American Musicological Society

Society for Ethnomusicology

Society for Music Theory
Abstracts
New Orleans
14 November 2012
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Abstracts
the joint meetings of the
American Musicological Society
Seventy-eighth Annual Meeting
Society for Ethnomusicology
Fifty-seventh Annual Meeting
Society for Music Teory
Tirty-ffth Annual Meeting
: November :c::
Sheraton New Orleans
Astor Crowne Plaza New Orleans
g
g
AMS/SEM/SMT 2012 Annual Meetings Abstracts
Edited by Emma Dillon, Jocelyn R. Neal, and Bonnie C. Wade
Co-Chairs, :c:: AMS/SMT/SEM Program Committees
Program Committees
AMS: Emma Dillon, Chair, Dana Gooley, :c:, Chair, Nadine Hubbs, Mary Hunter, Gayle Sherwood Magee,
Giulio Ongaro, Jefrey Sposato
SEM: Bonnie C. Wade, Chair, Judah M. Cohen, Judith Gray, Paul Greene, Frank Gunderson, Eileen M. Hayes,
David Novak, Jef Packman, Tina K. Ramnarine
SMT: Jocelyn R. Neal, Chair, Michael Buchler, Peter Martens, Jan Miyake, Stephen V. Peles, Philip Rupprecht,
Harald Krebs, ex ofcio
Abstracts of Papers Read (ISSN c,,-:,c,) is published annually for the Annual Meeting of the American Musi-
cological Society, where one copy is distributed to attendees free of charge. Additional copies may be purchased
from the American Musicological Society for s:[Link] per copy plus s,.cc U.S. shipping and handling (add s,.cc
shipping for each additional copy). For international orders, please contact the American Musicological Society
for shipping prices: AMS, oc:c College Station, Brunswick ME cc::-,: (e-mail ams@[Link]).
Copyright :c:: by the American Musicological Society, Inc., the Society for Ethnomusicology, Inc., and the
Society for Music Teory, Inc. All rights reserved.
Cover design: Gabriel Sim-Laramee
Abstracts PDF Guidebook (mobile app)
Contents
Tursday Morning, Sessions :-: to :-:c . . . . . . . :
Tursday Afternoon, Sessions :-:: to :-,, . . . . . . . :,
Tursday Evening, Sessions :-,o to :-o, . . . . . . . . oo
Friday Morning, Sessions :-: to :-:, . . . . . . . . . ;,
Friday Noontime, Sessions :-,c to :-,, . . . . . . :c;
Friday Afternoon, Sessions :-, to :-, . . . . . . :c,
Friday Evening, Sessions :-,c to :-,, . . . . . . . :,,
Saturday Morning, Sessions ,-: to ,-,o . . . . . . :,
Saturday Noontime, Sessions ,-,; to ,-, . . . . . :;
Saturday Afternoon, Sessions ,-,, to ,-;: . . . . . :,
Saturday Evening, Sessions ,-;: to ,-; . . . . . . ::,
Sunday Morning, Sessions -: to -,o . . . . . . . :,:
Index of Names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . :;,
Tursday Morning, 1 November
Session 1-1 (SEM), [Link]
Te Beautiful, Te Good, and Te Story: Aesthetics and Narrative in Religious Music
Jonathan Dueck (Duke University), Chair
Composing the Future by Listening to the Musical Past: Islamic Exegesis in Javanese Folksongs
Dorcinda Knauth (State University of New York, Dutchess)
Javas rich literary past has long provided a source of inspiration for scholars and theologians, as they interpret ancient texts
in a way they hope can be relevant for contemporary Indonesian society. Tis literary, hermeneutic method provides com-
posers with a model to similarly interpret historic musical works and folk songs, many of which are anonymously authored
or ascribed to mystical fgures such as Islamic saints. By focusing on ethnically Javanese works, the exegete gives power to
local rather than foreign philosophies, and mainstream concepts promoted in the media as non-Indonesian (such as Western
democracy or Legalist Islam) can be challenged by the alternate wisdom of ancient Javanese writers. Te hermeneutic process
has inherently spiritual implications as historic texts are believed to belong to an idealized past. With repeated study and a
contemplative heart, the reader or listener gains access to great spiritual knowledge in their own lives. When these techniques
are applied to folk music, the resulting compositions are more than simply arrangements, but creative works that allow both
the performer and audience to engage in a meaningful dialogue between the present and an imagined Javanese past. Tis
complicates the notion of composition, and provides the opportunity for the composer to gain authority as a spiritual leader,
beyond simply being a musician. Examples are provided from original ethnographic research on popular Islamic music artists,
with focus on the world music fusion gamelan ensemble Kiai Kanjeng and their director, the award-winning author Emha
Ainun Nadjib.
Te Pilgimage to El-Ghriba and the Musical Aesthetics of a Muslim-Jewish Past
Ruth Davis (University of Cambridge)
Premiered in :,o, Tunisian Nouri Bouzids landmark flm Man of Ashes provoked charges of Zionism from Arab audi-
ences for its sympathetic portrait of a master carpenter played by the Tunisian Jewish musician Jacob Bsiri. In the same flm,
the disembodied voice of the Jewish media star Cheikh El-Afrit accompanying an old prostitutes reminiscences of the colo-
nial era, went unremarked. El-Afrit was among the many Jewish singers who showcased their latest hits adapted to Hebrew
texts at the annual pilgrimage to El-Ghriba, the miraculous synagogue and shrine revered by local Muslims and Jews, on the
Tunisian island of Jerba. By the :,,cs, El-Afrit was accompanied on the harmonium by the young Jacob Bsiri. With the mass
emigration of Jews following Tunisian independence, El-Ghriba became the site of annual homecoming for the Tunisian Jew-
ish diaspora. Bsiri continued to lead the musical rituals until :cc, his distinctive vocal style, accent, and repertory providing
a direct link to the multi-ethnic, multi-religious and multi-lingual colonial past. Te rituals culminate with a public display
of religious symbolism, including the parading of a multi-tiered candelabrum decked with multi-coloured shawls round the
predominantly Muslim village, cordoned by armed police. In this paper I show how the pilgrimage to El-Ghriba is as much a
temporal as a physical homecoming, a time bubble in a circumscribed physical space in which Jewish-Arab tensions temporar-
ily resolve as musicians recreate the distinctively Arab-Jewish popular musical aesthetic of the colonial era, evoking a shared
Muslim-Jewish past.
Sound, Aesthetics, and the Narration of Religious Space in Jerusalems Old City
Abigail Wood (University of Haifa, Israel)
Discussions of religious space in Jerusalems Old City are often grounded in static, structural imagery, incorporating visual
metaphors (four quarters divided by religious afliation; iconic views of the Dome of the Rock, the Western Wall and the
Church of the Holy Sepulchre). Nevertheless, listening torather than looking at, or writing aboutthe city ofers new
perspectives on the dynamic construction of religious space in this complicated, conficted, enticing place. Sound is a physical
phenomenon, shaped by landscapes and built space, and experienced as part of a wider sensory environment. Yet sound also
opens up aesthetic and afective space, adding texture to a conficted and over-narrated place. Based on examples drawn from
extended feldwork in the Old City, I will consider the roles played by the aesthetic ear in (re-)creating and parsing religious
spaces in Jerusalem. By performing music in the city, by citing religious texts or by pronouncing aesthetic judgements on
the soundscape, inhabitants and visitors alike open up interpretative spaces that contest everyday life, invoking instead the
transcendental quality of music or the analogical capacity of textual exegesis, while drawing upon a broad corpus of literary,
artistic, historical and narrative interpretation of the city. Nevertheless, the powers attributed to sound and music deserve
: Tursday Morning: Session 1- AMS/SEM/SMT New Orleans :o::
fne interrogation: aesthetic narratives are also vehicles for the wielding of powerand will a performance piece involving a
hundred triangle players really create a space for redemptive discourse?
Musical Lives and Aesthetics in the Worship Wars
Jonathan Dueck (Duke University)
What is at stake in the worship wars, the central musical confict in Western Christianity? Since the :,ocs, Western
Protestants have engaged in a debate over whether to sing hymnody or popular music in church. Periodicals like Christianity
Today contain a public transcript of this confict: popular music is lauded because of its connections with contemporary mass
culture and a Biblical tradition of embodied, direct praise; or its seen as threatening theology and liturgy tied to hymnody
and thus threatening the churchs self-constitution through corporate worship. Here, drawing on my ethnographic study of
the worship wars among Canadian Mennonites, I argue that aesthetics, not theological principle or liturgical function, is
centrally at issue in the worship wars. While the Mennonites I studied often defended their positions on music theologi-
cally, they also told complicated musical life stories that accounted for the ways music became beautiful to them. I therefore
argue that aesthetics when used as an analytic category concerning music, needs to take into consideration the musical life
histories of individualsin other words, the contingent set of relationships a person has had through music, and the ways
they link that persons memory with their feelings and understandings of beauty. In making this argument, I, connect the
ethnomusicology of the individual with musicological refections on aesthetics as category; and I complicate the divide that
both Christians and scholars commonly make between the sacred as the realm of functional ritual and the secular as the realm
of the aesthetic.
Session 1-2 (SEM), [Link]
Between Festival, Celebration, and Carnival: Reclaiming, Resignifying, and Performing Tradition and
Identities in Mexico and Colombia
BrendaM. Romero (University of Colorado, Boulder), Chair

Todos somos huastecos! We are all Huastecan!: Performance of the Democratization

of Son Huasteco at El Festival de la Huasteca (Te Festival of the Huasteca)
KimCarter Muoz (University of Washington)
Te processes of folklorization and the adaptation of local practices to cosmopolitan aesthetics, have each been used
to explain how genres such as Mexican son huasteco are transported from the participatory to the presentational context
(Mendoza :ccc; Turino :ccc and :cc). However, when what is marked as essential to the style is participatory music, po-
etry and dance-making, folklorization is not a one-way ticket onto the stage. Tis paper will examine the democratization
of son huasteco as enacted by organizers, embodied and performed by musicians at El Festival de la Huasteca, a rich site for
contemplating the multi-directional processes of making folklore. Since :,,, each night at the festivals Encuentro de Hua-
pangueros has brought together people from the Huasteca region and elsewhere to play at a participatory music, poetry and
dance gathering of dancers, singers, musicians and poets. Organizers values of equal representation and education (inherent
in democratizing projects) have increased the participation on the stage of indigenous, mestizos, youth, women, middle-class
urban and rural residents as son huasteco musicians, a role previously passed down within families. Some proclaim, Todos
somos huastecos! We are all Huastecan. Yet, the presence of non-Huastecans, and ethnic, gender and class diferences among
Huastecans, spotlights inclusion and exclusion. Not all are enfranchised. I contend that this performance of son huasteco is
shaped by participation, not only from the top but also from the sides and below, and by tradition bearers desire for transmis-
sion, on, back, and ofstage.
Festival Son Raz: Building Community and Signifying Identity and
Culture Ownership Across Mexican Regions
Raquel Paraso (University of Wisconsin-Madison)
Social changes in Mexico during the beginning of the second half of the twentieth century contributed to the disappear-
ance of social contexts and conditions for the performance of traditional music. By :,cs, governmental institutions, musicians
and cultural promoters started to organize festivals in diferent regions as a way to overcome the abandonment of musical
traditions and traditional culture. Festivals functioned as platforms for gaining back social places and spaces for the music, as
well as to create new ones in which to share, experience, promote, and revitalize the legacies of these music cultures. Creating
community and reinforcing identity within and across regions were particularly important at these festivals. For six years (:cc,
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Abstracts Tursday Morning: Session 1- ,
to :c:c), Son Raz stood out as a festival interplaying between institutional sponsorship and non-governmental initiatives. It
showcased diferent Mexican musical traditions, cutting across regionalisms to signify a larger Mexican cultural identity and
to bridge a community of musicians and cultural promoters. Te festival also served as a cultural medium in which traditional
music was utilized as a powerful tool for social change, a means of dialogue among cultural regions, and a banner of ownership
of ones culture. Building community and signifying cultural identity took place not only through music performances, but
also through theoretical dialogues in roundtables intended to come up with efective plans of action to empower communities
to have more control over their own cultural property, and to give traditional culture a more central place in society.
Identity, Peace, and Learning at Rural Music Festivals in Colombias Caribbean Coast
Ian Middleton (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign)
Since the :,;cs, Colombias Caribbean coastal region has witnessed the establishment, by local practitioners or afcionados,
of many yearly festivals dedicated to mainly rural, autochthonous musical practices. In this paper I focus on three traditions:
Gaita (fute and percussion music), Tambora and Bullerengue (both bailes cantados, sung dances with percussion), and their
festivals in Ovejas, San Martn de Loba and Mara la Baja respectively. I argue that these festivals are not only times and places
of reunion, celebration and revelry for specifc social groups and cultural cohorts, but have also come to be signs of individual,
group, local and regional identity; signs and promoters of peace in still tumultuous times for the region; and sites of intense
learning and academic engagement. I also develop the argument that they are represented and experienced in ambivalent ways,
both as means of preserving, folklorizing and presenting traditions once close to extinction, and as contexts for nurturing
live, vital and expanding musical practices. Tis leads to a novel analysis of such events as occupying a position between the
established categories of participatory celebration and presentational, folkloric festival. My ethnographic, semiotic approach
emphasizes participant testimony obtained during multi-sited feldwork I conducted in :ccc, in the musics rural heart-
lands (in the departamentos Cordoba, Sucre, Magdalena, Bolvar and Cesar) and the city of Cartagena, Bolvar.
El Carnaval de Ro Sucio No Es Festival / Te Carnival of Ro Sucio Is Not a Festival
BrendaM. Romero (University of Colorado, Boulder)
Te bi-yearly Carnaval de Ro Sucio in the departamento Caldas of Colombia is considered national Intangible Cultural
Heritage, an impressive emblem of two neighboring mulatto and indigenous factions success in overcoming ethnic and class
divisions. Beginning in :,:,, drawing on a widespread, centuries-old familiarity with the colonial Matachines music/dance/
theater/rhetorical complex in despair over the mutual desecration of each others neighboring festas, an insightful cleric as-
signed a monstrous devil fgure to appear to punish those who spoiled the religious celebration. Te double-entendre that
permeates the festa is based on the idea that the devil has become good, connoting permission to vent antagonisms, large and
small, via theatrical gatherings (convite). Carnival directors, called Matachines, have reappropriated colonial religious forums
for rhetorical decrees, decretos, by combining them with elements of humor and parody that characterized Matachines and
other masked European genres belonging to the people since the Middle Ages. In addition, numerous cuadrillas, large repre-
sentative community troupes dressed to a particular theme, engage in choreographed song displays (sometimes competitive)
that demonstrate cosmopolitanism and social awareness, often in parody. Today the Carnaval de Ro Sucio has become a way
of life for many, a means of recreating social identities in a repeating cycle of creativity and renewal. Based on participant
observation at the Carnaval in :cc; and feld interviews in :c::, the presenter describes a society unifed around signifying
carnavalesque identities made viable via music, dance, theater, and rhetoric. Ro Sucio, or muddied waters (Applebaum), is
a metaphor for cultural mixing.
Session 1-3 (SEM), [Link]
Crafting Art Music Worlds: Te Hidden Work of Rehearsing
Michael OToole (University of Chicago), Chair
Kaley Mason (University of Chicago), Discussant
Rehearsing Publics in a Turkish Art Music Ensemble in Berlin
Michael OToole (University of Chicago)
How are publics imagined through the practices of rehearsal? How does the rehearsal space itself constitute a form of imag-
ining a public? Ethnomusicological studies of publics, drawing upon the work of Michael Warner and Charles Hirschkind,
have tended to focus on how publics are constituted in and through musical performance as well as media forms such as radio
and recordings. And yet crucial to the formation of publics through performance are the ways in which publics are imagined
and represented in the practice of rehearsing for a performance. In this paper, I will consider the ways in which a variety of
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, Tursday Morning: Session 1- AMS/SEM/SMT New Orleans :o::
potential publics are imagined and represented in the rehearsals of an amateur ensemble for Turkish Art Music in Berlin,
Germany. Drawing on participant observation at rehearsals and concerts, as well as interviews with ensemble members, I will
argue that the activity of rehearsing enables participants in this ensemble to imagine themselves as members of multiple pub-
lics, as well as to situate the ensemble itself as a form of public-making. I will argue that this process of public-making through
rehearsing is crucial to understanding the political context of musical practice for Turkish Germans in Berlin, where the
formation of publics is deeply intertwined with local constructions of ethnic, religious, and musical diference. By imagining
multiple forms of local, national, and diasporic publics through the practices of rehearsing, performers of Turkish Art Music in
Berlin can craft varied interventions in struggles over the representation of identity and citizenship in contemporary Germany.
Rehearsing the Social: Becoming a Performer in Kampalas Classical Music Scene
Suzanne Wint (University of Chicago)
Methodologically, rehearsals are some of the most fruitful spaces for ethnomusicological research; yet monographs prioritize
the performance or ritual over the rehearsal, despite the critique that studies of the everyday (de Certeau, De Nora, Berger
and Del Negro) have levied upon ritual studies. In practices in which improving a sound product for public consumption is
a goal, the rehearsal is often overshadowed. In this paper, I shift the focus to the rehearsal as an important space of socializa-
tion, both in terms of learning to be part of a performance tradition, and attending to social bonds important to the local
performance scene. By examining the case of Western art music performance in Kampala (Uganda), I show how practitioners
use the space of the rehearsal to rehearse the etiquette of classical performance, the presentation of oneself within boundaries
of appropriate behavior for the performing group, and the cultivation of relationships of reciprocal obligation so important
within society beyond the rehearsal. Specifcally, I consider a number of ethnographic moments in rehearsals with Christ the
King :c OClock Choir that highlighted what the group considered proper interaction between conductor and choir, choir
and audience, between members, and between musicians of diferent performing groups.
Recording Rehearsing: Te Hidden Process of the Classical Studio Session
Gregory Weinstein (University of Chicago)
Western classical music recordings provide a complete and continuous interpretation of a musical work. However, the
records apparent linearity obscures the complex musical processes and collaborations involved in producing that rendition.
Tese processes include fxing mundane technical details, as well as instances of musicians and recordists collaborating to
work out musical ideas and interpretations. Moreover, the technological features of the recording studio allow musical col-
laborators to refne or alter their interpretations. Musicians have the opportunity to listen back to a recording and adjust
their performance accordingly; they can discuss the musical work and beneft from the feedback of colleagues; and recordists
have the ability to edit a convincing and continuous interpretation during post-production. Tis paper will consider these
hidden elements of classical record production as a part of a multi-linear rehearsal process through which a musical work is
brought into linear existence on record. I will draw on my experiences at a variety of classical recording sessions in the United
Kingdom in order to demonstrate how a musicians concept of a work can change dramatically during the course of a record-
ing session, and how such shifts in interpretation are usually uniquely mediated by the studio environment. By considering
the recording process as a rehearsal where musicians and recordists can experiment musically and technologically, we can shed
new light on conventional notions of the musical work and the nature of musical collaboration.
Session 1-4 (SEM), [Link]
Cultural Authority and Music: Historical Questions from the Middle East and Central Asia
AnnE. Lucas (Brandeis University), Chair
Music and Authority: Te Changing Function of Music Under the Safavid Dynasty, :,c::;::
AnnE. Lucas (Brandeis University)
In the literature on Persian music, the Safavid Dynasty is often depicted as overseeing a period of drastic musical decline
(for instance, Mashun :cc,, Zonis :,;,). Yet there is no actual evidence that either musical performances or consumption of
music were curtailed under the Safavids. In fact, the Safavids memorialized their own music patronage in many visible ways,
including a codex of musical writings compiled by imperial decree towards the end of their reign. In this paper, I will look at
the changing place of music in the Safavid Empire. I analyze both song texts collections and music treatises from the Safavid
codex, as well as musical writings from their dynastic predecessors, the Timurids, in order to demonstrate that music took
on new signifcance within the Safavids gunpowder empire, rather than simply declining. As divine monarchs, the Safavids
sought to project a new kind of divine greatness at every opportunity. Tus, more music set out to convey the omnipotence of
4
Abstracts Tursday Morning: Session 1- ,
the Safavid Shahs to their subjects, while less music was devoted to anything else. Within this argument, I will examine how
Safavid songs ft into the broader ceremonial culture of the Safavids, referred to by historian Kathryn Babayan as the Safavid
Teater of Authority (:cc:). I will also examine how the more simplifed discourse of music treatises from the Safavid Pe-
riod, a signifcant factor in the conception of Safavid decline, is also tied to this Teater of Authority, where grand revelation
was more valued that complex musical refection and calculation.
