Presenter: Mary Talusan, Loyola Marymount University (visiting)

"The Racial Invisible: European Aesthetics and Black and Filipino Performance During the U.S. Colonial Era in the Philippines"

When conducting the highly applauded military concert band from America’s colony, John Philip Sousa exclaimed that, with his eyes closed, he thought it was the U.S. Marine Band playing. This was the highest praise that he could bestow on the Filipino musicians of the Philippine Constabulary Band (PC Band) and their African American conductor, Lt. Walter H. Loving. With Sousa’s eyes closed, domestic and colonial constructions of race were erased, thus allowing him to properly hear the PC Band’s artistic abilities, which rivaled but did not surpass the Marine Band’s musical superiority. The bandsmen, trained in Manila’s cosmopolitan music scene, were popular with American audiences who eagerly consumed European aesthetics of concert music performance. Ignoring race, at least on the concert stage, was a common way that American audiences resolved the contradictions of racial and colonial ideologies, discourses that portrayed both Filipinos and African Americans as incapable of mastering the cultural pinnacle of Western civilization—European art music. Off-stage, audiences often regarded the bandsmen as novelties or “little brown brothers.” I suggest that hearing past their race was as just damaging as casting them as spectacle. Further, ethnomusicology’s discussions of race as an expression of difference limits the analytical possibilities of understanding racialized and colonized peoples playing European concert music.

Mary Talusan received a Ph.D. in ethnomusicology from UCLA in 2005.

Open to the public and free of charge
Parking in Lot 2 — $10 (Hilgard and Westholme)
Information: (310) 825-5947

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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. Please check the department website for details on lecturers.