Come to the Winter 2007 performance of the New York Gagaku Ensemble.

Gagaku is a form of Japanese classical music that has been performed at the Imperial court for centuries.

Presented by The Institute for Medieval Japanese Studies, the Columbia Music Performance Program, and the Center for Ethnomusicology.

This event is open to the public and free of charge.

John Thompson, Gu Qin with Festivitas Artium Schola

Special performance by Zhang Hong Yan, Pipa

Made possible through a generous gift from David and Susie Sainsbury
Sponsored by Sounds of China and the Center for Ethnomusicology at Columbia University.