Te Cairo Opera House: Historical Perspectives on an Egyptian Cultural Landmark
Tess Popper (University of California, Santa Barbara)
Inaugurated in internationally-attended festivities in :o,, the Cairo Opera House symbolized the cultural authority of
the Egyptian nation in the early stages of the modern Arab renaissance a literary, then political movement generating new
nationalist sentiment in the Ottoman Arab provinces. Sponsored by the Egyptian ruler Khedive Ismail, the Opera House
became a major feature of his modernizing projects based on Western political and cultural models. In this paper I discuss
nineteenth-century depictions of Ismail, hailed as promoter of the performing arts, which he regarded as a necessary compo-
nent for defning Egyptian national identity as a modern nation capable of achieving equal status with the European powers.
Trough a series of posters from the Opera House museum and from its current website, I present an overview of trends in
international cultural ties established by Opera House management since the era of Khedive Ismail and his aspirations for
Egyptian modernity. I then discuss how contemporary discourse addressing the origins and ideological implications of this
cultural institution refects the complexities involved in interpreting a non-Western societys response to colonial experience.
Edward Saids depiction of the Opera House as a product of, European cultural colonization leading to direct British control
of Egypt in ::, for example, stands in contrast to a recent Egyptian director of the Opera House depicting the institution
as an Egyptian cultural landmark, a signifcant feature of the modern Egyptian nation. In a brief coda, I demonstrate the
Houses Facebook networking presence during the January-February :c:: uprisings in Cairo.
Deconstructing a Medieval Legend: Guido dArezzo, the Arabian
Infuence, and the Role of Historical Imagination
Hicham Chami (University of Florida)
Orientalist scholars have long challenged the designation of eleventh-century Benedictine monk Guido dArezzo as the in-
ventor of solmization. Tis roster of scholars includes Franciszek Meniski (:oc), Jean-Benjamin Laborde (:;c), Guillaume
Andr Villoteau (:c,), and Henry George Farmer (:,,c), who maintained that comparable systems had previously existed in
Arab musical practice, thus casting doubt on Guidos role in inventing an authoritative form of solmization using syllables
from the hymn Ut Queant Laxis. A sense of ambiguity pervades recent scholarship, with the language of uncertainty scat-
tered throughout the literature, not only in regard to dating of the hymn and the disputed authorship of Paulus Diaconus,
but also in regard to Guidos precise role in solmization. Many of the numerous musical innovations attributed to the monk
have been discredited.
Drawing on original source material, this paper seeks to establish a credible timeline for Guidos life and work and
verify the probability that he learned of solmization from of his studies in Moorish Cataloniaa vibrant milieu
of cultural exchange with Arabs- as advanced by Mariano Soriano Fuentes in 1,,. Tis key factor is, surprisingly,
disregarded in most biographies of Guido. Te broader focus of the paper is to identify linkages to solmization sys-
tems from the Arab tradition and authenticate the Arabian musical infuence in medieval Europe. It is ultimately
less concerned with overturning Guidos contributions to music than with acknowledging the inevitable aspect of
speculation entailed in the process of historiography which can propagate legends of authority at the expense of
fact.
Session 1-5 (SEM), [Link]
Gender Studies
Gillian Rodger (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee), Chair
S/he Sings Just Like a Woman: Sonic Construction of Gender in East Asian Teater Arts
Heather Willoughby (Ewha Womens University)
Despite the fact that Peking Opera, Japanese kabuki, and Korean pansori have been studied separately as distinctive East
Asian theater arts, there is virtually no comparative research; as part of a larger research project, this paper will focus on the
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Tursday Morning: Session 1- AMS/SEM/SMT New Orleans :o::
unique ways the voice is used for gender construction in these genres. More specifcally, this is an analysis of sound aesthetics
and other performative aspects demonstrating the sound and image of an ideal woman in East Asia. For example, in Peking
Opera, there are distinct role types for and/or portraying women, each of which represents a specifc ideal female; the cos-
tumes, movements and vocalizations are all stylized so as to depict a particular category of woman. Likewise, the male actors
performing womens roles in kabuki do not merely attempt to act like a woman but rather create and construct an ideal
female likeness (Mezur :cc,) both visually and aurally. Pansori also provides an interesting case to investigate verbal expres-
sions of gender ideals as both men and women play all characters in any given story, creating a transgendered space, with little
or no change in physicality, timbre or pitch to distinguish between male and female characters. By comparing and contrast-
ing these East Asian arts, we can better understand why the ideals developed as they did, why they have continued through
time despite remarkable changes in the real world in terms of women and their ideal roles, and how the vocalizations refect
signifcant information of the nations of origin.
Yoko Ono and the Gendered Global Voice
Kara Attrep (Bowling Green State University)
Trained in both Western classical music and in Japanese instruments and vocal styles, Yoko Onos musical education was
eclectic and diverse. From her avant-garde work with Fluxus in New York in the early :,ocs up until the present, Ono has
pushed the boundaries of vocal technique incorporating sounds from all around the globe and infuencing younger female
vocalists in a multitude of genres. Tis paper examines the misunderstandings surrounding some of her early pieces and the
gendered and racial manner in which these pieces are understood and interpreted. Often, Onos performing voice is confated
with her own beingshe is her voice. Tis characterization has led critics, especially in the days right after her marriage to
John Lennon, to defne Ono as strange, other worldly and even evil. It is this confation of the body with the voice that
has led many to either revere or disparage Onos vocal performances. I seek to reconcile the seemingly contradictory readings/
hearings of Onos body and voice. Several scholars have examined the gendered and racial aspects of Onos performances.
However, I seek to expand these studies and explore the mapping of gendered and racialized identities onto Yoko Onos voice
and, by extension, body. By tracing these mappings, I show the complex interconnection between identity, the voice, and the
body through Onos performances. Additionally, I examine how Onos voice becomes a model for critiquing and labeling
contemporary female artists from around the globe, whose voices and lives are often judged in relation to Onos.
A Queer Organology of the Harp
Henry Spiller (University of California, Davis)
Long hours practicing and performing behind a concert pedal harp have convinced me that it is perhaps the Wests queerest
musical instrument. In this paper, I examine some of the harps history and characteristics in light of critical theories of sexual
identities and desire (e.g. Foucault, Lacan, Sedgwick, and Butler) to explore the question: how does a musical instrument
become correlated with sexual identities? I argue that players and listeners fnd it viable to map non-hegemonic desires and
sexual identities to the many ambiguities that surround the harp: its equivocal phallic imagery (does it represent the players
own phallus, or does it penetrate his spread legs?); the deceptive enharmonic pedalings that allow the essentially diatonic harp
to pass as a chromatic instrument and the closeting of the ungraceful mechanism that enables this chicanery; the feminine
associations that both enabled female harpists to break the gender barrier of professional orchestras and contributed to the
harps marginal placement and role in the orchestra; and the commonly-held and frequently-denied assumption, at least in the
late twentieth century, that any male harpist is gay. In line with Foucaults argument that pre-modern sensibilities regarded
homosexual behaviors as discrete acts rather than components of stable identities, I propose that the harps history of am-
biguity has long lent itself to enacting a variety of alternative desires and identities, including assertive women, gentle men,
womanizers, and even asexuality, but which many in the twentieth century, in keeping with modern sexual politics, confated
into a monolithic homosexual identity.
A Journey of Identity: Jennifer Leithams Challenge to Normative Gender Hierarchies of Jazz
Randy Drake (University of California, Santa Barbara)
Jennifer Leitham, a transgender bassist, complicates easy theories about the performance of gender, music, identity, and
subjectivity in jazz. Leitham established her career for many years as a male performer in jazz, but in :cc:, she could no longer
tolerate her male identity and changed her sex. Te movement of her identity from a perceived normative gender identity of
male, through transgender, to a perceived normative gender of female, represents a deep challenge to the normative subject
position of jazz. Jazz music has been slow to disengage representations of identity related to its historical development among
heterosexual African American males. Yet in contrast to this normative position, there are other musicians who address jazz
5
Abstracts Tursday Morning: Session 1- ;
identities from the margins, and recontextualize the subject, and object, of musicmaking. Leithams position in jazz will be
considered through personal interviews, her work profle, and ideas generated by feminist performance theory. What happens
when one establishes a career as a male bassista position of power and prestige in the jazz worldthen transitions to the
socially-subordinate position of female? To what extent do phases of movement in ones identitymovements internally and
externally related to heterosexual gender normatives, gender under construction, gender ambiguity that are racializedcreate
agency (or not) for those who are dealing with these issues in everyday life as well as musical performance? Tis paper will
demonstrate how Leitham challenges gender identity in jazz, and consider how gender relates to its normative sociocultural,
discursive, and performative contexts.
Session 1-6 (SEM), [Link]
Hindustani Music as Social Life: Ethics, Lineage, Patronage, and Commerce
Max Katz (College of William and Mary), Chair
Gestural Lineages and Embodied Ethics in Hindustani Vocal Music
Matthew Rahaim (University of Minnesota)
Observers of Indian classical music have long commented on the extensive hand gestures of Indian vocalists, but ordinar-
ily dismiss them as insignifcant or even morally suspect. It turns out, however, that the gestures improvised alongside vocal
improvisation (like those that accompany improvised speech) are closely co-ordinated with the voice, forming elaborate,
dynamic melodic images that complement the vocal line. Gestural action embodies a special kind of melodic knowledge: an
implicit, non-verbal music theory. Te transmission of this musical knowledge through gesture results in lineages of vocalists
who not only look and sound similar, but also engage with music kinesthetically according to similar aesthetic values and
ethical stances. Te ethical valences of these gestural dispositions are often expressed quite explicitly: humility vs. arrogance,
sincerity vs. pretense, gentleness vs. harshness, etc. Tis paper frst demonstrates a few cases of the inheritance of gestural
dispositions in teaching lineages, and then proposes a new way to theorize the interwoven traditions of embodied melody,
aesthetics, and ethics that link generations of teachers and students.
Te Search for the Lucknow Gharana
Max Katz (College of William and Mary)
Since the publication more than thirty years ago of Daniel Neumans pioneering work, Te Life of Music in North India,
scholars have debated the defnition, signifcance, and history of the socio-musical unit known as gharanathe primary
locus of identity for North Indias hereditary classical musicians. As James Kippen, Stephen Slawek, and others have convinc-
ingly argued, the complexity of the gharana debate derives in part from the politics that pervade both Indian music-culture
and the ethnographic enterprise itself. In this paper, I explore the problems and politics of scholarly work among North Indias
hereditary musicians through a focus on the Lucknow gharana, a prestigious lineage of sitar and sarod players claimed by three
distinct musical families all based in the legendary cultural center of Lucknow. Teasing out the competing and conficting
claims of these three families through ethnography and history, my paper explores the contentious world of gharana politics
in North India, revealing the signifcant role played by ethnomusicologists in both illuminating and exacerbating ongoing
socio-musical rivalries.
Te Indirect Consequences of Colonialism for Indian Music
Justin Scarimbolo (University of California, Santa Barbara)
Scholarly debate on the social and cultural consequences of colonialism in India has often focused on its more disastrous
efects: the construction of caste, Hindu-Muslim communalism, and in regard to music, a nationalist-inspired movement for
reform that displaced populations of hereditary professional musicians. In this paper I explore a contrasting perspective, focus-
ing on new possibilities for musical patronage that resulted from an innovative British policy of indirect rule wherein select
states retained substantial autonomy even as they were bound by treaties of subordinate co-operation. Specifcally, I trace the
career of Sir John Malcolm, a powerful ofcial of the British East India Company, who during a volatile period of transition
from Maratha to British paramountcy in ::, played a crucial role in efecting treaties with native rulers and lesser chiefs,
some of whom became the most prominent patrons of music in Central India. Tis paper follows Malcolms activities both on
the battlefeld and in his diplomatic negotiations with Maratha leaders to argue that the disaster and political displacement
of British imperialism, expressed through the policies of indirect rule, indirectly helped create conditions in which musical
patronage, as a realm of relative cultural autonomy, fourished in native princely courts during the early nineteenth century.
6
Tursday Morning: Session 1- AMS/SEM/SMT New Orleans :o::
Local Makers, Global Players: Tabla Design and Construction in an International Marketplace
Allen Roda (New York University)
Whenever possible, serious tabla players are closely involved with the production and tuning of their instruments, such
that tabla making is a highly interactive craft. By contrast, international customers rarely have the time or ability to return to
the shop repeatedly each time their tablas need tightening or repair, and they periodically have unique customs and packag-
ing restrictions that do not impact local customers. Growing global popularity for tablas has led to much greater interaction
between tabla makers and internationally-based clientele, whether through brief interactions at the shop, increased orders
from distributors in major cities like Delhi and Mumbai, or through mobile phones and the internet. In my analysis of tabla
construction and the international trade of tablas, I investigate various efects of globalization and tourism on local tabla mak-
ers in Varanasi. In particular, I explore direct infuences on design and innovation, impacts on labor and customer relations,
and ways in which tabla makers and customers utilize new technologies to circumvent distributors and middlemen and work
around governmental restrictions on the import/export of rawhide. Building on ethnographic work with multiple families of
tabla makers in Varanasi, oral histories of tabla making in previous eras, participation of tabla players and makers in online
forums, and analysis of new innovations in tabla design, this paper looks at the current tabla economy of Varanasi in relation
to its remembered past.
Session 1-7 (SEM), [Link]
Innovation through Time: Latin America and the Jazz Tradition
Steven Loza (University of California, Los Angeles), Chair
New Orleans, the Latin Caribbean, and Louis Armstrong
Steven Loza (University of California, Los Angeles)
New Orleans, the cradle of early jazz, has been noted for its diverse cultural history; it also sits atop the Caribbean and the
Gulf of Mexico. How has this geographic and cultural matrix represented the formation of jazz style and its culture, and what
are some specifc examples that can be examined to theorize this topic? In this paper, I will present some historical perspective
on New Orleans and its relationship to music and musicians that played a role in early jazz, especially as related to Cuba and
Mexico. I will then present an analytical sketch of St. Louis Blues as recorded by Louis Armstrong, born, raised, and trained
in the early jazz context of New Orleans. W. C. Handy developed a keen interest in Afro-Caribbean music, traveling to Cuba
for inspiration and adapting Afro-Cuban themes to his compositions, e.g. the use of the Cuban habanera rhythmic fgure in
St. Louis Blues., Trough a musical discussion of Armstrongs recording of this classic piece, my goal in this paper is to syn-
thesize historical and musical data related to New Orleans diverse culture, the role of Latin Caribbean music and musicians
within this context, and the specifc role of one of the citys native sons, Louis Armstrong.
El Tro Romntico y el Jazz: Romancing the Past, Disappointed with the Present
Leon Garcia (University of California, Los Angeles)
Te bolero, particularly in its trio style, has been known throughout Latin America as romantic music that has captured the
dreams and aspirations of urban people in Latin American cities. In this paper I trace its origins to the vieja trova in Cuba,
and I explore the way Mexicos capitalist system infuenced the development of the bolero as compared to the nueva trova
under Cuban socialism. I also analyze the infuence and cultural signifcance of jazz and baroque idioms in the development
of the trio style in an attempt to demonstrate that msica romntica, particularly in its trio format, represented the social class
aspirations of Mexicos post-revolutionary generation, and that msica romntica itself became a romantic idea of a better
future that never occurred. I devote particular attention to the infuence of U.S. foreign, economic and cultural policies on
the incorporation of jazz, demonstrating that these provided the bases for musical innovation while simultaneously preventing
economic development. Tis discussion lays the groundwork for case studies of two of the most famous trios: Los Tres Reyes
and Los Tres Ases, who competed with each other to present to their audiences a more modern bolero that incorporated jazz
and virtuosic elements. Finally, drawing from recent feldwork, I explore the current state of trio music in Mexico City.
Urban Spaces and Jazz Improvisation: Hearing the Hang in the U.S., Chile, and Argentina
AlexW. Rodriguez (University of California, Los Angeles)
Troughout the musics history, jazz has developed alongside what its musical practitioners call hang. Both noun and verb,
the (to) hang is a location and process of social interaction that has coexisted with jazz since its early days in New Orleans and
prohibition-era New York City, kept alive today in clubs such as Smalls in New York and Te Blue Whale in Los Angeles.
7
Abstracts Tursday Morning: Session 1- )
Like jazz itself, this four-letter word carries multiple meanings; the (to) hang is a central characteristic of jazz improvisation,
with roots in twentieth-century urban life. Today, the deep, improvised communication inspired by hang(ing) has proliferated
beyond the United States, with examples in many other countries. Chile and Argentina, the focus of this presentation, provide
two examples: the decades-old Club de Jazz de Santiago and makeshift Buenos Aires basement bar La Pedraza, two popular
hangs in their respective jazz communities. By describing some of the musicians navigating these spaces in the United States,
Chile and Argentina, this paper demonstrates how digital technology and global educational networks are connecting these
geographically distant environments. Tis emergent digital space presents new challenges for improvised discourse among
jazz afcionados as it mirrors the intimacy and communal spirit aforded by the original hangs. Tis paper considers how this
transitioncoming at a time when many jazz clubs have been forced to closecan imbue these new connections with an
ethos of hang ushering this jazz practice into the twenty-frst century.
Session 1-8 (SEM), [Link]
Music and Disability Studies
Devin Burke (Case Western Reserve University), Chair
I Cant Make the Journey by Myself: Blindness as a Transformative
Trope in the Music of Reverend Gary Davis
William Ellis (Saint Michaels College)
Te societal status of blind musicians has historically fallen into two camps: the street-relegated mendicant to be pitied or
the gifted virtuoso to be adored, each a category of otherness. Te reality, of course, is much more nuanced and complex, but
it is against these polarized stereotypes that blind performers typically have had to negotiate their own identities. Blind Pied-
mont blues and gospel guitarist Reverend Gary Davis, whose infuence extends from protg Blind Boy Fuller to Bob Dylan,
experienced both extremes in his long career, and frequently addressed his disability, overtly and through the allusive language
of vernacular song. What becomes evident through a detailed examination of his recorded oeuvre is that Davis employed
secular and sacred music for diferent self-refexive purposes: blues music to sublimate the tensions, fears and marginalization
associated with blindness, and religious song for transformative action. Tis, of course, helps explain why Davis, a Baptist
minister, maintained such a high degree of sinful material (nearly ffty percent) in his working repertoire. Tis paper takes
a cross-disciplinary approach that combines musicological and folkloric methodologies with disability studies and discourse
analysis. My research into the music and motivations of blind musicians, and African American blues and gospel culture in
general, culminated in my Ph.D. dissertation, I Belong to the Band: Te Music of Reverend Gary Davis (to be published
by the University Press of Mississippi).
Te Dancing Ground: Embodied Knowledge, Health, and Visibility in New Orleans Secondlines
Daniella Santoro (Tulane University)
Te performative traditions of New Orleans secondline parades ofer profound insight into localized expressions of health
and the body. Te citys streets, the setting for these weekly jazz parades and community events, can also be seen as a stage
where the body emerges in central focus and public visibility. Evolving out of the traditional New Orleans jazz funeral, sec-
ondlines commemorate and reference expressive traditions and improvisations of the Afro-Creole diaspora, celebrate local
neighborhood identities, and mark complex racialized spaces and histories. Additionally, as public, festive and symbolic spaces
of music, dance and movement, secondlines privilege the body as a site of commemoration and knowledge production. How
do local expressive practices inform individual and shared conceptions of health and (dis) abled bodies? How do secondline
parades reconcile competing notions of visibility as marked by cultural tourism, popularized images of African American ex-
pressive traditions, and biomedical narratives of healthy bodies? What is that secondline beat and how do individuals defne
the parade experience in reference to wider discourses about their bodies capabilities and physical expectations? Tis research
contextualizes the transcendental aspects of secondline dance by focusing on the parade as a means of transformation and as
a representation of localized conceptions of health, aging, and disability in New Orleans and the contemporary Unites States.
Enemy Music: Blind Birifor Xylophonists of Northwest Ghana
Brian Hogan (University of California, Los Angeles)
Te funeral xylophone traditions of the Birifor peoples of Northwest Ghana are renowned across the West African hinter-
land for the cultural narratives and social critiques they convey through public ceremonies overfowing with musical artistry,
surrogated song texts, and symbolic meaning. In these ceremonies, xylophonists as ritual specialists negotiate social, cultural,
and spiritual relationships, critically remaking culture, history, and the self through a compositional cycle that interweaves
8
:o Tursday Morning: Session 1- AMS/SEM/SMT New Orleans :o::
songs of new and old. For most Birifor xylophonists this role leads to rampant jealousy within a local culture of competi-
tion and suspicion, making them targets for malicious gossip and witchcraft (suoba). However, for Birifor xylophonists with
blindness, a physical condition with a longstanding history in the region, the perception of their minds, bodies, and music
through a preexisting cultural ideology of ability leads to a compound form of subordination that relegates their very being
to witchcraft. While the social and physical models of disability recognized in recent Western scholarship persist in Birifor
culture, they are encapsulated within a previously untheorized spiritual model of disability that labels the disabled body as the
result of corrupting mystical forces. Confronting this compound subordination of musicianship and disability, blind Birifor
xylophonists identify, critique, and contest the locations of disability by composing and performing enemy music (dondomo
yiel ). Examining select compositions by blind Birifor xylophonists, this presentation references feldwork recordings and song
texts to amplify the unsung perspectives of musicians with blindness, while exploring the broader implications of the culture-
specifc aspects of ableism for music scholarship.
