Best wishes to our colleagues from Argentina in their upcoming congress, XVIII Conferencia de la Asociación Argentina de Musicología y XIV Jornadas Argentinas del Instituto Nacional de Musicología "Carlos Vega" on August 14-17 2008. See the attached program, in Spanish.

Listening In, Feeding Back

Organizers:
David Novak, Columbia University, Society of Fellows in the Humanities
den12@columbia.edu
Ana Maria Ochoa, Columbia University, Department of Music
ao2110@columbia.edu

Description:
In recent years, several academic disciplines, including history, anthropology, ethnomusicology, and media studies, have devoted significant attention towards practices of listening. The act of listening is undoubtedly an underexplored dimension of modern sensory experience -- and of modernity itself, which is too often characterized by an overdetermined regime of visuality. What can listening offer to emerging interdisciplinary work on perception, performance, aesthetics, social life, and the circulation of sound media?  read more »

The Center for Ethnomusicology and the Columbia University Department of Music Announce: Ethnomusicology Course Offerings for Fall 2008

Please continue reading for a complete listing of all academic classes in ethnomusicology, with descriptions, offered for Fall, 2008. World Music Ensemble information will be posted shortly.



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With great pleasure, The Center for Ethnomusicology announces that Prof. Ana Maria Ochoa has assumed the Directorship of the Center.

Prof. Aaron Fox, who has Directed the Center since 2003, is stepping down to become Chair of the Music Department. He will continue to be affiliated with the Center.
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About Ana Maria Ochoa:
Professor Ochoa is Associate Professor of Music at Columbia University. She holds a Ph D in Folklore and Ethnomusicology from Indiana University (1996). Her areas of interest include music and cultural policy, music and armed conflict, intellectual property, and intellectual histories of sound and music in Latin America, with emphasis on Colombia. Prof. Ochoa taught previously at Columbia (2003-2005) and at New York University (2005-2008). She is the former director of the Music Archives of the Colombian Ministry of Culture. She has also been a researcher at the Instituto Colombiano de Antropología e Historia (Colombia) as well as at The Centro Nacional de Información, Investigación y Documentación Musical Carlos Chávez (CENIDIM) in Mexico.

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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.

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.

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(Publicly available:)
To listen to Chie Sakakibara and Aaron Fox discuss the repatriation project with Earl Finkler on KBRW, the Voice of the North Slope (from Dec. 6, 2007) please click here (or control/right click the link to download the 19MB .mp3 file).  read more »