| UCLA Ethnomusicology Celebrates Its 50th Anniversary | | Print | |
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Published: June 6, 2010 By: Donna Armstrong
September 20, 2010 – June 12, 2011 Learn about the history of ethnomusicology at UCLA as you tour its home, Schoenberg Music Building. Display cases and other select locations around the building will feature photos, instruments, occasional video presentations, and more highlighting the people, events, and ideas that have shaped the study of world music at UCLA and around the world.
ALUMNI EVENTS Tuesday, November 9 Alumni will make 10-minute presentations on six topics: intellectual and institutional history, geographical regions, UCLA methods (bi-musicality, melograph, archiving, and publications), systematic musicology, professional worlds of ethnomusicologists, and UCLA and the world. Tuesday, November 9
5 p.m.: Alumni Reception
Wednesday, November 10 This pre-conference symposium honors Department of Ethnomusicology founding chair Nazir Ali Jairazbhoy, who passed away June 20, 2009. Educated in India and England, Jairazbhoy was an ethnomusicologist with an international reputation as a researcher, teacher, administrator, and a scholar. His comprehensive knowledge of India’s folk, classical, and popular music traditions was unrivalled among those in the field of ethnomusicology. For more symposium information, visit www.indiana.edu/~semhome/2010/special.shtml Thursday – Sunday, November 11-14 The Society for Ethnomusicology will hold its 55th Annual Meeting at the Wilshire Grand Hotel in Los Angeles, hosted by the University of California, Los Angeles. For information on all meeting arrangements and for updates, please visit www.indiana.edu/~semhome/2010/index.shtml. The theme for the 2010 Annual Meeting will be “Sound Ecologies.” Following a keen interest in environments and soundscapes, topics will include the following: 1) Music, Displacement, and Disaster; 2) Music, Copyrights, and Human Rights; 3) Music and Social Activism; 4) Film Music.
Nazir Ali Jairazbhoy Colloquium Series Named after Nazir Ali Jairazbhoy, the founding chair of the Department of Ethnomusicology and Systematic Musicology, this colloquium series provides an opportunity for students, faculty, and visiting lecturers to share information about their research and discuss other issues important in the field.
ARCHIVE EVENTS Saturday, October 23, 2010 Crowds of researchers, genealogists, amateur historians, and others explore treasures of local history and culture in L.A.’s amazing variety of archives, as well as to attend discussion panels with local authors and filmmakers. Stop by the Ethnomusicology Archive’s booth celebrating the impact of fifty years of ethnomusicology in L.A. For more information, visit www.usc.edu/libraries/archives/arc/lasubject Wednesday, October 27 Come to the Archive on UNESCO’s World Day for Audiovisual Heritage to participate in the launch of this new group. Everyone who is interested in this world-class collection [audio and video recordings, photographs, and more] should be there. Come to hear and see treasures from the vaults, meet the archivists, have some light refreshments, and maybe discover music you never knew existed. Visit www.ethnomusic.ucla.edu/archive/ for more information.
Wednesday, November 3
LECTURES Nazir Ali Jairazbhoy Colloquium Series Named after Nazir Ali Jairazbhoy, the founding chair of the Department of Ethnomusicology and Systematic Musicology, this colloquium series provides an opportunity for students, faculty, and visiting lecturers to share information about their research and discuss other issues important in the field.
CONCERTS Wednesday, February 16 Monday, March 7 Tuesday, March 8
Opens March 20, 2011 Saturday, March 19 The Fowler teams with the Friends of Jazz at UCLA for a performance by UCLA faculty, students and special guests, under the direction of Kenny Burrell. A dessert reception and exhibition preview will follow. Sunday, March 20 1 p.m. Hear one of UCLA's celebrated jazz combos live inside "Jam Session: America's Jazz Ambassadors Embrace the World." 1–4 p.m. Celebrate the opening day of "Jam Session" with peanut butter and jam sandwiches and improvisational music-making led by UCLA students. 2 p.m. Since the end of World War II, the State Department has called on performing artists to play the role of cultural ambassadors, a practice that has experienced a resurgence in the last decade. Former cultural ambassador Kenny Burrell and leading jazz historian John Hasse, from the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, discuss the importance of jazz as a diplomatic tool — one that communicates cherished aspects of American society and culture to the larger world.