Staf Benda Bilili and the Need to Overcome the Ableist Trope of Overcoming Disability
Elyse Marrero (Florida State University)
Staf Benda Bilili is a Congolese rock band from the streets of Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Te band
is backed by former street kids, with the core members consisting of older musicians who have physical disabilities due to
contracting polio during childhood. Tese older musicians were ostracized by non-disabled musicians in Kinshasa leading to
the formation of Staf Benda Bilili. During my research of this band, I noticed the ignorant and problematic ways journalists
describe Staf Benda Bilili, which include the lack of disability language etiquette, and the use of a common and irritating
trope in describing successful persons with a disability: the trope of overcoming disability. By referencing recent scholarship
on Beethoven and deafness, through my analysis of the music video and lyrics of Staf Benda Bililis song Polio, and my
critical take on a BBC article and video report about Staf Benda Bilili, I argue that this band has claimed their identity of
disability. I also argue that the trope of overcoming disability is not only ofensive but also discredits the musicianship of
Staf Benda Bilili, and ignores the musical and non-musical accommodations these musicians have created for themselves. Te
paper calls for overcoming the use of the trope of overcoming disability and to change the typical ways ethnomusicologists
describe musicians with disabilities. Tis discriminative language is what disables musicians with disabilitiesnot the actual
physical, emotional, or cognitive diference labeled disabilityand disables musical scholarship that focuses on defcit
rather than diference.
Session 1-9 (SEM), [Link]
Revival and Renewal
Riccardo Trimillos (University of Hawaii), Chair
We Had Great Books, but No Music: Iceland, with and without Music
Kimberly Cannady (University of Washington)
A foundational myth in Icelandic cultural history is an imagined absence of music prior to the introduction of symphonic
music in the early :,ccs. Despite evidence of diverse forms of musical expression in Iceland prior to the twentieth century,
this non-presence is claimed in most European scholarly texts, and was also repeated by Icelanders themselves during my
feldwork. Te persistent idea of the music-less nation has been ofered as an explanation for the perceived development of
a unique Icelandic Sound in contemporary popular music, and the growing international success of such music. Strikingly,
at the same time, aspects of pre-twentieth century Icelandic music, such as rmur and the langspil increasingly appear in the
very same music. Tis contradiction reveals the role of musical heritage, both real and imagined, throughout Icelands long
nation-building project beginning in the nineteenth century. While Icelands cultural reputation was built on its adored liter-
ary and linguistic history, its musical history was encouraged to be forgotten in favor of continental musical trends. Tis paper
explores the political and historical reasons for the stripping of musical history from the mid-nineteenth century up until the
late twentieth century, and examines the context for a renewed interest in the abandoned musical styles. My research is based
on two years of feldwork in Denmark and Iceland, and is informed by musicologist rni Heimir Inglfssons work regarding
Icelandic musical history, Philip Bohlmans research on music and European nationalism, and anthropologist Kristn Lofts-
dttirs work on Icelandic national identity.
9
Abstracts Tursday Morning: Session 1- ::
Emerging from the Ruin: Te Production of Knowledge and Traditional Music in Southern Vietnam
Alexander Cannon (Western Michigan University)
When queried as to the source of their musical knowledge, most Vietnamese musicians of traditional music cite their teach-
ers; however, students increasingly credit their own creative prowess and lament the old-fashioned practices of their teachers
whilst teachers claim students have abandoned tradition. Tis paper examines the scene of traditional music performance
in Ho Chi Minh City, and in particular, highlights how the interaction of two musicians produces knowledge of southern
Vietnamese musical traditions among Ho Chi Minh City audiences. Teacher of Merit (Nha giao uu tu) Pham Tuy Hoans
strategies involve developing and modernizing traditional music applicable to the masses. Master musician (Nhac su)
Nguyen Vinh Bao reacts viscerally to these strategies, and in both conversation and performance, rejects specifc performance
practices he considers wrong or ruined. I borrow Dylan Triggs defnition of the ruin as a damaged physical location that
does not match ones memory of it, as well as related scholarship on the ruin by Robert Ginsberg and Kerstin Barndt, in order
to theorize the process of interacting with a ruined musical form. I defne the musical ruin as a musical composition that
has undergone devastating and alienating alteration and postulate that musical knowledge emerges from the rejection of the
ruin in performance. One can therefore understand the production of knowledge of traditional music as not simply a reversion
to or a continuous development from previous practices but as an active engagement with music deemed decayed or ruined.
Oki Kanos Dub Ainu Band as Ainu Tonkori Revival?
Kumiko Uyeda (University of California, Santa Cruz)
Te tonkori is a plucked zither unique to the Ainu, an indigenous people who reside mostly in Hokkaido, the northernmost
island of Japan. Ainu musician Oki Kano is perhaps currently the most prolifc and visible representative of Ainu music, who
frst began his musical career with a solo album of canonic tonkori pieces in :cc:, then in :cc formed a fusion band Dub
Ainu performing Ainu songs and originals in a reggae genre. Today his band is marked by traditional Ainu attire, electric ton-
kori, and songs performed in the Ainu language. Kano was instrumental in the political outcome of :cc when the Japanese
government formally recognized the Ainu as Indigenous Peoples of Japan. Tis was a culmination of a political struggle of
over ,c years, which was preceded by roughly ;c years of subjugation by the Japanese government. In :c::, he is less politi-
cally engaged: producing other Ainu revival groups, promoting his band by touring throughout Japan, and collaborating with
international musicians. Based on my feldwork and interviews with Kano and Ainu activists conducted in the summers of
:c:c and :c::, this paper follows Kanos career and investigates the revival aspect of Kanos music. I examine how he negoti-
ates his role as a leading tonkori musician with not only the Ainu society, but also of the majority Japanese. By deconstructing
the resurgence of Ainu music to revivalist discourse, this paper discusses how social and political movements informed Kanos
success and the possible creation of a new Ainu music location.
Te Role of Music and Dance in Renewing Ancient Relationships
between the Delaware and the Haudenosaunee
SusanTafe Reed (Cornell University)
Delaware refugees forced to leave their homelands gave the Delaware Skin Dance and the dozens of short songs that accom-
pany it to the Haudenosaunee, or Iroquois, for safe-keeping. Te Haudenosaunee continue the Delawares once ceremonial
tradition in a social context, dancing the Delaware Skin Dance at the end of every Social in their Longhouses and at public
events. Tis paper argues that interactions involved in singing and dancing the Delaware Skin Dance link the past with the
present in ways meaningful to Delaware and Iroquois people while reafrming and renewing an extension of interconnected
relationships. I explore these activities through three lenses. First, I focus on interactions that occur between singers and danc-
ers during contemporary performances. Next, I discuss singer genealogies and the distinctions in form and style they have
produced. Lastly, this paper looks at how performance of the Delaware Skin Dance in the past, present, and future creates
connections over a vast range of time and space that not only links Delaware and Haudenosaunee people with one another
and their mutual or respective ancestors, but also with other living beings. Seeking to understand musical exchange and per-
formance interaction from a Delaware worldview, my understanding of Delaware musical thought is also informed through
study of the Munsee Delaware dialect. I conclude by discussing how musically-related interactions were important for the
Delaware as they now are for the Haudenosaunee in achieving balance through forging and sustaining relationshipsbe they
interpersonal, intercommunity, or with the Creator.
9
:: Tursday Morning: Session 1- AMS/SEM/SMT New Orleans :o::
Session 1-10 (SEM), [Link]
Studies of Musics in World History
Barbara Hampton (Hunter College, City University of New York), Chair
Flowers, Butterfies, Music, Death: Te Extended Meanings of Floral Imagery in Nahua Songs
Kristina Nielsen (University of California, Los Angeles)
Pre-Columbian Nahua musical texts are rich in their use of deeply spiritual representations employing worldly imagery
and metonymy, such as that of fowers and butterfies, to embody both music and the dead. While the metonymy of fowers
and music is well documented (Tomilson), other appearances of fowers in Nahua literature are worthy of further exploration.
Pre-Columbian Nahua poetry, such as Nezhualcoyotls, implies additional meanings in its use of foral imagery. Tese poems
include lines such as, like a painting we will be erased-like a fower we will dry up that demonstrate signifcance beyond the
well-established metonymy (trans. Leon-Portilla). Since these poems were often performed to music, I argue that they serve as
a further extension of the meaning attributed to fowers in their metonymical relationship with music. Additionally, I explore
the use of foral imagery in Nahua music and its representation of life and death in songs and poetry. Tis complex symbolic
representation related life, song, fowers, and the dead, as music called the deceased residing in Tonatiuhican back to earth as
butterfies and hummingbirds. Te relationship between fowers and songs extended beyond metonymy into other facets of
Nahua beliefs, as fowers are employed in representations of both the feeting nature of life as well as the eminency of death.
Trough investigation of foral imagery and music, elements of the pre-Columbian Nahua understanding of life and the af-
terlife become apparent and provide new insight into the construction of the Nahuas cosmos.
Te Death of Captain Cook: Native Hawaiians and their Simulacra
in a Late-Eighteenth Century Pantomime
JamesRevell Carr (University of North Carolina, Greensboro)
Te expeditions of Captain James Cook (:;o;,) sparked the imagination of the European and American publics. Audi-
ences voraciously consumed books, broadsides, prints, and plays that glorifed Cooks exploits in the Pacifc and his dramatic
death in Hawaii. Popular theatrical spectacles of the time capitalized on the publics interest in maritime exploration, result-
ing in a new form of pantomime called ballet daction, which purported to present authentic rituals, modes of warfare, music
and dances of non-Western cultures. La Mort du Capitaine Cook (Te Death of Captain Cook) was among the most popular of
these pantomimes, featuring a score that called for the use of log drums and nose futes, and costumes based in ethnographic
drawings from the Cook expeditions, all intended to present audiences with new heights of realism and verisimilitude. Shortly
after its :; premiere at Teatre de LAmbigu-Comique in Paris, Te Death of Captain Cook became an overnight sensation
at Covent-Garden in London, and was soon exported to theaters throughout the young United States, marking the frst rep-
resentations of Hawaiian music and dance on American popular stages. Tis burlesque of Hawaiian culture was simultane-
ously legitimized and challenged when actual native Hawaiians, who worked aboard American merchant ships, were featured
in performances in Boston and New York. I examine how Hawaiians, surrounded by the stagecraft of fake palm trees and
volcanoes, embodied Western fantasies of the exotic while also exposing the artifce of staged mimesis through their own
performance of authenticity.
Dances with Samurai: Mimesis, Alterity, and the Tokugawa
Roots of Blackface in Japanese Popular Culture
Richard Miller (University of Wisconsin-Madison)
When Commodore Mathew Calbraith Perry arrived of the coast of Shimonoseki, Japan in :,, with the self-imposed
mission to open up Japan to trade with the United States, he brought along gifts he hoped would awe the Japanese authori-
ties and delight the Japanese people: a complete set of Audubons Birds of America, a miniaturized but working steam train,
modern naval ships and weaponry, and all the pageantry soldier, sailors, marines, and three bass bands could muster. In doing
this, Perry consciously mimicked the stereotype of an oriental potentate. However, Perry also brought a diferent kind of
mimetic practice to Japan, a blackface minstrel troupe, the Original Ethiopian Olio Minstrels. Perrys compatriots remarked
in their journals how immediately and completely blackface performances were enjoyed by Japanese audiences in spite of their
complete lack of experience with American stereotypes of Black slaves and freemen or the white cultural productions being
parodiednot to mention the English language of the dialog. Unbeknownst to Perry and his crew, Japanese were prepared
to appreciate blackface with a long tradition of mimetic othering of their own: Kankan odor, a carnivalesque caricaturing of
foreigners drawing from public memories of embassies from China, Korea, Okinawa, and the Dutch East Indies enclave in
Nagasaki. Tis paper examines the structural and performative homologies between Kankan odor and blackface minstrelsy,
10
Abstracts Tursday Morning: Session 1- :,
arguing that the continuing popularity of blackface in Japan, however transformed, owes more to deeply rooted practices of
mimesis than it does to actual experiences of alterity, even in todays Japan.
Fantasmas Africanos: Te Specter of Race in Argentine Tango
Morgan Luker (Reed College)
In recent years, a growing group of musicians, scholars, and cultural institutions have begun to reevaluate longstanding nar-
ratives regarding the origins of Argentine tango in late-nineteenth century Buenos Aires. Of particular concern have been the
contributions that the citys historic community of Afro-Argentines may have made to the initial development of the genre,
something that has been glossed if not outright denied in many previous accounts. Te signifcance of such interventions
clearly extends beyond the artistic realm, especially given tangos continued salience as a potent symbol of the nation both
in Argentina and abroad. At the same time, very little of this work has directly explored the famously limited and unevenly
documented historical record relating to the origins of tango, and little to none of it has engaged the now well established
struggles for recognition and social justice on the part of Afro-Argentine social movements and cultural organizations. Te
moment of ofcial recognition is therefore curiously marked by a simultaneous (re)erasure of the very subjects this work claims
to exalt, raising the question of what the real allure of race is for these decidedly contemporary projects. I argue that much
of this work, despite the progressive impulse at the heart of its revisionary project, ultimately does not represent a break with
previous narratives of musical history and cultural memory as much as a further wrinkle in a long tradition of conjuring tango
as an object of cross cultural fantasy and desire.
Session 1-11 (SEM), [Link]
Analytical Studies
Matthew Rahaim (University of Minnesota), Chair
Te Body Speaks: Filling the Gestural Gap in Ethnographic Analysis
Matthew Campbell (Ohio State University), Niall Klyn (Ohio State University)
Tere is a conscious need within musicology for concrete methods of investigating embodied forms of knowledge. As
evidenced by a recent burst of publications (e.g. Kapchan; Fatone; Leante; Rahaim; Clayton), musicologists are producing
increasingly sophisticated and nuanced research, mindful of embodied forms of awareness and the performative gestural
expressions of interlocutors. Yet, despite ethnomusicologys recent turn toward the body as a site of knowledge, feeling and
world-making, detailed analysis of extra-verbal content in narrative interviewthe ethnographic site par excellencehas
remained scarce. Here we propose a technique for intersubjective gestural analysis ideally suited to our interlocutors sensa-
tions of a continuous present, shifts in agency and the cessation of inner-languaging common in trance-like states among
dancers in gay-clubs. As gestures reveal underlying cognitive mechanisms and metaphors (McNeill), gestural analysis of an
interlocutors narrative (re)constructions can help uncover subject positions such as subjective temporalities, the prescribed
personae and perceptions of social space. As open-ended narrative interviews encourage mimetic forms of expression that may
reveal a phenomenons original organization and afective features (Rief ), by comparing a typical auditory linguistic analysis
to one informed by both verbal and gestural expression we can better explore how fow experiences facilitate the creation of
alternative lifeworlds. For many club-goers, these experiences maintain their inefable qualities long after the euphoria has
faded, resisting simple verbal description and pushing gesture to the fore in discourse. What do gestures say when words fail?
Wutless Music: Fastness and (Un)Interpretability in Kittitian and Nevisian Soca
Jessica Swanston (University of Pennsylvania)
Discussions in the Kittitian-Nevisian public sphere have, in the past fve years, framed fastness in music as a catalyst for
destruction and immorality. Similarly, public discussion surrounding the controversial :c:c St. Kitts-Nevis W.I. Road March
competition largely focused on issues of respectability and national identity within the context of Carnivals dual audience of
both locals and foreign tourists. While both the :,;, and :c:c St. Kitts-Nevis Carnival Road March competitions featured
song entries entitled Rum Song, the :,;, version, by famed calypsonian Arrow, won the title as best and most popular song
for that year, and the :c:c version, by the Kittitian band Small Axe, which was performed in the local brand of soca called
street style, lost the title. Instead, a new performer with a markedly nationalist soca anthem was judged to be the winner.
Tis paper sees both the Rum Song of :,;, and of :c:c and their respective performers as delineating an historical and
musical discourse about ideological tempo within small-island Anglophone Caribbean popular music. Considering the An-
glophone Caribbean notion of wutlessness or (worthlessness) that hinges on conceptions of meaning and intelligibility as
tied to specifc types of words, sounds, and movements, this paper posits fastness and specifcally too fastnessa recurrent
11
:, Tursday Morning: Session 1- AMS/SEM/SMT New Orleans :o::
theme in intergenerational dialogue on the islandsas a useful lens for examining how contemporary soca in St. Kitts-Nevis
seeks to create a Kittitian-Nevisian sound that points toward an international -beyond intra-Caribbeansensibility through
deliberate use of wutlessness.
Chromatopes of Noh
Michael Gardiner (University of Pittsburgh)
Although it is widely known that timbre serves an expressive means integral to the instrumental and vocal sounds of noh,
little research has been undertaken to reveal the impact of timbre designs upon conceptions of musical form with any amount
of precision. Te following article presents an approach specifcally from the vantage point of timbre with the aid of spectro-
graphic imaging software. Spectrographic images allow one to discuss in detail elements of the acoustic spectrum including
overtones, non-harmonic bands of noise, formants, and changes of intensity. I name these timbre designs chromatopes
(chroma meaning color, and topos referring to a spatial motif or path). Te frst half of the paper reveals a set of spectral con-
nections between the two drums, the tsuzumi and kotsuzumi, and the melodic elements of noh, the nohkan fute and the
voice. Te second half of the paper considers the chromatopes that follow from three common introductory sections in noh
performances, a shidai, a nanori-bue, and an issei, and how these timbre designs interact with traditional conceptions of form.
Session 1-12 (SEM/SMT), [Link]
Analytical Studies of Indonesian Musics
Lisa Gold (University of California, Berkeley), Chair
In Search of Refnement: Manifestation of Alus in Genderan Pathetan in
Performances of Martopangrawit and Prajapangrawit
Maho Ishiguro (Wesleyan University)
After listening to a recording of a gendr performance by a renowned Javanese musician, Sumarsam makes a comment that
left me wondering for the rest of the week: pak Xs style is so alus, so refned. What exactly is it that Sumarsam fnds so alus
in this particular performance of gendran? Alus is a Javanese word that is deeply rooted in its culture. Te English term that
best expresses this all-encompassing word is refnement. In my studies on alusness in gendran pathetan, the principal ques-
tion is such: is the manifestation of an alus quality possible solely through music? If so, what musical components make ones
gendran playing alus and why? If not, what are the associations which belong to the domain outside of music and which play
a role in the Javanese perception of afective properties of music? I analyze gendran of pathetan pelog lima by Martopangrawit
and Prajapangrawit, two musicians from the court of Surakarta known for their distinctive musical styles. Based on discus-
sions with musicians of Javanese gamelan, I have constructed criteria for the analysis of musical styles. Tese criteria deal with
a musicians choice in manner of playing notes. From the music analysis and interviews with informants it becomes evident
that what is perceived as alus in performances of gendran is not limited to musical features. Trough biographical informa-
tion about the two Solonese musicians, I examine the inseparable links between socially alus behaviors and the manifestation
of alusness in a musical context.
Ethnotheory Unravelled: An Analytical Approach to Understanding
Balinese Rules for Kendang Arja Improvisation
Leslie A. Tilley (University of British Columbia)
Te paired drumming traditions of Bali are known for their intricate interlocking patterns. Drum-strokes on the higher
kendang lanang intertwine seamlessly with patterns of like strokes on the lower kendang wadon to create complex composite
patterns. Almost invariably, these patterns are exactingly composed. Yet, in the cyclic kendang playing of the Balinese dance-
drama Arja, both drummers improvise. How these simultaneously improvising drummers are able to weave their patterns
seemingly efortlessly around one another, often at very high speeds, is an analytical question that has only begun to be inves-
tigated (e.g. Hood, :cc:). Most Balinese Arja drummers claim adherence to several broad guiding principles that govern im-
provisation, placing the two drums in various opposing roles: emphasizing on- vs. of-beats, for instance, or underscoring beat
structure vs. highlighting a larger cyclic framework. Tese indigenous rules, however, are general guidelines only; the reality
is never that simple, and drummers have considerable freedom within these regulating systems. Te purpose of this paper,
therefore, is to elucidate further on these ethnotheoretical categories through musical analysis. Kendang Arja improvisation,
which is made up of small cyclic patterns, lends itself well to a close, microscopic study. Tus, drawing from variation analysis
and musical pattern classifcation techniques employed by Tenzer (:ccc), Arom (:,,:) and Toussaint (:cc,), I will analyse the
12
Abstracts Tursday Morning: Session 1- :,
diverse improvisations of several master Arja drummers from diferent villages across the island, in an efort to gain a more
complete understanding of both the freedom and the limitations of these essential Balinese musical concepts.
