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This week marked the official launch of the Roots of Music, a music education program founded by Derrick Tabb of the Rebirth Brass Band to serve middle-school students in New Orleans. Over 40 children have been attending afterschool band rehearsals, where they have been introduced to the fundamentals of music theory and marching band performance.

The support of Vic Firth, Evans Drums, and B’nai Israel Baton Rouge have allowed Roots of Music to begin with this pilot session. In June, the program will grow to 150 students and by the Fall we will be fully up and running as a daily afterschool program with 200 students in a dedicated facility. The program is free for all students.

Roots of Music is in need of instruments as well as donations to cover the costs of busing, facilities, and salaries for instructors Lawrence Rawlins and Shoan Ruffin. Contact Roots of Music at (504) 723-4666 or make donations at www.backbeatfoundation.org (please indicate Roots of Music on the PayPal form).

You can learn more about Roots of Music at:

www.lsu.edu/fweil/AfterSchoolMusicProgram.htm
www.therootsofmusic.com  read more »

MACSEM 2008 IS ALMOST HERE!

Please click here to view important current information, directions, program, and more.  

The Center for Ethnomusicology's community welcomes all our guests! 

LOCATION INFORMATION: All events will be held in the Schapiro Center for Engineering and Physical Science Research (CEPSR) on Columbia University's Morningside Campus. All of the paper presentations as well as the Saturday-night concert will be held in Davis Auditorium (Room 412, but it's on the ground floor), and the lunch-time film screening will be held in the same building, downstairs in the Sindeband Conference Room (Room 414). Getting to campus using public transportation is easy.  The 1 train stops at 116th Street, just outside the Columbia gates.  The M60 bus from LaGuardia Airport, the M104 bus, and the M4 bus also all stop outside the gates.  This link:

 http://www.columbia.edu/about_columbia/map/schapiro_center.html

shows Schapiro highlighted among other buildings on campus.  It is worth pointing out that Schapiro is NOT accessible from 120th Street.  To get to the building, you will have to enter the campus at 116th Street and Broadway or 116th Street and Amsterdam Avenue.  From either of these entrances, walk towards the middle of campus and then turn north up the stairs, towards the domed building (Low Library).  You'll have to walk around Low and then around the building behind it (Uris).  Walk all the way past Uris to the Schapiro Center.  There are maps and signs all over campus.     read more »

This article, written by Chie Sakakibara and Aaron Fox, is currently featured on the website of the Barrow Arctic Science Consortium (BASC). BASC is helping to support Aaron Fox and Chie Sakakibara in their research in the North Slope of Alaska. The article includes historical photos as well as photos from Aaron and Chie's recent research trip to Barrow, Alaska.

Further press about the project has been published in The Arctic Sounder (download the pdf). The project has also been mentioned in the "Alaska Newsreader" section of the Anchorage Daily News -- check it out here.

We are pleased to announce that Lucía Pulido and Cosmas Magaya with Paul Berliner will be performing at MACSEM 2008 on Saturday, March 29th at 7:30 PM.  

PLEASE NOTE THE TIME CORRECTION ON THIS NOTICE!  THE CONCERT BEGINS AT 7:30PM, NOT 8PM!

Lucía Pulido is a Colombian singer who has been in New York since 1994. Prior to arriving in New York, Ms. Pulido toured and recorded as half of "Ivan y Lucía." Since then, she has recorded multiple albums with other artists as well as a solo album (Lucía, Intuition 2000), and has performed all over the city. Among other projects, she is currently a member of the Palenque Ensemble, which interprets traditional Colombian genres through an experimental lens. Visit her website at www.luciapulido.com for more information.

Cosmas Magaya is a world-renowned mbira player and teacher from Zimbabwe who has played and taught all over the world alone and with his ensembles, Mhuri yekwaRwizi and Zimbabwe Group Leaders Mbira Ensemble.  read more »

 
Paul Berliner is an mbira player and professor of music at Duke University. He is the author of The Soul of Mbira: Music and Traditions of the Shona People of Zimbabwe (University of Chicago Press, 1978) and has been collaborating and studying with Mr. Magaya since 1971. More information about Cosmas Magaya is available at the website of the Kutsinhira Cultural Arts Center. Paul Berliner's CV is available from the Music Department at Duke University.

The Center for Ethnomusicology notes with sorrow the passing of legendary music collector Henrietta Yurchenco on December 10, 2007, at the age of 91.

Please click here to read the New York Times obituary.

Click on the photo to see a large image of a photo taken by Laura Boulton during November, 1946 of the singers she recorded in Barrow, Alaska. From left to right, the identified singers in the photograph are: Leo Kaleak (seated left), Otis Ahkivgak (standing left), Willie Sielak, Guy Okakok, and Alfred Koonoalak. Not in the photo, but identified on the recordings, are three children: Mary (also known as "Eva") Ahvik, and Harold and Eddie Kagak (identified as "Eddie Orson" in Boulton's notes). Not in the photo, but prominently featured on the recordings, is singer Joe Sikvayugak (spelled "Sikvayunak" in Boulton's notes). This photo appears in two published locations. The version above is copied from Boulton's 1968 autobiography, now out of print, entitled The Music Hunter. A better-quality print was also published, but with extensive cropping, in the liner notes to Boulton's 1955 Folkways recording, now available from Smithsonian Global Sound, The Eskimos of Hudson Bay and Alaska.

If you are a member of the Point Barrow Iñupiat community and are looking for the website mentioned by Aaron Fox and Chie Sakakibara as heard on Earl Finkler's radio show on KBRW on Tuesday morning or at the community meeting at the Iñupiat Heritage Center on Tuesday evening, please click here for the website link.

A username and password are required to access the website. If you did not receive this information personally from Prof. Fox in Barrow, please write to him directly at aaf19@columbia.edu for the password.