Wednesday-Saturday, March 23-26 The University of California, Los Angeles, will host the 15th Triennial Symposium on African Art, founded by Richard Long in 1968 and now sponsored by the Arts Council of the African Studies Association (ACASA). The conference will be held in conjunction with the exhibition "Central Nigeria Unmasked: Arts of the Benue River Valley," organized by the Fowler Museum at UCLA. ----------------------------------------Spring Quarter 2011 (March 28 – June 10)
Nazir Ali Jairazbhoy Colloquium Series Named after Nazir Ali Jairazbhoy, the founding chair of the Department of Ethnomusicology and Systematic Musicology, this colloquium series provides an opportunity for students, faculty, and visiting lecturers to share information about their research and discuss other issues important in the field. Wednesday, March 30, 2011, 1-3pm, Chuen-Fung Wong, Macalester College April 11-22, 2011 Arturo Márquez is a respected Mexican composer whose works combine Latin American music, jazz, and contemporary music. He has earned many awards and has performed internationally to great critical acclaim. His most well-known piece is Danzón 2, considered by some to be a secondary Mexican national anthem. During his residency at UCLA, Márquez will present free public lectures and conduct workshops for students in the Department of Ethnomusicology. The UCLA Philharmonia will present a concert featuring his music. Wednesday, April 13 CONCERTS Friday, April 8 Masanga Marimba plays traditional and popular music from Latin America and Africa. The instruments used in this ensemble consist of seven Zimbabwean marimbas of various sizes along with vocals, drums, percussion, saxophone, and trumpet. The word “Masanga” comes from an African word that means the coming together of rivers or roads representing the meeting of African, Latin, and American traditions in this group. Saturday, April 16 8 p.m. UCLA at Walt Disney Hall: A Celebration of World Music Neal Stulberg, director Walt Disney Concert Hall UCLA Philharmonia makes its Disney Hall debut, performing a program of world music in celebration of the 50th anniversary of ethnomusicology at UCLA. The concert features the music of Regents’ Lecturer and Mexican composer Arturo Márquez, UCLA faculty James Newton and A.J. Racy, and Chinese composer Ge Gan-Rua, as well as performances by Mariachi Los Camperos de Nati Cano directed by UCLA faculty Jesús Guzmán, a UCLA student jazz trio, and soloists UCLA Professor A.J. Racy and UCLA alumnus Danilo Lozano. Tickets may be purchased at the UCLA Central Ticket Office or by calling 310-825-2101.
Featuring performances by student ensembles from the Department of Ethnomusicology: 2:00pm - Music of China Ensemble, Li Chi, director
Featuring UCLA Jazz Combos.
Featuring performances by student ensembles from the Department of Ethnomusicology: 2:00pm - Music of Brazil Ensemble, Kirk Brundage, director
Friday, May 13 Saturday, May 14 Sunday, May 15 Friday, May 20 Saturday, May 21 Sunday, May 22
Hear melodies of love and lament, dance tunes, jazz, and topical songs from the early 20th century and beyond. The program will include a wide variety of musical traditions, including those from Appalachia and the American Southwest, Jazz and Ragtime, and a selection of Irish, Italian, Polish, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian, Bohemian, Hungarian, Russian, Croatian, Greek, Syrian, Klezmer, Finnish, Ukrainian, Japanese, West Indian, and Maori music. Robert Berkman is one of a handful of performing pianolists in the world today. Instead of the purely mechanical renditions often associated with the player piano, Berkman’s performances sparkle with life and emotion through his expert manipulation of the pianola’s subtle controls. In addition to his performance expertise, Berkman worked at one of the last companies that produced piano rolls, and is a well-known collector of piano rolls and expert in the subject. He has donated an important collection of piano rolls to the UCLA Ethnomusicology Archive.