Ensemble Micro-Timing in Balinese Gamelan: A Preliminary Analysis
AndrewC. McGraw (University of Richmond)
Tis paper presents preliminary results from a study of micro-timing in four Balinese gamelan ensembles for which a cus-
tom multi-track recording system was developed. Te results are presented using three-dimensional graphical representations
highlighting musical interactions at the resolution of groove or, in Balinese, selah. Many Balinese musicians claim that re-
gional ensembles exhibit highly localized approaches to micro-timing by which they can be aurally diferentiated independent
of their intonational and orchestral variations. Tis study will attempt to determine if there are consistent regional variations
within this single musical parameter. Te presence of consistent regional variations would suggest that Balinese musicians are
not simply attempting to achieve an absolute, universal, rational ideal (i.e. perfectly even sixteenth notes) but a more complex
feeling informed by local aestheticsa certain lilt that embodies locality.
Many young conservatory-trained Balinese musicians evince a nostalgia for the regional musical identities they hear in these
village ensembles. Tey suggest that intensely communal, rural lifestyles produced uniquely local approaches to ensemble
micro-timing that are in danger of being homogenized by the national conservatory and regional festivals and contests. As
modern cosmopolitans, many graduates of the conservatory claim to be partly alienated from this communal ethos and are
now unable to reproduce its subtlebut vitalmusical manifestations. Are these informants hearing empirically measurable
phenomena, or the afective resonance of their own nostalgia (or some complex admixture)? How can we describe the bound-
ary and relationship between afective and empirical realities in this context?
Session 1-13 (SEM), [Link]
Film
Kosovo Roma
Svanibor Pettan (University of Ljubljana), Chair
Atesh Sonneborn (Smithsonian Institution), Cynthia Schmidt (Independent
Scholar), Rebecca Miller (Hampshire College)
Te third project in the SEM Audiovisual Series, Kosovo through the Eyes of Local Romani (Gypsy) Musicians, provides
an alternative view of the Balkan region of Kosovo from the usual media coverage that is typically limited to examinations of
the mutually conficting interests of ethnic Albanians and ethnic Serbs. Because Romani musicians were able and willing to
perform music of various origins and styles, they enjoyed the status of superior specialists in Kosovo until the :,,cs. Tey suc-
cessfully adapted to the multiethnic, multireligious, and multilingual reality of Kosovo and served various audiences in both
rural and urban settings. Tis documentary flm, accompanied by an extensive study guide, presents fve characteristic types
of Romani ensembles in Kosovo, four sources of the musical repertoire of a single semi-nomadic Romani community, creative
localization of a selected tune of foreign origin by various Kosovo Romani ensembles, and the response of Romani musicians
to the challenge of increasing political tensions in Kosovo in the early :,,cs. Te study guide extends the flm footage through
four decades and follows the events up to the present time.
Session 1-14 (SEM), [Link]
Music and Institutions I
Shalini Ayyagari (American University), Chair
Choreographing Productive Citizenship: On the Cultural Work of Music in NGOs in Uganda
Allan Mugishagwe (University of California, Berkeley)
Tis paper examines the cultural work of music in two NGOs in Uganda: Watoto Child Care Organization and Uganda
Heritage Roots. For several years, Uganda has experienced diferent plights such as turbulent political regimes, the war in the
north, poor economic conditions, and the AIDS epidemic. Tese events have resulted in the proliferation of numerous NGOs
in the country. Te organizations engage in aid provision eforts aimed at improving the living conditions of individuals af-
fected by the plights. Te two NGOs that are central to my study teach musical practices to their aid recipients as part of the
mandate to improve their ways of living and enable them to become self-sufcient and productive citizens. How are musical
practices envisioned as being crucial in the intervention eforts of these NGOs? In light of the cultural diversity within the
two NGOs, what kinds of musical practices are selected for performance and what informs the selection process? What values
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: Tursday Morning: Session 1- AMS/SEM/SMT New Orleans :o::
are intentionally/unintentionally transmitted through the musical practices selected? How do the values transmitted/acquired
connect with Ugandan indigenous values or western values, and are these initiatives part of a cultural revival, neo-colonial
or globalization process? Tis paper will add to the scholarship on musical practices in Uganda by bringing an ethnomusico-
logical perspective to bear on the interdisciplinary debate about the intervention eforts of NGOs in the country. It will also
demonstrate that music is not merely musical by showing how it can be integral to the processes involved in the transmis-
sion/acquisition of values (Guilbault :cc,::).
Administering Lusofonia through Musical Performance: Cultural Entrepreneurs in Lisbon since :cco
Bart Vanspauwen (Universidade Nova de Lisboa)
Since the turn of the millennium, Portugal has played an important role in promoting lusofonia and supporting organiza-
tions that sponsor Lusophone-oriented events. Especially since :cco, when the documentary Lusofonia, a (R)evoluo was
produced by the multinational Red Bull Music Academy, Lisbon has increasingly been the stage for Lusophone musical
manifestations. Individual cultural entrepreneurs have been essential to the organization of Lusophone events and spectacles.
Tis presentation analyzes the most signifcant musical examples in the last , years. Drawing on Guilbaults Governing Sound
(:cc;), I take the concept of governmentality as an useful point of departure to analyze both nation-building and transnation-
building in the symbolic community tradition that is continuously evoked and invented by the concept of lusofonia. I want
reveal how the discourse and actions of specifc cultural entrepreneurs administer the idea of lusofonia by means of musical
performance. I will especially want to clarify how cultural NGOs mediate between governmental and commercial institu-
tions that defend the idea of lusofonia, on the one hand, and migrant musicians from Portuguese-speaking countries with
their own agendas, on the other. In other words, my focus is on the administrating agency of Lisbon-based NGOs as well as its
efect on expressive culture in a transnational Lusophone space. Tis project contributes insights into the contemporary social
realities of Portugal, and it will be signifcant not only to music studies but also to cultural policy studies.
Democratization, Representation, and Authenticity:
Conficting Values in Publicly-funded Canadian Music
Parmela Attariwala (University of Toronto)
In :,, Canada enshrined multiculturalism into law, a democratizing maneuver that allowed practitioners of non-Western
artistic forms to agitate for equitable access to public arts funding. Tis agitation ultimately forced government-funded Cana-
dian arts councils to re-examine their Euro-centricity and to expand the parameters by which they fund art. Todays council
music juristsfaced with a broader range of genres and a political mandate emphasizing multicultural diversitytend to fall
prey to conficting notions of authenticity, exhibiting a parallel confict to that existing between liberal democratic philoso-
phy and multiculturalisms politics of diference (Taylor :,,:). Liberal democracy holds that each citizen be recognized as
equal and have equality of opportunity in order to nurture his or her individual, authentic self. Yet, historically, Canada has
treated many ethno-cultural groups unequally, resulting in the latter now pursuing politics of diference based upon collective
characteristics. Collective diference politics, though, are prone to stereotype, thus making them inhospitable to the politics
of (individual) recognition (Ibid.). Musically, this dichotomy plays out when arts council jurists make stereotype-driven as-
sumptions about non-Western musics, expecting authentic ethno-cultural representation. Conversely, jurists laud Western
musics for originality. Based upon many years serving as a jurist, I believe the Canadian situation has important consequences
for how we teach ethnomusicology in the multicultural context: the extent to which we limit or encourage creative expressions
of identity; how we acknowledge ethno-cultural borrowing; and how we nurture socio-cultural respect for all musical cultures
and all musicians.
Session 1-15 (SEM), [Link]
Music and Political Expression
Matthew Allen (Wheaton College), Chair
Interpreting the Qin in Tokugawa Japan: Ogyu Sorais Studies on Chinese Music
Yuanzheng Yang (University of Hong Kong)
Te presentation tackles an extremely important issue in East Asian music and Tokugawa intellectual historythe question
why Japanese political thinker Ogyu Sorai (:ooo:;:), in the last phase of his career, composed a series of works on the Chi-
nese qin music based on his reading of the two ancient manuscripts discovered in the early years of Kyoho (:;:o:;,o). Written
in Japanese, Ogyu Sorais four treatises on Chinese qin music has been looked upon as short introductory essays prepared for
non-literati musicians. Nevertheless, close scrutiny reveals that Ogyu consciously applied Confucian teachings to political
15
Abstracts Tursday Morning: Session 1- :;
issues through his music projects. Ogyu was awesome in this regard not because of his expertise in Chinese philology, but due
to his ability to manipulate existing facts and present them in a manner that was convincing to his contemporaries. In short,
Ogyu himself was absolutely conscious of the political implications of his Chinese qin music studies, both within Japan and
without. Terefore, an in-depth inquiry into the nature and causes of Ogyus studies on qin music is indispensable in pursu-
ing a full picture of Ogyus ideology. Te results drawn from this presentation not only sheds new light on the history of East
Asian music, but also addresses crucial lacuna in the study of Tokugawa intellectual history.
Seeds, Barbs, Rats, and Panthers: SDS, Weatherman, and Radical Re-Contextualization of Beatles Songs
Craig Russell (California Polytechnic State University)
Te Beatles released their epic Sgt. Pepper in :,o;, the same year that the leftist Liberation News Service (LNS) was syndi-
cated in Washington, D.C. In the next three years, Beatles albums became inextricably intertwined with American popular
culture, political activism, and underground newspapers such as the Chicago Seed, Berkeley Barb, Subterranean Rat, and
Black Panther. Until now, no study has thoroughly examined the highly specifc links connecting the Fab-Four with the
American underground press. I will take eighteen Beatles songs and show how activists co-opted Beatles lyrics and radically
re-contextualized them in underground publications for their own political purposes, specifcally in the context of: Students
for a Democratic Society (SDS); Yippies; the Revolutionary Youth Movement; Weatherman; the Black Panthers; and the Free-
Speech, Womens, and Gay Liberation Movements. Te editors at the Seed claimed that Sgt. Peppers songs were catechisms,
sermons, and advertisements for LSDa drug they saw as issuing in a new utopian epoch. Psychedelic Beatles songs became
code for leftist political leanings, owing largely to the Barbs weekly Sgt. Pepper anti-war column, Jerry Rubins and the
Seeds editors usage of Walrus as a nickname, and the Chicago s adoption of We Get By With a Little Help from Our
Friends as their motto along with its subsequent re-use by Weatherman. LNS columnist A. J. Weberman provides detailed
and politically-charged translations of the White Albums obtuse lyrics. To close, I will spotlight how the Beatles songwrit-
ing was infuenced by the LNS, providing links that have escaped notice until now.
Popular Music and the Construction of National Identity in Post-War Bangladesh (:,;:,c)
Nafsa Hasan (University of Toronto)
Bangladesh gained independence through the Liberation War waged against West Pakistan in :,;:. Troughout the nine-
month war, iSwadhin Bangla Betar Kendra/i or Independent Bangla Radio Station aired a vast collection of patriotic songs
composed during the anti-colonial movement in India by Bengali poet-composers such as Rabindranath Tagore (:o::,:)
and Kazi Nuzrul Islam (:,,:,;o), among others, in addition to newly composed songs. Tis paper will examine the shift in
the expression of patriotism and nationalist ideals through the emergence of Bangladeshi popular music, or what is known as
band music, in the aftermath of the Liberation War. It is my contention that band music, which combines folk and West-
ern rock-and-roll, refected the revolutionary spirit of the youth culture in post-war Bangladesh and that the incorporation
of global (Western) music with local (folk) musical traditions created a modern Bengali national identity. Te time period
under study:,;: to :,,cinvolved years during which Bangladesh fell under military dictatorship. Te military dictators
imposed a conservative Islamist form of Bangladeshi nationalism, whereas the left-wing intelligentsia supported a roman-
ticized Bengali nationalism signifying humanistic and folkloric characteristics (Schendel, :ccc). I will present how band
music modernized this latter form of Bengali identity. I will also inquire into the role band music played in disseminating
this identity during the period of military and Islamic dictatorship. Te subject will be explored through historical and ethno-
graphic research, including feldwork in Bangladesh, and interviews with musicians who pioneered band music.
Session 1-16 (SEM), [Link]
Music for and against the Nation
Kwasi Ampene (University of Michigan), Chair
Te Curbside Sound Machine: Approaches to Musical Nationalism in Contemporary Nicaragua
Scott Linford (University of California, Los Angeles)
In the last four decades, Nicaragua has shifted from dynastic dictatorship to revolutionary socialism to neoliberalism and
back to a reformed socialism, heralding concomitant changes in what it means to make Nicaraguan music. Ethnomusicolo-
gist T.M. Scruggs has convincingly argued for the role of musica testimonial in contributing to the imagined community of
Nicaraguan nationality in the :,;cs and cs, a musical collaboration with the Sandinista political movement that largely holds
true to Tomas Turinos narrative of modernist reformism. With this recent history as a departure point, this presentation
explores contemporary approaches to Nicaraguan musical nationalism in the context of a socialist nation still defning its place
16
: Tursday Morning: Session 1- AMS/SEM/SMT New Orleans :o::
in the globalized world. Trough lyrical and musical analysis, interviews, and feldwork, I investigate the diferent ways that
young Nicaraguan musicians are working to refect international infuences and the lived experiences of a younger generation
in a cultural nationalism that sometimes challenges and sometimes supports state policy. Some young bands faithfully repro-
duce pro-Sandinista songs from past decades, such as those portraying Jesus Christ as a Nicaraguan guerrilla revolutionary
and Sandino as a campesino hero, with a few nods to popular contemporary styles. Others create surprising juxtapositions
by approaching national traditions with economic and technological savvy, presenting a novel vision of Nicaraguas place in
the global soundscape. Building from a framework of ethnomusicological theory, I aim to contribute my own experience of
feldwork among young people at the intersection of music, nationalism, and globalization.
Singing Contemporary Uyghur Folksongs in the Chinese Northwest
Chuen-Fung Wong (Macalester College)
Senses of loss and nostalgia permeate the contemporary urban folk singing of the Uyghur peoplewho are
Turkic-speaking Muslims in northwest Chinaoften accompanying icons of a dispossessed rural, pre-modern
past. Recent studies have looked at the post-1,,cs genre of new folk as an important venue for the performance
of ethno-national sentiments through a variety of musico-textual tropes appropriated from traditional folk genres.
Te singing of sorrow and grief, some argue, has worked to interrogate the post-1,,cs ofcial aesthetics of mod-
ernist reformism and its celebratory singing-and-dancing minority musical stereotypes. Tis is complicated
simultaneously by a growing interest among middle-class Chinese audience in the imagined authenticity of certain
rural minority folk traditions. Tis essay concerns how contemporary folk Uyghur singing has brought about an
idealized national past. I look at how symbols of a pre-modern rurality are musically evoked in contemporary folk
against a multitude of global popular styles to register a subaltern sense of musical modernity. I argue that con-
vincing practices of cultural hybridity have been essential to the successful articulation a credible modern voice for
the minority experience of deprived homeland and suppressed nationhood in contemporary China.
J. H. Kwabena Nketia as Musical Agent during the Independence Era in Ghana
Aja Wood (University of Michigan)
Te International Journal of Music Education referred to J.H. Kwabena Nketia as the most prominent scholar in the feld of
African music internationally (:,,:). In Ghana, Nketia is well-known not only for his scholarship, but also his compositional
work, where his name is associated with instrumental and choral compositions such as Monkamfo No and Monna Nase. As
a native Ghanaian born in :,::, Nketia experienced Ghanas struggle from a British colony to the frst independent African
nation frsthand. I explore how Nketia was instrumental in this change as a musical agent, utilizing his talents and skills to
help forge the nation of Ghana purposefully through culture and the arts. Tus, I cast Nketias musical work together with
his scholarship and institution building as an act of social agency, which embraces and promote the idea that nationalism can
be gained through cultural and artistic means. I examine his experience as a composer andconsidering his vast cultural
and musical knowledgehow musical nationalism is enacted through his patriotic composition, Republic Suite for fute and
piano. I argue that Nketia does not simply represent Ghana as a nation within this piece; he also creates it in a social act of
performance and as a musical agent that confrms nationhood to the audience through special and personal knowledge of di-
verse cultural aesthetics. Tus as a musical agent, music functions as a necessary social process that generates discourse integral
to the sustainability of an ideology through intellectual and artistic production.
Session 1-17 (SEM), [Link]
Music, Public Discourse, and Afect in Truth and Reconciliation Processes
Carol Muller (University of Pennsylvania), Chair
Echoes of Violence: Music, Post-Memory, and Indigenous Voice After the Truth Commission in Peru
Jonathan Ritter (University of California, Riverside)
In the wake of Perus Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and the publication of its fnal report in :cc,, Peru-
vians have continued to struggle over how the political violence that devastated their country in the :,cs and ,cs should be
remembered. Recent events, including recurrent attacks by politicians and military leaders on the commissions work and its
recommendations, as well as ongoing debates over the legitimacy and accuracy of public commemorations of the conficts vic-
tims, reinforce the consensus view that truth commissions mark the beginning, rather than the end, of processes of historical
17
Abstracts Tursday Morning: Session 1- :)
refection, revision, and reconciliation. In this paper, I consider various musical interventions into these post-TRC processes
and debates in Peru, focusing in particular on those that claim to represent the voices and perspectives of the conficts victims
predominantly rural, indigenous peasants from the southern Andean highlands. While some of these musical interventions
arise directly within indigenous communities, including the composition and performance of testimonial songs in contests
sponsored by human rights organizations, others draw upon anthropological research and the TRC report itself to craft fc-
tionalized representations of indigenous music for recent testimonial flms and novels. Tough such representations carry
inherent risks, both of sensationalizing the violence and overemphasizing the alterity of indigenous responses to it, they also
play a key role in mediating and transmitting traumatic memories of the war to what Miriam Hirsch (:cc) has called the
postmemory generation those born or raised after the confict who are now coming of age in Peru.
Te Crude Empathy of Song
Dylan Robinson (University of Toronto)
Verbal testimony on colonial injustice and oppression, and the witnessing of such testimony, plays a central role in Truth
and Reconciliation Commissions. Yet hearing testimony comprises only one part of the publics engagement in national
projects of redress. Te South African and Canadian TRCs have given rise to art works that both refect survivors experi-
ences back to others in the community who share this history, and act as a mobile memorial repertoire that addresses a wider
international audience. Tis presentation examines how trauma is mediated in two works: Phillip Millers REwind Cantata
that includes recorded testimony from the South African TRC, and Fatty Legs, a musical adaptation of Inuit residential school
survivor Margaret Pokiak-Fentons book of the same name, narrated by Pokiak-Fenton in performance with the Camerata
Xara Young Womans Choir at the :c:: TRC National Event in Halifax, Canada. Despite a wealth of media-specifc theory on
the reception and representation of trauma by diferent art forms (LaCapra :ccc; Sontag :cc,; Kaplan :cc,; Bennett :cc,),
less attention has been given to how musical representations of trauma foster empathetic relationships with listeners. I here
question whether the afective investments listeners develop with music engender an overidentifcation with victim narratives
and mask a fundamental lack of afnity between witnesses and survivors (Boltanski :,,,). I examine in what cases music and
song might be said to enable a kind of crude empathy a feeling for another based on the assimilation of the others experi-
ence to the self. (Brecht :,,)
Music, Resilience, and an Uneven Distribution of Hope
Beverley Diamond (Memorial University of Newfoundland)
Te re-creative uses of music performance at national events organized by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in
Canada often subtly nuance political aspects of these emotionally intense gatherings. At several such events during the frst
two years of the Commissions work, traditional tribal or intertribal honour songs, Christian hymns/prayers in several lan-
guages, and familiar First Nations or Inuit popular music framed reconciliation at times as a reinvent[ions] of the enemys
language, (Harjo :,,;), or commentary on the judicially supervised mandate of the TRC Commission itself. As indigenous
traditions have long shown us (Cruikshank :,,, :cc,; Samuel :cc), songs could be selected and/or changed to re-embody,
re-member and reorient longer histories/networks of individuals, communities, and expressive practices. Performances rang-
ing widely from Ave Maria in Mikmaq to a new pop arrangement of the Innu hit We Are (Tshinanu) were attune to the
interactions of attendees most of whom were residential school survivors. Innovative and purposeful reworkings of familiar
texts thus constituted forms of resilience in response to trauma. Music functioned in several ways at these large-scale na-
tional events: as an acknowledgement of local or regional hosts, as a frame for ceremonial functions (e.g. openings/closings),
as testimony itself, and as staged performance. I explore how performers delineated various forms of insiderness challenging
the homogenization of experience, or ofering hidden transcripts (Scott :,,, :,,c) while addressing the uneven distribution of
hope that the TRC process may necessarily ofer.
Session 1-18 (SEM), [Link]
Perspectives on Popular Music: Funk, Punk, and Dabke
Sean Williams (Evergreen State College), Chair
Te Funk of History: Reclaiming a Nasty Word in Popular Music and Popular Discourse
Benjamin Doleac (University of Alberta)
Funk used to be a bad word! So said funk musician George Clinton on the :,;, song Lets Take It To the Stage, implying
therein that a shift in signifcation and attitudes around the words usage was already well underway. By that point, listeners
would have known that, among other things, funk referred to a musical subgenre, yet the remark played on the tension
18
:o Tursday Morning: Session 1- AMS/SEM/SMT New Orleans :o::
between the dictionary and vernacular defnitions of a word once deemed unft for polite company, capping of a ;c-year
process of linguistic subversion, reclamation and revision set into motion by New Orleans cornetist Buddy Boldens Funky
Butt at the turn of the century. Te words seventy-fve year journey from racially-marked bodily epithet to positive musical
and cultural signifer was profoundly shaped by the ongoing, oft-contentious dialogue between black and white discourses
both vernacular and hegemonic. Drawing from Gary Tomlinsons model of musical historiography in Te Historian, the
Performer, and Authentic Meaning in Music, I conceive of my work on the historical usage of the word funk as it relates to
music as a kind of dialogue between the historian, the musicians, and the commentators who have used and defned the term
since the turn of the twentieth century. Herein I examine the ways in which competing dialects, movement between country
and the industrial city, and the changing politics of discourse have shaped the meanings and uses of a formerly impolite word
over more than :cc years of American musical history.
Public Bodies: Syrian Dabke and the Politics of Belonging
Shayna Silverstein (University of Chicago)
Embodied discourses are a critical means to address the dynamics between family, community, and state and to explore
how these are engendered through public spaces and as popular culture. Engaging with the Syrian performance practice of
dabke, an agile and quick-footed social dance aligned with improvised sung melodies and a polyrhythmic groove, this paper
examines how popular culture is a site for the making of public intimacies (Guilbault :c:c) that are embedded in the routines
of everyday life in Baathist Syria. Drawing on extensive feldwork in the live performance contexts of village weddings, I con-
ceptualize dabke as a site for embodied interactions that reveals the ways in which bodies are either regulated by or resistant
to forces of power when situated within plays of power between particular actors, institutions, and the state. Are people plac-
ing faith in those systems and resources that provide an alternative to the state? Is the regime unable to compete with certain
internal actors and institutions who are able to provide more solid assurances? Tis paper explores the various ways in which
public intimacies are formed through the ritual and recreational movements associated with dabke that take place among non-
state actors and institutions. When the power to move is afected by ones position in specifc social and political conditions,
the act of dabke demarcates processes of inclusion and exclusion within public spaces and between social groups in ways that
articulate the complex identity politics of contemporary Syria.
Unwitting Dissidents: Te Aceh, Indonesia Punk Case
Rebekah Moore (Indiana University)
Last December police arrested sixty-four teenagers at a punk concert in Aceh. Teir heads were shaved; they were plunged
into a nearby lake for a communal bath and sent to a police detainment camp for two weeks of re-education. Acehnese au-
thorities claimed the youths were in danger of moral corruption; western imports like punk are invasive, encouraging young
people to abandon Muslim customs and values. Outraged human rights advocates, musicians, and journalists in Indonesia
and around the globe argued the teenagers were criminalized and psychologically traumatized by their confnement; punk,
some suggested, articulates Acehnese youths deep-seated estrangement from local ethics. Tis presentation examines a widely
publicized case trapping teenagers in the middle of a debate over moral judgment and the freedom of expression. Punk style is
stigmatized as a threat to traditional beliefs, on the one hand, and extolled as a symbol of creative freedom, on the other. I re-
late my reluctant decision to argue against Acehnese authorities and for free creative expression, as an ethnomusicologist living
in Indonesia asked to publicly respond to the case. Finally, I ask colleagues attending this conference how you would respond:
Would you condemn music censorship, supporting the individual right to choose what to compose, consume, and wear? Or
would you lean toward analytical distance, conceding to local authorities to determine what is best for their peoplemuch as
the Indonesian government decided when Aceh was granted territorial autonomy and the right to govern according to sharia.
Which side are you on?
Session 1-19 (SEM), [Link]
Sounding the Nation: Carving Out Diference in Turkey and Southeastern Europe
Sonia Seeman (University of Texas at Austin), Chair
Sonic Citizenry: Creating National Identity Trough Recorded Sound
Sonia Seeman (University of Texas at Austin)
Te formation of the Turkish Republic in :,:, as a mono-ethnic nation state was accompanied by the shaping of Turkish
citizen-subjects. Established in :,:;, Turkish state radio was integral to this project. State-supervised radio sought to shape the
ears of citizen subjects as Turks in a set of policies that continued until privatization in :,,. However during this same time
19
Abstracts Tursday Morning: Session 1- ::
period, privately-owned recording subsidiaries continued to produce recordings from the late Ottoman period up through
the present, constituting a sonic public sphere that sounded in alongside-and in tension with-state controlled broadcast
media. Trough this process, formerly cosmopolitan musical genres and sounds in commercial recordings were gradually
modifed in line with state policies, using a set of sonic reformulations that re-cast groups now marked as non-Turkish alteri-
ties. Tis essay examines how ethnically-marked genres were used in commercial recordings as negative portrayals to shore
up normative Turkish ideals of male and female gender roles. Drawing from journal articles and literature from the :,:cs and
:,,cs, sonic portrayals in commercial recordings, visual information from advertising and record catalogues, this study ex-
amines the sonic encoding of national identity at the early period of identity negotiation. Tese sources reveal how normative
ideals of the new Turkish male and female were encoded through stereotypical portrayal of ethnically-marked male and
female thus providing a repertoire of stylized characteristics to guide every-day behavior. In turn, these ideas were encoded
into sound to create sonic stereotypes that underscored and heightened the diference between minorities and Turks.
Contextual Divergence and the Development of the Mey in Turkey
Songul Karahasanoglu (Istanbul Technical University)
Te process of nation building inevitably involves the construction and presentation of a unique national musical identity.
Contestations over the double-reed aerophone, mey, is one such example of an instrument that has become marked as a
Turkish folk instrument. However, the mey is just one member of a larger family of aerophones that is closely related to the
Azerbaijan balaban, and the Armenian duduk. Teir physical features are so similar that it is not uncommon for performers
of one to play the others. Tis has led some to conceptually collapse the three down into a single instrument whose origin is
usually attributed to a single nation-either Turkey, Azerbaijan, or Armenia. In the past, there have been signifcant debates
surrounding the origins and consequent ownership of this cluster of instruments. In national discourses, these debates both
oversimplify the complex nexus of cultural, religious and social interaction carried out in Anatolia and Central Asia, while si-
multaneously disregarding the nuanced histories and developments of the instruments within their respective emerging nation
state systems during the last hundred years. Tis presentation is based on :c years of feld research conducted by a performer
and researcher that explores how the cultural and historical role of the mey, balaban and duduk have been amplifed, changed,
and marked as a symbol of national identity, and the exclusions that this cultural construction entails.
Familiar yet Uncanny: Negotiating Cultural Identities within Serbian Bagpipe Musical Practice
Rastko Jakovljevi (Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts)
Te musical practice of the Serbian bagpipes, called gajde occupies a space that includes social, historical, regional and
national references which creates its distinctive cultural identity. Te gajde referenced pan-Balkan regional identity and other
geopolitical strata, while also marking the distinction between ethnic groups such as Serbs and Vlachs, as a contrast between
dominant and marginal cultures. Tus in the past, the instrument, performance and sonic meanings were familiar, distinctive
and inclusive. Due to radical changes that occurred from the second half of the twentieth century, such as modernization,
political transition to socio-communistic ideology and other later developments, local communities maintained other musical
instruments through dominant discourses of self-identifcation and nationalism. In contrast to national instruments, the
gajde were viewed as a part of broad regional and thus arcane or blurred identity, thus due the gajdes more difuse attach-
ment to national associations they became viewed as both diferent and familiar uncanny yet strange (per Freud, Benjamin,
Bhabha) to the society whose interests turned towards other practices that supported dominant national ideologies. Based on
archival and feldwork materials as well as publications, this paper explores the re-shaping process of gajde identity in Serbia,
through the political and institutional imposition of a modernist ethnonational ideology. As a result of these processes, I claim
that contemporary Serbian perceptions of the gajde struggle to reconcile its distinctive past with its uncanny present in the
context of modernity.
Session 1-20 (SEM), [Link]
Studies of Indigenous Music Practices
Janet Sturman (University of Arizona), Chair
Te Right to Rites: Religious Musical Practice and Cultural Agency in Indigenous Guatemala
Logan Clark (University of California, Los Angeles)
Since the end of the Guatemalan Civil War, government reconciliation eforts have nominally advanced indigenous
cultural rights, yet indigenous communities encounter increasing obstacles to maintaining traditional religious practice. Tis
paper presents an ethnographic study of the Baile del Venado, or Deer Dance and its integral role in the religious practice of
20
:: Tursday Morning: Session 1- AMS/SEM/SMT New Orleans :o::
a Maya-Pokomch community in Guatemalas central highlands. Based on ethnographic feldwork and interviews conducted
in :c::, this paper will demonstrate the ways in which the Pokomch use traditional music to assert a claim to cultural rights
they have been promised and, for the most part, denied. After analyzing the ways in which the Baile del Venado perpetuates
Mayan cosmology and creates Pokomch identity, I will discuss how Pokomch musicians manipulate this identity to maintain
a space for indigenous worldviews. How do they negotiate the balance between what Charles Hale refers to as the Permitted
Indian and enacting cultural agency through what Henry Somer calls wiggle room? I explore the stakes in the Pokomch
fght for cultural rights and in so doing present one of many worldwide cases for indigenous cultural agency.
People of One Fire: Continuing a Centuries-Old Tradition
Ryan Koons (University of California, Los Angeles)
People of One Fire: Continuing a Centuries-Old Tradition examines the chronology of two ceremonial gatherings cel-
ebrated by the Florida-based Muskogee-Creek settlement of Tulwa Palachicola. Tis community is one of the few Muskogee
towns east of the Mississippi River with an unbroken line of tradition, with a heritage that includes a ceremonial calendar
difering signifcantly from that of Oklahoma Creeks. Historical and ethnographic literature often center upon the summer
Green Corn Busk; however, the winter Harvest Busk and the Soup Dance ceremonies as maintained in Florida are little
known. Te Tulwa Palachicola Harvest Busk celebrates the relationship between the community, Creator, and the World. Par-
ticipants engage in ceremonial songs and dances, ritual scarifcation, a remembrance of the new dead, and other formal events.
In contrast, the Soup Dance gathering informally celebrates intercommunity relationships, observing the bonds between
families, individuals, and the community as a whole. Soup Dance also ofers a space for healing through the laughter and fun
of Bench Dancing. Created in conjunction with the community, this c-minute long documentary is based on feld research
conducted between :cc and :c:c. It features video and photographic footage from Tulwa Palachicolas :cc Harvest Busk
and :cc, Soup Dance, and narration by community members. Tis flm ofers a glimpse into a little-known contemporary
Native American tradition. In addition to the ceremonial chronologies, it discusses cosmology, music and the environment,
cultural gender relations, and the ceremonial functions of music and dance.
20
Tursday Afternoon, 1 November
Session 1-21 (SEM), [Link]
Balkan Beats for a New Europe: Comparative Soundscapes of Social Diference
Donna Buchanan (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign), Chair
Mainstreaming Jazz in Serbia: Dixieland, Balkan Jazz Fusion, and the Serbian Symphonic Jazz Suite
Brana Mijatovic (Christopher Newport University)
Recent articles and books on jazz in America increasingly view jazz as a form of popular music that has moved from the
margins to the mainstream and back several times throughout its relatively brief history (Bernard-Donals :,,; Stanbridge
:cc, :cc; Ekins :c:c; Nicholson :cc,; Whyton :c::). Surprisingly enough, jazz in Serbia has undergone a similar develop-
ment since its frst appearance in the :,,cs. Tis paper discusses the recent surge in the popularity of jazz among mainstream
audiences as being driven by two leading jazz bands on opposite ends of the stylistic spectrum and one symphonic jazz event:
Te Belgrade Dixieland Orchestra, which entertains and educates with their theatrical approach to performance and dance
choreographies, participates in various corporate promotional events, and has several annual concerts; the Vasil Hadzimanov
Band, which plays Balkan Fusion Jazz employs personal and professional charisma and utilizes various forms of social media
to connect with fans; and a :c:: performance of the Serbian Symphonic Jazz Suite by a renowned musician of the older genera-
tion, Stjepko Gut. While the frst two have been steadily building their presence on the Serbian music scene and throughout
southeast Europe, broadening their audiences to pop and rock fans, Stjepko Gut has engaged classical and oldies music fans.
In this paper I discuss the increasing popularity of these diferent jazz styles for non-jazz audiences using the theoretical frame-
work of mainstreaming or a process of inclusion involving personal initiative, creative collaborations, continuous presence
in the media, the importance of discourse, and institutional support
Balkansky Beats and Mumming Bells in Bulgaria:
Sonic Displays of Social Diference from Village Square to Video Screen
Donna Buchanan (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign)
In :cc, the Bulgarian studio group Balkansky released Kuker, a concept album engineered by house music/dub artist Ivan
Shopov on producer Ivo Hristovs Kuker Music label. Te CDs inspiration is the elaborately masked mid-winter and early
spring mummers generically called kukeri, who annually process through their communities wearing fantastical costumes
festooned with bells of various sorts, the resulting earsplitting clamor sonically repelling evil and misfortune. Te CD in-
corporates electronically synthesized and sampled bells to emulate the mumming soundscape; these are combined with the
innovative soloing of kaval virtuoso Teodossi Spasov, a timbral combination recalling Bulgarias pastoral heritage. Te albums
thematic focus refects the increasing revitalization and widespread popularization of mumming customs in adjudicated
festivals that are venues for civic pride, tourism, community solidarity, nation-building, EU integration, and transnational
engagement, on the one hand, and the assertion of local subjectivities (community, regional, ethnic) through diferentiated
bell types, timbral aesthetics, resonance preferences, choreographically-related ringing techniques, costuming, and musical
accompaniment, on the other. Based on feldwork conducted with kukeri, festival organizers, and bell makers during :c:c::,
and using Kukers title track video as a point of departure, this paper examines kukeri practices as sonic displays of social dif-
ference in which bells, perhaps the most profoundly evocative musical signifer of Bulgarian subjectivity, lifeways, and belief,
play a fundamental role. I will show that both Kuker as popular culture and kukerstvo as ritual practice are directed at exorcis-
ing certain current social demons, while metaphorically awakening, through sound, a new and prosperous Bulgarian spring.
Te Bal and the Kuller: Slang, Stereotypes, and Popular Song in Postwar Kosova
Jane Sugarman (Graduate Center, CUNY)
During the early :cccs, in the aftermath of the Kosova war, two stereotypic fgures emerged in the youth slang of the capital
city of Prishtina: the bal, a villager transplanted to the city who still kept his village ways; and the kuller, a privileged young
urbanite who dressed in distinctive ways, hung out at a few select cafes and clubs, listened only to certain types of music,
and peppered his speech with English-derived expressions such as Kull be njeri! or Cool, man! One principal way that these
stereotypes were disseminated was through commercial recordings of popular songs in hip-hop, dance music, and alternative
rock styles. Often highly comical, but also mean-spirited, such songs both registered and fueled a growing tension among
distinct social groups, serving as vehicles for individuals of diferent class and family backgrounds to claim primacy in urban
life and marginalize rival groups. In this paper I examine the role of slang in these songs as a means of both constructing
:, Tursday Afternoon: Session 1- AMS/SEM/SMT New Orleans :o::
in-group identity and stereotyping the behavior of other groups, and ask what factors might precipitate such processes of social
diferentiation. I argue that, although pitched at the level of personal appearance, behavior, and taste the critiques deployed
by these songs in fact point to more fundamental concerns: the opportunities for advancement that each group was perceived
as possessing within the postwar economic order, and shifts in the new countrys class structure that have empowered certain
groups economically and politically in unexpected ways.
Balkan Beats DJs, and Club Culture: Producing Gypsy Music
Carol Silverman (University of Oregon)
In the :,,cs, clubs in western Europe began to draw large crowds of young non-Roma to dance to remixed Balkan Gypsy
music. Tis paper analyzes the production of this Balkan Beats soundscape by a growing DJ subculture, comprised of
hundreds of performers on fve continents. Based on feldwork in western Europe and the US, I explore how DJs choose their
materials and defne Balkan music noting that ,c% of their repertoire is Romani brass music; Balkan, Gypsy, and Brass are
now interchangeable labels. Interrogating the issue of authenticity and the construction of the fantasy Gypsy my analysis
highlights social, class, and ethnic diferences among the various positionalities in this soundscape: the DJs, the clubbers,
the marketers, and the Romani musicians whose music is sampled. DJs, clubbers, and marketers are mostly neither Roma
nor from the Balkans. Balkan Beats promotes an acoustic style; non-Balkan DJs tend to shun amplifed musics that feature
synthesizers even though they are widespread in Romani communities; DJs from the Balkans, however, have a more eclectic
repertoire. Some DJs are young and nave about the Balkans and some do serious research. Some DJs remix for the love of it
and make little money; on the other hand, a few are well paid. Roma, operating from a marginal class and social position, play
an ambivalent role in this soundscape; they may be invisible or may provide authenticity through guest live performances or
collaborations with DJs. Finally, marketers promote the music as a multicultural exchange that counteracts racism.
Session 1-22 (SEM), [Link]
Cultural Politics from the Top Down
Donna Kwon (University of Kentucky), Chair
Politics of Arirang : Tripartite Function of a Korean Folksong in the Republic of
Korea, Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, and the Peoples Republic of China
ByongWon Lee (University of Hawaii)
Arirang is the most well-known and popular folksong of Korea, which originated from the central region of Korea around
the time of the Japanese annexation of Korea in :,:c. It has evolved to be the iconic song for both South and North Korea.
Recently, the Chinese government has designated Arirang as a cultural heritage of the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Region
of China. South Korean conservatives are suspicious of the Chinese gesture as it is one of the ongoing Chinese appropriations
of Korean heritage, which includes the ownership of some historical events. South Korean government is actively promoting
the song internationally as a musical icon. On the other hand, the North Korean government hosts the Arirang Festival in
honoring the birthday of the late Dearest Leader of Kim Il-sung, an efort to tone down the ideological stress through using
a cultural title. Tis paper will explore the tripartite states of Arirang: as a musical icon through its nation-branding function
in the Republic of Korea (South Korea), as a soft image-making medium in the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (North
Korea), and as a political embrace of minorities by the Peoples Republic of China.
Incorporated Ethnicity: Music, Tourism, and Cosmopolitanism in Northern Vietnam
Lonn Briain (University of Shefeld)
Since the :,,cs Sapa has transformed into what the Lonely Planet now calls the destination of northwest Vietnam, [a]
gateway to another world of mysterious minority cultures and luscious landscapes ([Link]
northwest-vietnam/sapa). Staged performances of indigenous music and dance in Sapa focus on the culture of the resident
ethnic minority groups, in particular the Hmong. In addition to informal street performances, the local authorities organize
formal shows for tourists in the guise of cultural heritage preservation. Tis paper examines how the commodifcation of
Hmong culture and the incorporation of Hmong identity are manifest in the most successful of these formal shows, the Cat
Cat village show. Te analysis, framed by the concept of Ethnicity, Inc. (Comarof and Comarof :cc,), considers how local
traditions are made palatable for a cosmopolitan tourist audience at the contact zone (Pratt :,,:) of the performance. Te
calculated omission of certain vital aspects of the traditions, which are supposedly being preserved, demonstrates how these
performances engender neoimperialist power relations where those with the money dictate the musical content, albeit indi-
rectly. Furthermore, by representing Vietnamese-Hmong culture as tribal, exotic, or oriental the authorities are adopting a
22
Abstracts Tursday Afternoon: Session 1- :,
strategy of their former colonizers, the French, in order to justify their subjugation of the indigenous population. Tis practice
intentionally counteracts the historical centrifugal tendencies of the minorities living at the periphery of the Vietnamese state
(see Scott :cc,). Te research, based on ffteen months of feldwork in northern Vietnam, contributes to studies of musical
tourism and cosmopolitanism in postcolonial Southeast Asia.