Wednesday- Sunday, May 11-14, 2011 Annual conference and celebration of Ethnomusicology Archive’s 50th Anniversary. This international professional organization for those interested in preserving historical sound recordings will hold its annual meeting in Los Angeles. The meeting will be hosted by the UCLA Ethnomusicology Archive in honor of the Archive’s 50th anniversary, and will include special events celebrating one of the nation’s largest collections of ethnographic audio and video. Visit the following link for more information about the ARSC: www.arsc-audio.org Background The 1960s has been characterized as an era of dramatic social change when people from cultural groups considered antithetical to one another began searching for common ground. It was within this context that Mantle Hood, a composer, ethnomusicologist, and professor in the UCLA Department of Music, in 1960 founded the Institute of Ethnomusicology. Hood believed that the Institute, offering training and research on the musical cultures of the world, had the potential to help increase cultural understanding between people. As Hood stated in the Institute of Ethnomusicology brochure (1961), “In this latter half of the Twentieth Century it may well be that the very existence of man depends on the accuracy of his communications." Furthermore, "communication is accurate to the extent that it is founded on a sure knowledge of the man with whom we would hold intercourse...music and the related arts – which lie close to the heart of man as a fusion of mind, spirit and emotion – are principal carriers of [man's] tradition and vividly reflect his actual identity." Indeed, Hood’s belief in “bi-musicality,” that students should learn to play the music they were studying, became a lens through which one could better understand culture. This approach to the study of music, considered revolutionary at the time, became associated with UCLA. When Hood died in 2005, one Washington Post journalist wrote: “A major focus of his teaching was the study of music through performance, challenging his students to learn not only from scholarly research but also by playing instruments.” Because of its uniqueness, the Institute became a model and inspiration for other UCLA units during the 1960s. Inspired by what was transpiring in ethnomusicology for example, Alma Hawkins, who in 1962 founded the UCLA Dance Department (the first in the U.S.), arranged in 1963 for dance classes to be taught on the movements of Yugoslavia, Bali, and Mexico, which was another first for a U.S. university (David Gere, “All the World’s a Stage,” UCLA Magazine, Winter 1999). After Hood retired and the Institute was disestablished in 1974, the Program in Ethnomusicology was created within the Department of Music. Students continued to study ethnomusicology and obtain degrees in music with ethnomusicology as a specialization. The seventies and eighties were a time of reflection and maturation for ethnomusicology at UCLA, leading to the establishment of the Department of Ethnomusicology in 1989, with Nazir Ali Jairazbhoy as the founding chair. This was a milestone for both the history of ethnomusicology at UCLA and the world. In November 2007, the Departments of Ethnomusicology, Music, and Musicology came together to form The UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music with a $30 million donation from The Herb Alpert Foundation. Although each department continues to be autonomous units, the School of Music enables each department to be more innovative in a university setting. Additional information For more information about Worlds of Music at UCLA: Celebrating 50 Years of Ethnomusicology go to http://www.ethnomusic.ucla.edu/celebrating50years. Details about the history of ethnomusicology at UCLA are included in the website. See for example, History Summary, Timeline, Photo Galleries, Key Figures, Interviews, Faculty, Alumni. Worlds of Music at UCLA: Celebrating 50 Years of Ethnomusicology is sponsored by the UCLA Department of Ethnomusicology, the Latino Museum, the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture; The Herb Alpert School of Music, Fowler Museum at UCLA, the UCLA Graduate Division. The mission of The UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, Department of Ethnomusicology is to explore the rich variety of musical expressions throughout the world by combining hands-on musical experience with academic study. The undergraduate program has two concentrations: one in jazz studies, directed by the world renowned guitarist Kenny Burrell, and another in world music. The graduate program in ethnomusicology includes a specialization in systematic musicology. Throughout its five decades, UCLA Ethnomusicology has been recognized as the world's premier program as a result of its student and faculty achievements, its broad and innovative course offerings, and its training of faculty for other music programs. Alumni have gone on to establish ethnomusicology programs at other American institutions, including Brown University, the University of Michigan, UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz, as well as internationally, in countries such as Israel, Nigeria, the Philippines and Zambia. It was a UCLA Ethnomusicology graduate — Robert E. Brown, who earned his doctorate in 1964 — who is credited with coining the iconic phrase "world music." In addition to academe, students in ethnomusicology from UCLA have broken ground in other professions, including arts administration, archiving, museum work, the music industry, journalism, education (K-12), performance, and composition. The department is also home to the UCLA Ethnomusicology Archive, one of the largest sound archives in the United States, with more than 100,000 audiovisual recordings. -------------------------Photo by Romeo Guzman: African American Music Ensemble, May 23, 2010 |