Whose Hero? Django Reinhardt, French Patrimony, and Romani Self-Representation
Siv Lie (New York University)
Django Reinhardt, the Belgian-born Manouche guitarist who rose to fame in the :,,cs in France, is frequently lauded as
the progenitor of the genre known as Gypsy jazz. As such, Reinhardt has been portrayed as, simultaneously: (:) a symbol of
Romani integrity and creativity; (:) a luminary of modern European music; and (,) an unparalleled innovator in the interna-
tional jazz canon. Tis paper investigates how Reinhardt manages to function as both a hero of the Gypsy people (Antoni-
etto and Billard :cc) and as a chief fgure in ofcial narratives of French cultural heritage. I examine how French govern-
mental agencies draw upon Reinhardts legacy in promoting French arts industries, and what the impacts of such promotion
are on Romani self-representation. Romanies are frequently subject to structural discrimination in France, yet the inclusion
of Reinhardt in the construction of French patrimony has helped French ofcials to promote a public image of ethnic toler-
ance. Te publicity accompanying state-supported festivals and public spaces named in honor of Reinhardt often highlights
his ethnicity to advance a multicultural agenda while proclaiming him as an emblem of French national identity. How do
these narratives compare to those ofered by Romani individuals and collectivities? To what extent do Romanies have a voice,
verbally and musically, in this cultural sphere? Drawing upon ethnography and text-based research, I sift through these ap-
parent paradoxes in order to critique what Reinhardts status as a major fgure in French patrimony does for Manouches, and
for Romanies more broadly.
Patrimony of the Soul: Flamenco, UNESCO, and Andalusian Regional Identity
Brian Oberlander (Northwestern University)
In November of :c:c, famenco was inscribed onto UNESCOs Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of
Humanity. As the votes were cast and counted by an international committee in Nairobi, Kenya, the frst installment of a
weekly famenco showcase was airing on Canal Sur Andaluca from a small theater in Seville. Taking the impending vote as its
raison dtre and defning itself explicitly as a means of support for famencothis musical heritage of Andalusia, this patri-
mony of the soulEl Sol La Sal El Son was only the most recent in a remarkable series of famenco festivals, demonstrations,
educational programs, news reports, and public statements that had proliferated since the musics nomination a year earlier.
In dialogue with recent critiques of UNESCOs world heritage campaign, I situate this fowering of claims and activities
within the unique discursive space opened up by the Representative List, where conceptions of, debates about, and ideological
investments in famenco were re-formulated in response to the specifc prospects and constraints associated with nomination.
Taking El Sol La Sal El Son as a case study, I trace subtle shifts in the discourse of Andalusian regionalism as revealed in the
programs musical performances, along with the introductions, interviews, and flmic techniques that frame them. Pervaded
by the language of intangible cultural heritage, the program re-positions Andalusia vis--vis the central Spanish government,
the Gitano (Spanish Romani) community, and issues of Moroccan immigration that presently trouble the regions borders.
Session 1-23 (AMS/SEM/SMT), [Link]
Music and Ultraconservatism, Past and Present
Pamela Potter (University of Wisconsin-Madison), Chair
Secularism, globalization, and economic crisis have fueled contemporary ultraconservatism throughout the globe. As these
forces continue to mobilize, the scholars in this interdisciplinary panel unite to examine the relationship between ultracon-
servatism and music in contrasting historical and cultural settings, analyzing case studies from the varied perspectives of
historical musicology, music theory, and ethnomusicology. Te frst paper (SMT) explores the role of anashid (typically trans-
lated as Islamic songs) in jihadi culture, focusing on al-Qaida. Anashid often catalyze the interpersonal bonding vital to
recruitment, membership retention, and motivation for action in jihadi groups. Tis paper draws upon theories of hate-groups
and ethnic violence to engage the violent message of jihad-themed anashid texts. Te second paper (SMT) places the anti-
democratic, anti-Marxist, pro-Fascist, and pan-German nationalistic diatribes found in Heinrich Schenkers later writings in
the context of his general retreat from the progressive and inclusive attitudes that are more widespread in his earlier analytical
practices and musical philosophy. Specifc analytical examples spanning three decades of Schenkers career are paired with
closely linked extra-musical remarks to illustrate the progress and consequences of his increasingly strident conservatism. Te
third paper (AMS) examines the popularity of Honegger in Vichy France, arguing that, though the composers popularity has
23
: Tursday Afternoon: Session 1- AMS/SEM/SMT New Orleans :o::
frequently been viewed as evidence of Vichys progressive musical aesthetic, Honegger instead served the regimes agenda of
cultural negotiation with the German victor. Tis paper shows that, while Vichy obfuscated its collaboration dtat in of-
fcial rhetoric, it pursued cooperation with Germany in the cultural or symbolic realm, and perhaps most insidiously through
music, resulting in a personal dilemma for Honegger, whose own subjective identity was deeply fractured. Te fourth paper
(SEM) analyzes the rise and reception of white nationalist rap and reggae in contemporary Sweden. Examining Swedish
white nationalists rhetorical and conceptual attempts to justify their use of Afro-diasporic musics, this paper exposes the
constructed nature of understandings of self and other in these activists isolationist cultural programs. Although these four
papers highlight the varied ways ultraconservative forces relate to music, they also show how music provides these social actors
unique opportunities to pursue their agendas.
Te Sound of (non)-Music: Anashid, Jihad, and al-Qaida Culture
Jonathan Pieslak (City College of New York)
Tis paper explores the role of anashid (often translated as Islamic songs) in jihadi culture, focusing on al-Qaida. Jihad-
themed anashid are an inseparable part of almost every jihadi groups propaganda and videos; training videos, documentaries,
operation and combat footage, execution videos, messages from leaders, almost all feature jihad-themed anashid. While the
role of music in terrorist studies is often considered of secondary importance, I argue that anashid are dynamic cultural cata-
lysts in many of the processes seen as being of primary importance: recruitment, membership retention, morale, and motiva-
tion for action. Trough music and messages which legitimize al-Qaida ideology and promote the themes of rising to the
defense of Islam and the Muslim community (ummah), the veneration of martyrdom, and others, anashid have a profound
ability to catalyze the process of interpersonal bonding that appears so important to recruitment and membership retention.
Te cases of Arid Uka (aka Arid U., Te Frankfurt Shooter) and Khalid al-Awhali (would-be al-Qaida suicide bomber of
the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, :,,) are explored as examples. Additionally, examples are drawn from my present library of :o
videos from Afghanistan and Pakistan, approximately between :cc, and :cc;. As an interpretive framework for the anashid
texts, I draw upon the work of a number of scholars of hate-group theory and ethnic violence, including social psychologists
Robert and Karin Sternberg and political theorist Roger Peterson. Teir work suggests that when such messages are animated
through anashid, they become emotionally charged and prey upon culturally conditioned perceptions of music that sugges-
tively render the listener more vulnerable to the violent message.
Heinrich Schenkers Future
Joseph Lubben (Oberlin College)
My paper places the anti-democratic, anti-Marxist, pan-German nationalistic and pro-Fascist diatribes found in Heinrich
Schenkers later writings in the context of his general retreat from the progressive and inclusive attitudes that are more wide-
spread in his earlier analytical practices and musical philosophy. To illustrate, I draw on Schenkers published and unpublished
remarks on society in parallel with contemporaneous analytical essays and graphs from the last three decades of his life. I
focus on two musical threadsthe roles of motive and the Urliniethat exhibit progressions from an analytical ideology that
embraces a nonhierarchical integration of multiple musical parameters to one dominated by a singular Ursatz controlling and
generating nearly all facets of the music. Selections from Schenkers letters, journals, and published theoretical and analytical
works highlight a similar progressionthough one that had less distance to traveltowards a monist ideology that reaches
its conclusions already in the :,:cs, with calls for a single musical dictator, constant claims for the superiority of German
music over that of every other nation, and ultimately the infamous encomium from :,,,: Hitlers historical service, of having
gotten rid of Marxism, is something that posterity . . . will celebrate with no less gratitude than the great deeds of the great-
est Germans! If only the man were born to music who would similarly get rid of the musical Marxists. . . I suggest that the
convergence of his musical and extra-musical ideologies on a totalitarian goal, though complex in its causes and unsteady in its
path, was largely driven by three factors: (:) trading his career as a critic, composer and pianist for the life of a theorist and ana-
lyst, (:) disenchantment with the post-tonal developments of contemporary music, and (,) bitterness with the consequences
of World War I for Austria and Germany. I thus conclude that it is more constructive not to posit his analytical achievements
as driven by his political ideology, but to see both as shaped by his isolating choice of the idealized past and imagined future
over the troubling present.
23
Abstracts Tursday Afternoon: Session 1- :;
From Hard to Soft Borders: Honeggers Fractured Self-Identity
and Use as Icon by the Vichy and French Fascist Right
JaneFair Fulcher (University of Michigan)
Te phenomenon of Honeggers popularity in France throughout the period of the German Occupation has frequently
been attributed to his supposed neutral status as Swiss and adduced as evidence of Vichys broad and progressive musical
aesthetic. Tis paper rather argues that, in light of what we now know of the nature of the Vichy regime, Honegger served its
agenda of cultural negotiation with the German victor and its desire to prepare for a favored place in Hitlers projected new
Europe. While the French fascists argued openly for collaboration with the Germans, Vichy obfuscated its collaboration
dtat in ofcial rhetoric while furthering its desire for cooperation in the cultural or symbolic realm, and perhaps most in-
sidiously through music. As recent research and newly opened archival documents reveal, the concept of what was French
grew problematic in light of the armistice to which the French agreed (as opposed to the other conquered countries); the latter
required it to collaborate on every level with the Germans, who sought to impose their own conception of French identity.
Within this context iconic fgures, including Honegger, became soft borders or a nexus for exchange, not just for construc-
tions of Frances past, but also of French modernity. Honegger, of German-Swiss parentage, was born and resided in France
and frequently felt pulled between his two identities, which made him prey to manipulation as a symbol of a lofty synthesis of
the two cultures. Given recent evidence we can no longer accept the explanation that, as a Swiss citizen who lived in France,
he was exempt from the political pressures, stakes, or strictures of either nation. For Honegger the seduction of an emerging
aesthetic vision in which the tensions within his fractured personal identity could be resolved were far too great for him to
condemn the Vichy or German use of his persona as a cultural emblem of Hitlers Europe. However, as I argue, his conficted
conscience and identity emerges in both his criticism and his wartime works.
White Pride/Black Music: Rap, Reggae, and the Local in Swedish Radical Nationalism
Benjamin Teitelbaum (University of Colorado)
Commentators interpret the recent rise of radical nationalism in Scandinavia as a movement to isolate the region from
transnational fows of money, goods, ideas, culture, and people. Tis interpretation is to be expected: Radical nationalists
defne and promote themselves as opponents of the EU, multiculturalism, immigration, and globalization, and as advocates
of protectionism on all fronts. In my paper, however, I show how nationalists understandings of the local and the foreign are
more constructed and unstable than such interpretations imply. My study investigates the recent rise of white nationalist rap
and reggae in Sweden. I focus my analysis on nationalists rhetorical and conceptual strategies to justify their use of musics as-
sociated with foreignness and blackness. I show that nationalists strategies parallel those used by other communities through-
out the world who embrace rap and reggae. Tey are techniques aimed at reconciling desires to participate in a transnational
exchangethat of Afro-diasporic popular musicswith agendas of localism. By rendering the foreign local through these
techniques, radical nationalists allow themselves to be cosmopolitan while professing protectionism. I center my investigation
on nationalists reception of the white nationalist reggae song Imagine, and albums released by white nationalist rap artists
Zyklon Boom and Juice. I survey this reception among members of three organizationsFrbundet Nationell Ungdom, nor-
[Link], and [Link]. Each of these organizations claims to work for the preservation of Swedes as an ethnic and cultural
population, and their meetings and online forums provide the main venues where contemporary nationalists discuss music.
Consulting statements made in online discussions, blog postings, and personal interviews, I analyze these individuals eforts
to resolve the apparent confict in using black music to promote their cause. After showing how these eforts resemble those
of rap and reggae communities in Burma, Turkish Germany, and Native America, I argue that nationalists in Sweden are, and
are poised to remain, part of this transnational fow of popular culture. I conclude by calling for more nuanced approaches to
contemporary movements for cultural isolation, approaches that take into account the varied ways such movements imagine
and interact with the local and the global.
Session 1-24 (SEM), [Link]
New Orleanians Discuss Music and Teir Citys Future
Matt Sakakeeny (Tulane University), Chair
New Orleans Music under Seige
Matt Sakakeeny (Tulane University)
New Orleans music is celebrated for its plenitude and accessibility: jazz funerals, community parades called second lines,
Mardi Gras parades, school marching bands, and Mardi Gras Indian ceremonies fll the streets and other public spaces with
sound. Te promotional campaigns of the local tourism industry circulate images, sounds, and descriptions of these cultural
24
: Tursday Afternoon: Session 1- AMS/SEM/SMT New Orleans :o::
traditions to lure visitors to New Orleans. Meanwhile, the City Council and the New Orleans Police Department have
ramped up attempts to silence or contain music in public spaces, arresting musicians for violating noise ordinances, attempt-
ing to triple the permit fees for community groups that organize parades, and violently breaking up Mardi Gras Indian proces-
sions after nightfall. Tis presentation will explore the predicament facing musicians who are celebrated as cultural icons while
remaining vulnerable to aggressive policing and lopsided policies.
New Orleans Music and the Cultural Economy
Jordan Hirsch (Founder, Sweet Home New Orleans)
Because local culture is what makes New Orleans a tourist destination, music is a primary resource for the economic in-
frastructure of the city. But are musicians rewarded with economic capital that is commensurate with their cultural capital?
Drawing upon surveys and statistical data of musicians earnings conducted by Sweet Home New Orleans, the founder of that
musicians welfare agency will discuss the possibilities and obstacles that musicians navigate through on a daily basis.
New Orleans Music and the State of Education
Derrick Tabb (Executive Director, Roots of Music)
Te ongoing vitality of New Orleans music depends upon future generations of musicians entering into the tradition. Yet
music education has been systematically cut from elementary and middle schools in New Orleans, removing a critical piece of
the puzzle in the socialization of young musicians. Te founder and director of an enormously successful afterschool program
will discuss the benefts of music education for middle school students and the need for future change.
New Orleans Music and the Problem of Hip-Hop
Truth Universal (Founder, Grassroots Hip-Hop Collective)
Tere is something of a consensus about the cluster of genres that make up New Orleans Music: brass band, jazz, blues,
rhythm & blues, soul, and funk. Just how hip-hop fts into to this understanding of what constitutes New Orleans music has
been the source of great debate, with some arguing that hip-hop has no place in the tradition and others placing it squarely
within the legacy. Tis problem is compounded by the many forms of hip-hop, including bounce (a regional style), main-
stream (a national commercial style) and grassroots (a national underground style with regional variants), which are them-
selves contested categories. Te director of a hip-hop collective will situate this aggregate of hip-hop within and against the
aggregate of New Orleans Music.
Session 1-25 (SEM), [Link]
Te Performance of Jewish Biblical Chant in North America
JefreyA. Summit (Tufts University), Chair
Te Performance of Sacred Text and the Construction of Religious
Experience in the Contemporary Jewish Community
JefreyA. Summit (Tufts University)
At a time in America when worshippers, across religious traditions, are seeking more intimate and personal experiences with
their faith traditions, lay congregants are employing many strategies to assert control over religious life. For many contempo-
rary American Jews, across denominational lines, this search for deeper spiritual expression has led to a reconceptualization
of the meaning and experience of reading Torah chanting biblical text during Sabbath and Holy Day worship. Tere is no
other venue in Jewish worship where worshippers can step so deeply into the epicenter of religious expression. Tis promise
of intimate access to religious experience has led increased numbers of adults to study chant traditions. Tese worshippers,
with busy work schedules and limited discretionary time, seek opportunities for intense experience in many aspects of their
lives and this paper contextualizes the performance of biblical chant in a broader interest in heightened life experience among
these Jews. As such, this paper examines the dynamics of a radical shift in Jewish life where the experience of the individual,
through the performance of sacred chant, increasingly takes precedence over communal responsibility, authority and religious
obligation. Combining ethnographic interviews with Torah readers, analysis of congregational reception and an examination
of the aesthetics of chant performance, this paper presents a reconceptualization of the numinous in contemporary Jewish life
where Gods presence becomes real at the intersection of chant, the individual, community, and sacred text.
25
Abstracts Tursday Afternoon: Session 1- :)
Partnership Minyanim: Te Envoicing of Orthodox Jewish Women
Gordon Dale (Tufts University)
Over the past ten years an exceptionally musical network of independent Orthodox Jewish prayer groups known as Partner-
ship Minyanim have revolutionized gender roles within the prayer service. In these worship communities, women chant from
the Torah and lead the congregation through a musically rich prayer service accompanied by robust harmonies. Tis prayer
format represents a dramatic departure from previous models of Orthodox worship, as women have generally been prohibited
from singing in front of men due to a principle in Jewish law called Kol BIsha Erva (lit. A Womans Voice is Nakedness).
Many women afliated with partnership minyanim fnd that their voice- both physical and metaphorical- had previously been
stifed within Orthodoxy. I contend that the Cantillation of the Torah by women at partnership minyanim can be viewed as
the envoicing of Orthodox women, providing a long desired home within the Jewish world for many individuals who had
previously felt that they lacked a voice. Tis paper explores the place of music in the negotiation of fxed tradition, and its
impact on the gendered identities of worshippers. In addition, this paper explores the changing role of men, as they shift from
being the outward projecting voice of cantillation, to the inward receiving, but also enabling, ear. Drawing on the work of Jane
Sugarman, Carolyn Abbate, Judith Butler, and Pierre Bourdieu, this paper suggests that the chanting of the Torah by women
may spark monumental changes in the Orthodox habitus.
Eastern Ashkenazic Cantillation: Analytical Perspectives on Music, Text, And Liturgy
Yonatan Malin (University of Colorado, Boulder)
Tis paper explores musical nuances of biblical chant in connection with liturgical occasions and the text parsing function
of the cantillation signs (teamim). Prior analytical studies of Jewish cantillation have sought to demonstrate the antiquity
and essential unity of diverse Jewish traditions (Idelsohn :,:,) and establish historical continuity or discontinuity (Avenary
:,;). In comparison, the goal of this paper is to provide a richly contextual analysis of chant melodies that are widely taught
and used in American congregations today. Six sets of melodies used for diferent readings and liturgical occasions will be
considered and compared. Te analysis is richly contextual in that it explores multiple interacting features that give each set
of melodies its unique feel. For example, repetition, descending contours, shifting pitch collections, and the unique use of half
steps in Lamentations chant may be heard to express the unrelenting grief of Tisha BAv, a holy day that commemorates the
destruction of the frst and second temples in Jerusalem. Te text parsing function of the cantillation signs is widely acknowl-
edged, and readers are taught to pause after disjunctive signs at multiple levels. Te present analysis, however, explores direct
connections between the melodic and text parsing functions of the teamim. Te analysis links with studies of music and text
in canonical Western repertoires through its focus on musical syntax and linguistic parsing.
Te Pedagogy of Torah Cantillation: A Case Study
MeredithAska McBride (University of Chicago)
Understanding the pedagogies of religious practices is crucial to understanding the practices themselves, as it is often in
pedagogical moments that communal values are both clearly revealed and subject to negotiation. Trough an ethnographic
case study of a Torah cantillation class for adults at a small Philadelphia synagogue, I use this paper to explore how competence
is defned and developed; how the lay voice and ear are trained to produce and understand cantillation; and the aesthetic,
ethical, and practical priorities of synagogue members with respect to the performance of the Torah. Te phenomenon, at this
synagogue and many others, of adult laypeople who are competent in reading Torah blurs conventional distinctions between
professionals and non-professionals in contemporary American religious life. Tis semi-professional ability to read Torah
radiates outward into other synagogue activities and into the broader community, enabling more services to be held and thus
expanding the sphere of Jewish life in this synagogues neighborhood. Tis paper places pedagogy at the heart of layers of To-
rah cantillation practices, and uses it as a lens through which individual and communal meaning-making may be understood.
25
,o Tursday Afternoon: Session 1- AMS/SEM/SMT New Orleans :o::
Session 1-26 (SEM), [Link]
Roundtable
PublishingA Dialogue for Young Scholars
Jessica Getman (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor), Chair
Mary Francis (University of California Press), [Link] Witzleben (University of Maryland),
Timothy Rice (University of California, Los Angeles), Sean Williams (Evergreen State University)
In the changing academy, publication is of increasing concern to young scholars. Te academic job market increasingly re-
lies on a candidates history of publication as evidence of scholarly rigor and future success. At the same time, publication can
seem daunting or inaccessible to the uninitiated writer, and though a scholar may have signifcant information and insight to
share with the feld, navigating the publishing process may be difcult. Tis roundtable addresses several concerns along these
lines, including how to write and submit a successful article or chapter proposal, how to present a successful book proposal,
how to write and mine the dissertation for successful publication, and how to best use publication to bolster the scholars job
search and tenure portfolio. Our panelists will address how to best prepare a paper for publication consideration and how to
contact and communicate with journal editors and acquisition editors from publishing houses. Te roundtable will consider
the hallmarks of a successful abstract, article, chapter, or book, and the ways in which various media can be used to the best
efect in publication. In addition, it will consider the benefts and drawbacks of print versus digital publication. Te round-
tables panel brings together editors from academic publishing houses and journals with professional scholars with a history of
successful publication in several formats. In so doing, it encourages a dialogue of particular beneft to aspiring ethnomusicolo-
gists, as well as historical musicologists and music theorists.
Session 1-27 (SEM), [Link]
Repatriation and Reclamation
Lorraine Sakata (University of California, Los Angeles), Chair
Heritage Extraction: Music and Memory in a Mining Town
Bradley Hanson (Brown University)
In :cc:, Howard Louie Bluie Armstrong, a pioneering African-American stringband musician and National Heritage Fel-
low, became the center of a cultural heritage movement in LaFollette, Tennessee, the community where he was raised in the
:,:cs. Tough a success with folk music audiences and the subject of a well-received documentary flm, Armstrong had been
largely forgotten in the town he left as a young man. At age ninety-one, however, Armstrong was discovered and reintroduced
to LaFollette by a group of residents organizing a cultural and economic coalition modeled on heritage, tourism, and pride of
place industries. LaFollette, like many Appalachian coal mining towns, had by then earned a reputation for economic depres-
sion and social distress. Following the coalitions marketing eforts and public events, the community, in an extraordinary act
of collective remembering, reclaimed Armstrong and his legacy. Tough he passed away in :cc, after just one celebrated re-
turn visit, Armstrongs legend has since inspired a thriving yearly music festival, local exhibits, and community art projects. In
his heritage afterlife, Armstrong serves as muse and brand for his former homeplace as it works toward cultural, social, artistic
and economic renewal. Drawing on interviews and feld research, I will ofer a critical heritage case study at the intersection
of remembering, forgetting, race, and expressive culture. Informed by the work of Laurajane Smith, Barbara Kirshenblatt-
Gimblett, and Robert Cantwell, I show how one community is making something new from something old, and building a
heritage infrastructure with complicated social engineering goals.
Repossessing the Land: A Spiritual Retreat with Maher Fayez and a
Movement of Coptic Charismatic Worship
Carolyn Ramzy (University of Toronto)
Over the last decade, Egyptian Coptic Christians have witnessed a vibrant surge in satellite religious programming. While
the popular Coptic Orthodox Church Channel (CTV) represents Orthodox mainstream culture, Coptic Protestant chan-
nels such as SAT-; present alternative views. As both feature live streaming of community worship, this paper addresses one
worship convention as it was aired for SAT-;: famous Orthodox musician, Maher Fayezs retreat Repossessing the Land.
For three days, a mixed congregation of Orthodox Copts and Protestants sang Arabic devotional songs known as taratl.
Along with these impassioned musical worship sessions, Fayez invited three Ghanaian and Nigerian guests speakers from
the Global Apostolic and Prophetic Network, an organization dedicated to raising leaders in Africa and establishing the
presence of God in every sphere of society, ([Link]). Teir sermons not only drew on Fayez original themes, but
2627
Abstracts Tursday Afternoon: Session 1- ,:
also called on Egypts Christians to rise and repossess the land specifcally in the name of Jesus. Coming at the heels of the
January :, revolution and a sudden spike of sectarian violence between Egyptian Christians and Muslims, I investigate how
these sermons have transformed these songs from what Peter Manual calls ideologically ambiguous entities (:,,,::;) to songs
that are conditioned by ideological subtexts (Hall :,;,) embedded in their sounds and texts, transforming them into religious
national anthems. Furthermore, I explore how the presence of SAT-; TV cameras and crew further heightened the viscerality
and intensity of Coptic devotional song experience, particularly as the community grapples with post-revolution economic
and social instability.
Recording the Networks of Sound in the Central African Republic
Noel Lobley (University of Oxford)
One thousand hours of rare recordings documenting the forest soundscapes and music of Babenzl communities in the
Central African Republic have, until recently, remained locked in an old suitcase in an Oxford museum. Collected over a
period of twenty-fve years, these recordings include the sounds of Babenzl hunters ofering musical gifts to the forest to en-
sure psychological and ecological resilience; the sounds of women demarcating space as they gather food, calling and singing
to each other; the sounds of insects, tree drums, water, work and play. Tey convey the lived relationship between Babenzl
people and their environment, one that has changed enormously over the three decades in which the recordings were made.
How can we understandand usethe knowledge found in these recordings? Why have they been madeand for whose
beneft? What might Babenzl communities want or expect from them? In this paper I will present a brief overview of the
history and content of this archive of Babenzl sound recordings that has been donated to the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford
for curation. Trough audio illustrations, I will consider the ways in which the recordings map networks of communication
between Babenzl men, women, and children, as well as their spirit dancers, to convey information about themselves and
their environment. Lastly, I will introduce my current research exploring ways in which these recordings can be reconnected
with Babenzl people for their beneft, creating responsible and reciprocal communicative networks between academic insti-
tutions and local source communities.
Musical Analysis, Repatriation, and New Media:
A New Strategy to Safeguard Endangered Aboriginal Australian Song Traditions
SallyA. Treloyn (University of Melbourne), MatthewDembal Martin (Mowanjum Art and Culture Centre)
In recent years the repatriation of song recordings from archives to Indigenous communities has been a key activity of
ethnomusicologists in Australia. Such eforts are motivated by a number of factors: to return cultural property to appropriate
stakeholders, as a research method to assist documentation of songs, dances and associated knowledge and as a strategy to
safeguard endangered song traditions for the future by supporting intergenerational engagement around records of cultural
heritage. At the same time there are numerous anecdotal reports of people using repatriated recordings to replace live perfor-
mances. As a result, there are fewer opportunities for singers to perform and fewer opportunities for intergenerational trans-
mission of the skills required to sing. Repeated use of a recording may lead to a situation where a single version of song is then
performed time after time. Tere are several culturally signifcant factors guiding this tendency, including a desire to maintain
relationships with deceased relatives whose voices are captured on the chosen recording. However, in the case of Centralian-
style Australian Aboriginal music where the form of a song varies according to changing aesthetic, cultural, environmental,
and political factors, this practice may be detrimental to the tradition. Drawing on examples from the Kimberley region of
northwest Australia, this paper will investigate how musical analysis can be incorporated into new media pedagogical tools
and documents that, when presented together with archival recordings, may preserve the compositional principles that under-
pin song performances and therefore enhance the potential for repatriated recordings to safeguard traditions.
Session 1-28 (SEM), [Link]
Ritual Music beyond Ritual
GordonE. Smith (Queens University, Canada), Chair
Pious Performances: Assimilating the Gnawa into Islam through Moroccan Popular Culture
Christopher Witulski (University of Florida)
Te soundtracks from spiritual beliefs percolate into popular culture, quickly engaging the sound of public life. As the
musical components of Moroccos Gnawa practitioners confated specifc aesthetic and Islamic values through performance,
aurally joining sub-Saharan and Suf rituals, their sound became a malleable part of the Moroccan popular culture industries.
In this paper, I illuminate how artists, both from within and outside of Gnawa tradition, utilize the intersection of the musical
28
,: Tursday Afternoon: Session 1- AMS/SEM/SMT New Orleans :o::
and spiritual, demarcating novel boundaries for public (popular) Muslim values. While much of the literature outlines im-
plications for the Gnawa, a population of previously enslaved West Africans brought to Morocco through the slave trade, in
the international music industry, the Gnawas expanded position in Moroccos domestic popular culture remains neglected.
Drawing upon a variety of analytical approaches, I outline techniques used by musicians to align themselves with various
moral aesthetics. Vocal timbre, for example, becomes a proxy for either authenticity (in the case of the Essaouira-based Guinia
family) or Suf ritual (Mallem Abd al-Kebirs sweet tone mirrors Quranic chanters), demonstrating how aesthetic decisions
emphasize both spiritual legitimacy and performance practice. Second, I ask how popular musicians defne the sound of the
Gnawa. As Gnawa practices become part of Moroccos aural soundtrack, pragmatic artists incorporate songs into inspired
popular contexts. By questioning how actors assimilate these sounds while extracting specifc moral implications, this analysis
highlights the place of aural piety in the mediated musical product.
Music and Altered States in Vod(o)u: Talking Spirits and the Entranced Ethnomusicologist
Paul Austerlitz (Gettysburg College)
Te African-derived religious traditions of Haiti and the Dominican Republic provide fertile ground for elaborating upon
Gilbert Rougets work, which showed that instead of mechanically causing trance, music is part of a larger cultural system in
which altered states of consciousness are facilitated as learned behavior. Haitian Vodou and Dominican Vodu practitioners
believe that music summons spiritual entities, who possess initiates bodies at public rituals. Trance states in these tradi-
tions, however, are also routinely attained by professional mediums without the aid of music during private consultations with
clients. What, then, is the role of music? Te present work tackles this question by :) attending to interviews conducted with
mediums when they exhibit everyday waking consciousness as well as when they are possessed by spirits; and :) attending to
the experiences of the author, who is an initiate and trancer in Haitian and Dominican Vod(o)u. Te paper argues that music
paves the way for altered states: as in secular contexts, it enlivens and entrains, facilitating psychic transcendence. While nov-
ices rely on music to efect trance, seasoned professional mediums do not. Tis insight broaches larger questions about how
music is experienced in African-infuenced cultures, suggesting that talking to Vod(o)u spirits and attending to the ethnomu-
sicologists entrancement are fruitful avenues for understanding the efcacy of music.
An Acoustemology of Struggle: Indigeneity, Land Confict, and the
Tor Ritual of the Brazilian Tapeba People
Ronald Conner (University of California, Los Angeles)
In recent decades, the Tora sacred ritual consisting of collective singing, percussion accompaniment, circle dancing, and
shamanic activityhas come to symbolize the identity claims and land struggles of reemerging indigenous groups throughout
Northeast Brazil. Among them, the Tapeba people (population o,,c) of Caucaia, Cear, have been engaged in a quarter-
century of negotiations and conficts with federal and state government, local law enforcement, and white landholders, in
their attempt to secure ofcial recognition as Amerindians and regain rights to traditional lands lost through processes of
colonization and acculturation. Drawing on six months of recent feldwork among the Tapeba (:c::::), prior area scholarship
(Barreto Filho :,,,; Warren :cc:; French :cc,), and Felds (:,,a, :,,b, :cc,) notion of acoustemology positioning sound
as a modality of knowing and being in the world, I examine how the Tapeba strategically employ Tor performances to
reassert indigenous identity in a state where Amerindians are commonly thought to be extinct and, perhaps most remarkably,
sonically demarcate their lands while awaiting a disastrously stalled federal demarcation process to resume. In this, Tor songs
constitute not only a recognizable tradition contesting the ofcial history of indigeneity in Cear but a vital musical practice
articulating local knowledge and the experience of luta, struggle, a concept powerfully imbricated in Tapeba identity con-
sciousness and Tapeba relationships to land access, their threatened natural environment, and everyday survival within the
dominant and rapidly modernizing Northeast Brazilian context.
Outside the House Tere Are No Laws: Song, Sacred Space, and
Social Relations at Shona Kurova Guva Rituals
Jennifer Kyker (University of Rochester)
Te Shona ritual of kurova guva marks a moment of spiritual transformation, during which the spirit of a deceased indi-
vidual is symbolically purifed, carried home, and transformed into a mudzimu ancestor capable of interceding in the lives of
living kin. Held a year after the funeral, kurova guva encompasses an unusual diversity of musical styles, integrating overlap-
ping spheres of song, and resulting in a rich and sometimes cacophonous sonic texture. In particular, participants at kurova
guva distinguish between the religious, familial, and ancestral associations of musical genres such as mbira, played inside the
house of the deceased by family elders, and the secular, recreational qualities of genres such as jiti and jerusarema, performed
28
Abstracts Tursday Afternoon: Session 1- ,,
just outside the house, primarily by children and young adults. At a pivotal moment in the ritual, however, family elders exit
the house and process to the grave of the deceased singing songs of war (nziyo dzehondo), transcending the carefully established
dichotomy between sacred and secular spheres. Mapping relationships between song, space, and social relations, I suggest
that the spatial and temporal organization of song at kurova guva provides families with one means of confronting a lineage
fractured by death. In addition to ofering opportunities to memorialize and mourn their deceased kin, song also enables
participants to accomplish the ritual goal of bringing back the spirit, thereby maintaining relationships between the living
and their vadzimu ancestors.
Session 1-29 (SEM), [Link]
Shared Moments in Song
Joshua Duchan (Wayne State University), Chair
We Sing to Touch Hearts: South African Youth Choirs as Agents of Transformation and Preservation
Sarah Bartolome (Louisiana State University)
Tis paper explores South African youth choirs as cultural agents that foster an integrated, national identity, even as they
preserve distinct musical traditions representing the multicultural society of the New South Africa. Five award-winning youth
choirs in Pretoria East were examined in an efort to uncover the structures, processes, and philosophies of a successful com-
munity of South African choral musicians. Standard ethnographic strategies were utilized to delve deeply into the culture of
the choirs, using formal observation, participant observation, and semi-structured interviews to explore such issues as the roles
and functions of the choir community, the perceived values and benefts of participation, and the philosophical tenets ascribed
to by the directors. In the paper, I discuss the power of these communities to bring together diverse individuals in the New
South Africa, even as disparate racial and ethnic streams of infuence shape the repertoire, participation, and sound of each
choir. Choir competitions in particular will be examined as a vehicle for fostering a collective, national identity and preserving
and promoting the musical heritages of a number of diverse South African cultures. I will also explore the philosophical un-
derpinnings that inform and exert infuence on the choirs cultures, highlighting the multiplicity of roles and responsibilities
attributed to the choirs and the perceived values and benefts of participation. Tese fndings contribute to an ever-growing
understanding of the values and functions of modern music making communities and the role such communities might play
in the transformation of societies and the preservation of culture.
Lascia chio pianga: An Experimental and Experiential Community
Building Project between Israeli and Palestinian Choirs
Andre deQuadros (Boston University)
In the dizzying complexity of music in various communities in Israel is a vast array of community choirs, youth, adult,
single-gender, and those with specifc community afliations, for example, a choir of young Ethiopian Jewish girls in Tel
Aviv. In the relatively large Palestinian population in Israel, there is very little community choral music, with some notable
exceptions. One of these is in the town of Shefaram in Galilee. Over the last seven years or so, this Arab choir has been col-
laborating with a youth choir, from the Jewish-Israeli town of Emek Hefer, approximately an hour away from Shefaram by
car. Tis paper will narrate the story of the :c:c and :c:: collaborations, situating it in the context of these communities and
the larger political realities, and representing voices of the participantssingers and leaders. My paper will use a personally
constructed lens, the lens of an outsider, a non-Israeli, one who has worked on projects in Israel and the Arab world, but one
who does not have to contend with the daily pressures, hardships, and suferings of those who live there. Additionally, I discuss
the music-making process in both communities as they occur separately and together, and to interrogate both the claims of
the beneft of community music between communities who have elements of confict, and the potential that this interaction
has for bonding and bridging community capital.
Shared Moments: Te Experience of Tuning In at Irish Traditional Singing Sessions
Vanessa Tacker (University of Toronto)
At Irish singing sessions in Dublin songs are sung from a seated position while the majority of both singers and listeners keep
their eyes cast down or closed during performance. Tis de-emphasizes the visual aspects of performance and places greater
emphasis on the experience of sound and the expression of lyrical content for singers and listeners alike. However, when all
present join in the song during a chorus or fnal verse line, the experience of the song changes for both the main singer and the
singing listener. Tis paper will take a phenomenological approach to analyzing the individual and collective experience of the
song as a shared moment, and the conceptualization of the moment within song. Phenomenologists have often approached
29
,, Tursday Afternoon: Session 1- AMS/SEM/SMT New Orleans :o::
the intersubjective experience of music as a mutual tuning in (Schutz, :,;;[:,,:]; Porcello, :,,) to others through a concur-
rent experience of internal-time consciousness. Te present moment is built upon retention of the moments preceding it and
a protention of the expected moments to come. Tis results in an experience of duration and time that is malleable, and that
is a prime site for the creation of meaning. In the case of the Irish singing session the interactive experience of the moment is
one that is full of participatory discrepancies in the form of diferent tempos, pitches, and vocal qualities. Consequently this
paper will address how this shared moment in song is experienced both individually and collectively, and how this experience
shapes conceptions of performative time awareness for Irish traditional singers.
Filling the Space: Field Hollers and the Social Role of Singers in African-American Communities
Gianpaolo Chiriac (University of Salento, Italy)
Field hollers have been commonly deemed as a primary step in the historical evolution of African-American music. Nev-
ertheless, the topic has never received the appropriate consideration. Some opinions regarding feld hollers (such as their
infuence on blues) became widely accepted ideas, even though some prominent scholars were skeptical about them. As Paul
Olivers defnition suggests, feld hollers established a relationship between voice and space. Following some pioneer studies on
this relationship (by literary historians like Paul Zumthor and philosophers like Adriana Cavarero), my aim is at proving that
feld hollers implied a specifc use of singing voice in the African-American context: not only a means of communication but
also a peculiar means of self-expression. Tey constitute a specifc combination of self-expression in English and musical fg-
ures related to their African origins: what Olly Wilson called intensifers. Furthermore, nineteenth century sourcessuch as
descriptions of corn-shucking ceremoniesprove that the social role of the most talented hollers-singers was prominent. Tey
were acting as leaders of a community and they were allowed to talk to white people on its behalf. In other words, their voices
were heard, recognized and accepted. In conclusion, analyzing the evolution of feld hollers leads to a better understanding of
the social role of singers in the development of African-American communities. As Walter Ong claimed: Because of the very
nature of sound as such, voice has a kind of primacy in the formation of true communities of men.
Session 1-30 (SEM), [Link]
Film Session
Songs of the New Arab Revolutions: A Collaborative Documentary Film by Members of the Society
for Arab Music Research and Members of the Facebook Group Songs of the New Arab Revolutions
Michael Frischkopf (University of Alberta, Edmonton), Organizer
Laith Ulaby (Independent Scholar), Jonathan Shannon (Hunter College, City University of New York)
Music has not usually been understood as playing an active role in the grand moments of modern history. Yet, throughout
the new Arab revolutions, from the onset of the Tunisian uprising, to ongoing struggles in Egypt, Syria, and elsewhere, music
has consistently demonstrated its critical power to galvanize sentiment and mobilize civil society. Likewise, Arab politi-
cal establishments have used music as an ideological tool for maintaining authority. In both cases music-in a wide array of
styleshas played an active role in the unfolding of the Arab Spring. In June :c:: a Facebook group Songs of the New Arab
Revolutions was founded, harnessing the power of social media to document and disseminate videos representing musical
dimensions of these social movements. A flmmaking collective is presently creating a documentary flm out of this Facebook
archive, now including over :cc videos. Guided by the three presenters, each member of this collective is identifying a theme
(e.g. folk music, street protests, style, gender) and editing a short illustrative segment, which the presenters will arrange
into a flm sifting, summarizing, and analyzing the phenomenon. Tis project is methodologically groundbreaking for: (a)
drawing exclusively on an online archive assembled through social media; (b) catalyzing collaborative flmmaking among eth-
nomusicologists and community activists. Te three presenters will introduce the project (:, minutes), show the flm (: hour),
and lead discussion about the phenomenon, the flm, and the method, exploring its wider implications for technologically
mediated ethnomusicological engagement with current events and communities beyond academia (, minutes).
30
Abstracts Tursday Afternoon: Session 1- ,,
Session 1-31 (AMS), [Link]
Memory, Space, and Religious Imaginary: Arvo Prt in the Twenty-First Century
Andrew Shenton (Boston University), Chair
stillspotting ( ) nyc: Arvo Prt and Cultures of Commemoration
Laura Dolp (Montclair State University)
Tis paper considers the ways that Arvo Prts music has functioned in American discourses around place, materiality, and
memory, particularly in the context of the tenth-anniversary events around ,/::. Billed as an opportunity for respite from the
anxieties of urban life, the Guggenheim Museums art installation stillspotting: To A Great City (September :c::) featured
a collaboration between the Danish architectural frm Snhetta and Prt in order to transform fve public spaces in lower
Manhattan and its environs. Te installation included several sites that focused on the ramifcations of the terrorist attacks,
including a garden labyrinth in Battery Park and a rare view of the highly contested site of Ground Zero.
I examine the genesis of this collaboration from initial conversations between Prt and the architects to the fnal presen-
tation of pre-recorded musical works paired with white weather balloons as environmental focal points. Te printed com-
mentary distributed to the general public during the viewings alludes to the tensions between interior/exterior and positive/
negative space that have been recurrent tropes in discourses of commemorative public spaces, including the troubled forms
of intersection between personal worlds and historical narrative. In its cool detachment, Prts music resonates with modern-
ist solutions to public memorials (frst popularly realized in the work of Maya Lin), an approach that has been criticized for
its rejection of traditional codes of heroism and for its support of an anti-monument style. While the Guggenheim curators
say they chose Prts music for its phenomenological value, I argue that these choices supplied audiences the opportunity to
actively critique potent American tropes about commemoration and urban culture. As one of Prts most secular oferings,
it resonates with the American sacralization of the battlefeld as an act of national identity rather than religious allegiance.
Additionally, the sites in Stillspotting place his music, widely recognized for its spirit of contemplation and renouncement
of ordinary activities, into critical relief against the physical evidence of commerce and political power. In sum, the installation
reinforces Prts cultural utility in multiple and complex ways within the architectures of grief.
Arvo Prt and the Idea of a Christian Europe
Jefers Engelhardt (Amherst College)
Tis paper examines Arvo Prt and the idea of a Christian Europe through his involvement with recent European Capital
of Culture (ECC) projects. I focus on Prts two ECC commissionsIn principio (:cc,) for Graz (:cc,) and Adams Lament
(:cc,) for Istanbul (:c:c) and Tallinn (:c::)to show how post-ideological, cultural forms of religion are involved in the
making of place through musical performance.
At the center of Catholic Europe, In principio articulated a Christian soundscape that resonates in the iconic cathedrals of
urban Europe with its Latin text and familiar scoring and form. It also located the ECC with respect to Austrian Catholic
identity and the initiative of the Catholic diocese of Graz-Seckau to commission the Orthodox Prt, whose embrace of core
Christian texts and traditions is resolutely ecumenical in its address. In Adams Lament, Prt positions Adam as the common
ancestor of Christians, Muslims, and Jews who unites humanity through the recognition of universal sufering. Te logogenic
qualities of Prts score emerge from the sound and syntax of Saint Silouans devotional poetry to explore the cumulative
efects of Adams fall from grace. At its premiere at Hagia Irene in Istanbul, Adams Lament emblematized the paradoxes of
Istanbul being the ECC given the impasse over Turkish accession to the European Union, disjunctures between perceptions
of Turkey, the imagination of Europeanness, and the idea of a Christian Europe, and the rights and social status of Turks
living in Europe.
Te invocation of a Christian Europe by stakeholders in Prts work resounds the centers and peripheries of a particular his-
torical, cultural, and moral imaginary. As the popular mediation of religious tradition aspires to universality, place (Europe)
and a spiritually accessible form of Christianity articulate one another at a moment when the idea of Europe as Christendom
is evermore untenable. Here, I show how the spiritualization and culturalization of Christianity through Prts involvement
with ECC projects pushes the idea of a Christian Europe beyond civilizational essences and religious ideologies in ways that
may, in fact, be far removed from Christianity and Europeanness.
31
, Tursday Afternoon: Session 1- AMS/SEM/SMT New Orleans :o::
Session 1-32 (AMS), [Link]
Opera on the Move: Revolution and Reception from Contemporary China to South Africa
Judy Tsou (University of Washington), Chair
Adaptations of Bizets Carmen in Millennial Africa: Karmen Gei and U-Carmen eKhayelitsha
Naomi Andr (University of Michigan)
Te fgure of Carmen has received much attention on stage, in flm, and in scholarship. Starting with Prosper Mrimes
serialized novella in :,o and Bizets opera in :;,, the myriad of danced, sung, and acted Carmen adaptations has been
prodigious. But what is at stake when two postcolonial countries set this well-known Western opera from the grand tradition?
Joseph Ramakas Karmen Ge (:cc:, Senegal) and Mark Dornfeld-Mays U-Carmen eKhayelitsha (:cc,, South Africa) retell the
Carmen story in ways that reconfgure the voice of the Other and the gaze of the audience.
With the familiar deliberately sexualized persona, the two sub-Saharan African Carmens maintain the importance of free-
dom for these women who live along the margins of respectable society. Yet both are haunted by the original operatic Carmen
as she takes on new meaning in transnational settings. A single mom trying to make ends meet in the post-apartheid township
wields a diferent power in the use of her body for survival than the free-wheeling nineteenth-century gypsy. She is abused
by her Jose and beat up by the police: this township Carmen sings Bizets music in Xhosa and presents a modern everyday
woman. Supermodel Karmen Ge articulates a new command of sabar drums and griot functions in Senegalese society. Her
sexuality engages men and women and extends the Carmen fgure into a queer sensibility.
Tis study takes into account the contexts of opera in Senegal and South Africa. While opera in Dakar has drawn new
energy since the :,,cs, Karmen Ge met with strong resistance that led to censorship for its sexually explicit content (including
a lesbian encounter) and overlapping Muslim-Christian musical tropes. Unlike Senegal, the opera scene in South Africa has
deep roots brought over with the Dutch and British colonial presence in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In a culture
where Western canonic opera is still performed, current new operas are being written by South Africans on their own themes
(e.g., Princess Magogo kaDinuzulu, Opera Africa, Durban :cc: and Winnie, based on the life of Winnie Madikizela Mandelea,
Johannesburg :c::).
Propagandist or Prodigy? Yu Huiyong and the Cultural Revolution of Beijing Opera
Yawen Ludden (University of Kentucky)
Many attempts were made during the twentieth century to modernize Beijing opera, but the only reform program with
lasting consequences involved the art form known as yangbanxi, which was developed largely under the direction of scholar
and composer Yu Huiyong during the Cultural Revolution. In this paper, I argue that Yu succeeded where others had failed
for three reasons. First, his approach derived from a well-constructed theory based on his extensive research on traditional
Chinese musical forms. Second, he was well versed in both Eastern and Western modes of musical expression, enabling him
to strike a harmonious balance between traditional forms and modern techniques. And third, his vision for a new form of
Beijing opera with both modern relevance and mass appeal largely coincided with the governments goals for revolutionary
art reform. Tus, Yu was given free rein to implement his plan at a time when both traditional and Western art forms were
being suppressed. Because of this state of afairs, many historians have dismissed yangbanxi as little more than vehicles for
Maoist propaganda, and indeed these works served that purpose. However, Yu was selected for this task not for his political
credentials, which were questionable, but rather because he already had a well-articulated theory on how to execute the reform.
Furthermore, yangbanxi is still popular today, indicating that there is lasting appeal in these works even when the propaganda
element is no longer relevant, thus vindicating not only Yus theory but also his genius in putting it into practice. By compar-
ing several of Yus best-known arias with examples from traditional Beijing opera, this paper examines how Yu put his theory
into practice to revitalize Chinas most beloved art form. Furthermore, by looking at both early and later selections, we see
how practice also guided the evolution of his theory, enabling Yu to fulfll Maos dictum that new socialist art should achieve
a unity of revolutionary content with the highest artistic form.
32
Abstracts Tursday Afternoon: Session 1- ,;
Session 1-33 (SMT), [Link]
Canon, Ricercare, and Fugue
Robert Gauldin (Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester), Chair
Te Two F-Major Fugues from Te Well-Tempered Clavier:
Dance Subjects and Teir Phrase-Rhythmic Implications
JohnS. Reef (Indiana University)
Normally, the imitative texture of fugue is not conducive to the establishment of regular phrase lengths and hypermeter.
Some of Bachs fugues with afnities to dance styles nevertheless contain sections that suggest such regularity. In this paper, I
illustrate how tendencies toward regular-length phrases and hypermeter interact with fugal writing in the two F-major fugues
from Bachs Well-Tempered Cavier (hereinafter, F/I and F/II)fugues that suggest, respectively, characteristics of the passep-
ied and the gigaand how the temporal shaping of phrases in the fugues expositional sections through contrapuntal and
harmonic motion (qualities of tonal rhythm) afects phrase-rhythmic development throughout the pieces.
In both fugues, many thematic statements occupy four-measure phrases that cadence on their fourth measure; through
repetition, they suggest sections of hypermetrical organization, although with some modifcation to accommodate imitative
procedures. But the four-measure phrases of F/Is thematic statements are traversed through contrapuntal progressions whose
outer voices move in equal measure-length durations, whereas in F/II, they display more dynamic tonal rhythms, with in-
creased activity near phrase endings. Consequently, very diferent phrase-rhythmic strategies emerge across these two fugues.
In F/I, tonal rhythms unite the hypermetrically regular phrases of expositional sections with later passages that abandon
such regularity, and contribute to a feeling of continuity throughout. F/II, instead, dramatizes the contrast between the tonal
rhythms of the subject and of sequential writing, leading to a variety of interactions as the fugue develops.
Drawing Parallels: Tirds and Sixths in Bachs Fugues in B-fat Minor
and G Minor from Book : of Te Well-Tempered Clavier
Eric Wen (Mannes College of Music)
Bachs fugues in B-fat minor and G minor from Book : of Te Well-Tempered Clavier are acknowledged respectively to be
the most outstanding examples of stretto and invertible counterpoint ever written. In the B-fat minor fugue, the subject ap-
pears in stretto in both its original and inverted forms, and in the G minor fugue, the subject and countersubject are combined
at diferent stages in invertible counterpoint at the octave, tenth and twelfth.
Although stretto and invertible counterpoint stand independently as compositional procedures, they do not always work in
isolation, and often require free counterpoint to clarify their tonal meaning. Troughout both fugues Bach presents a variety
of possibilities for realizing the contrapuntal devices of stretto and invertible counterpoint, fnding novel ways to weave them
into the texture of the overall voice-leading with the other parts. But at the end of both fugues Bach presents the fugue themes
in parallel thirds and sixths in all the voices without any extraneous free counterpoint. Tis bare-sounding texture of parallel
thirds and sixths represents a climactic moment: in the B-fat minor fugue, the statement of the theme in parallel thirds and
sixths articulates a thrilling double stretto in contrary motion, and in the G minor fugue the articulation of the subject and
countersubject in parallel thirds results in the dramatic simultaneous combination of invertible counterpoint at the octave,
tenth and twelfth. Tis paper examines these remarkable passages in parallel thirds and sixths in the two fugues, proposing
both tonal and programmatic meanings for their striking occurrences.
Formal Issues in the Ricercari of Trabaci and Frescobaldi: Structures and Processes
Massimiliano Guido (McGill University)
Presenting an analysis of four ricercari, selected among Trabacis :oc, and :o:, Ricercari and Frescobaldis :oc Fantasie and
:o:, Ricercari (Frescobaldi :,,,, :cc,; Trabaci :cc, :cc,), I will explore in depth how the two masters might have composed
their works, sketching them at the keyboard and planning their form wisely. I will point out beginning-middle-end structures,
in which the major diferences are: counterpoint modifcations (the way the subjects were treated and combined); modal
changes (in some structures the modal boundaries are violated by the insertion of pitches not belonging to the mode); and
sectionalism (sometimes these structures condense in a section marked by a cadence, which can be isolated from the rest of
the composition).
Frescobaldi and Trabaci treat their subjects with a full range of techniques for manipulating the melodic and rhythmical
contours: inversion, transposition, canonic treatment, subjects pairing and modifcation (elision, note substitution or trunca-
tion, position shift, rhythmical pattern alteration, diminution), imitazione and inganni. Trabaci does not only recur to the
33
, Tursday Afternoon: Session 1- AMS/SEM/SMT New Orleans :o::
well-known old type, but also experiments what I have called the new manner inganni, the ones where chromatic alteration
of the syllables is breaking the ordinary hexachord, therefore introducing potential structural modifcations. I will show that
there is a strong connection between the strategies chosen by the composers to alter their subjects and the form of the ricercar.
Finally, this paper will demonstrate the importance of solmization theories as an analytical tool for this kind of repertoire.
Maximally Self-Similar Melodies and Canons with Infnite Solutions
Clifton Callender (Florida State University)
Most canons, ranging from the very simple to the most complex, have a single solution. For example, Ciconias tempo
canon Le ray au soleyl will only work at the ratios :,::, and the canon by augmentation and inversion from Bachs Musical
Ofering will not work in any other manner. However, some canons have multiple solutions, including a canon by inversion
from the Musical Ofering that has two distinct solutions and the multiple combinations of an eight-note theme in Bachs
Fourteen Canons on the Goldberg Ground. Are there limits to the number of solutions for canons that maintain some kind of
strict harmonic control? Surprisingly, the answer is no! It is possible to create lines that can combine in an infnite number
of ways while maintaining maximal harmonic consistency. Specifcally, melodies that are maximally self-similar, exhibiting
self-similarity at all possible time scales, can be combined in any number of voices, at any ratios (rational or irrational), with
each voice moving either forward or backward. Tis presentation will explain the construction and provide examples of these
canons with infnite solutions.
Session 1-34 (AMS), [Link]
Chopin Revisited
Jefrey Kallberg (University of Pennsylvania), Chair
Nationalizing the Kujawiak and Constructions of Nostalgia in Chopins Mazurkas
Halina Goldberg (Indiana University)
In the musicological literature (including Grove), Chopins slow minor-key mazurkas and mazurka sections are typically la-
beled as kujawiak, a Polish folk dance from the Kujawy region. Yet Chopins lone use of this term, in his Fantasy on Polish Airs
op. :,, marks a spirited (Vivace) dance in A major, contradicting the widely accepted defnition. Similarly, kujawiaks found in
the earliest publications, most notably in Oskar Kolbergs :oc collection of stylized dances, do not display the characteristics
ascribed to them (slow tempo, minor mode) by later writers. Te kujawiak is also absent from descriptions of Polish national
dances by Chopins contemporaries. It is clear that at the time kujawiak was not a signifcant marker of Polishness in dance
and that the term carried a diferent meaning from the one encountered in modern studies.
Only in the last third of the nineteenth century did scholars attempt to link Chopins pieces to the folk kujawiak, a trend co-
inciding with the awakening of interest in the culture of Kujawy, which resulted in the publication of descriptions of the music
and choreography of regional dances in the Orgelbrand Encyclopedia (vol. :o, :o) and Kolbergs Lud (series , :o;). Te new
inclusion of the kujawiak in the pantheon of Polish national dances provided a convenient musical and cultural link between
the composer and the province he visited twice during his summer vacations. Moreover, the French roots of his father troubled
proponents of an all-Polish Chopin, compelling them to seek confrmation of Chopins Polish pedigree in his mothers origins
in Kujawy. Te purported musical connections between Chopin and his ancestral land reinforced this narrative.
Chopin used the slow mazurkathe kind widely but anachronistically called kujawiakto summon nostalgia for the
spatially and temporally distantand mythicalPoland. But rather than referencing his homeland through the supposed
identity of this dance, Chopin invokes it through musical styles and gestures typical of then-popular characteristic pieces typi-
cally marked by the adjectives pathtique, elegique, lugubre, triste, or mlancolique.
Ferruccio Busoni and the Halfness of Fryderyk Chopin:
A Study about Gender Perception and Performance Interpretation
Erinn Knyt (University of Massachusetts)
Ferruccio Busonis performances of Fryderyk Chopins compositions elicited responses of quizzical amusement in the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Even some of Busonis staunchest admirers had trouble appreciating his insertion of
additional measures, the repetition of structural wholes in the preludes, registral or textural alterations, and his unsentimental
interpretive style. Also unusual was his choice to program the preludes as a complete cycle.
What was the rationale behind Busonis interpretive approach? My analysis of a previously unpublished and un-translated
essay by Busoni, Chopin: eine Ansicht ber ihn, in conjunction with analyses of recordings, concert programs, and recital
reviews, connects Busonis unconventional Chopin interpretations to an idiosyncratic perception of Chopins character. As
34
Abstracts Tursday Afternoon: Session 1- ,)
Jefrey Kallberg and other scholars have already documented, Chopin and his music were commonly viewed as efeminate,
androgynous, childish, sickly, or ethnically other. Busonis essay shows that he too acknowledged a poetic, feminine,
and emotive side in the music commonly attributed to efeminate perceptions of Chopin at the time. Yet he simultaneously
perceived half- manly and half-dramatic elements in the music and in Chopins characterthat is, a heroic monumental
sideas well. What he strove to portray in his interpretations was the whole of Chopin and his music. He sought to dis-
tance himself from the gendered halfness, as he called it, which informed contemporaneous interpretations. In so doing, he
became a pioneer of Chopin programming and interpretation.
Te Institution of the International Chopin Piano Competition and Its Social and Cultural Implications
Tony Lin (University of California, Berkeley)
Te International Chopin Competition, established in :,:;, is one of very few competitions in which a single composers
works are played. Te competitions signifcance, especially how it afects the cult of Chopin in Poland and abroad, has been
largely overlooked. As musicologist Rafa Nowacki has pointed out, competition-related materials are often little more than
propaganda, chronicles and press polemics. Nevertheless, these materials are important in their own right since they have
sociological and historical implications that need to be studied in order to better understand the discourse on Chopin during
the interwar period in Poland and how it evolves after World War II.
By examining the competitions founding, sponsorships, participants and public reception, I show that what began as an
efort to understand Chopins music better became much more than a musical afair. I argue that Poles continue to appropriate
Chopin for political purposes, as they did in partitioned Poland, where cultural artifacts such as Chopins music were critical
because they came to constitute the Polishness for which the Poles were desperately searching.
My paper briefy discusses the origin of musical contests and the closest precedent for the Chopin Competition: the In-
ternational Anton Rubinstein Competition (:,c:,:c). Even though there are similarities between the two competitions in
terms of politics and the infuence on aspiring musicians, there are important diferences, such as the national nature of the
Chopin Competition: the jury of the frst competition was entirely Polish, because it was believed that only Poles could truly
understand Chopins music.
To better understand the cultural implications of the Chopin Competition, I analyze press coverage and examine memoirs
of both participants and jury members; I also discuss phenomena associated with the competition such as radio and technol-
ogy, concert-going, internationalism and literary texts inspired by the competition. Even though Chopin is now a household
name internationally, his music was less popular both inside and outside of Poland prior to :,:;. Te competition has played
an instrumental role in strengthening the image of Chopin as Polands national bard while exporting this image to the
wider world.
Session 1-35 (AMS), [Link]
Johannes Ciconia, ca. 13701412
Margaret Bent (All Souls College, Oxford), Chair
In the six hundredth year after his death, Johannes Ciconia is more relevant to music history than ever, but the composer
has sufered from the divisions of modern historiography. His chronology and style do not ft conveniently either in the Middle
Ages nor the Renaissance. Since he was born in Lige but working in northern Italy, his life story makes him exemplary nei-
ther of Italian nor French music. Ciconia thus bears the reputation as a musician of transition, nearly neglected in medieval
and Renaissance textbooks today. Te papers for this session demonstrate that he is not simply a transitional fgure foating
between the ars nova and the age of Du Fay, but a musician infuential to generations of composers and a historical fgure
connected to the political events of his day. Viewed with six hundred years of perspective, Ciconia possess a key role in the
development of an internationally renowned Italian style distinct from French musical traditions. Ciconias works infuenced
not only on his own generation, but also many composers who came after him. Dozens of copies of his works appear in major
manuscripts compiled long after his death. Ciconias music appears in thirty-two diferent manuscripts, more than any com-
poser of the preceding hundred years (including Machaut) except Antonio Zachara da Teramo (another neglected fgure who
forms an important part of the sessions papers). In the past fve years nearly all these sources have become available digitally,
transforming scholarship. Tough musicologists are still grappling with his difcult biography, a detailed portrait is emerging
of a musician situated at the dawn of humanism, creating the idea of the self-conscious artist. Te papers here span a range of
topics, from the dating of Ciconias early songs, to the remarkable documentary evidence of Ciconias career in Padua and his
connections to Lige; from detailed analyses of Ciconias motets that are without isorhythmic organization or precomposed
tenors, to a larger examination of the infuence of Italian music in shaping European musical style in the ffteenth century.
35
,o Tursday Afternoon: Session 1- AMS/SEM/SMT New Orleans :o::
Ciconia before :cc
David Fallows (University of Manchester)
Since the :cc, publication of the Lige Ciconia conference proceedings, the chronology of his music between :cc and his
death in ::: has looked fairly sturdy. Tere are enough clearly dated motets and enough peripheral hints in the songs for the
pattern to be clear. But the picture of his work before :cc is quite another matter. Ever since the :,;o proposed revision of
Ciconias birthdate from ca. :,,, to ca. :,;,, there has been a handful of works that resist easy dating and in some ways look
as though they could have been composed in the years around :,,c. As though to add to the current confusion, the single
proposed date before :cc for any of his motets has recently been questioned by Carolann Buf. Tis paper responds to Bufs
challenge.
As so often in these matters, the best entrance point is via the songs, since there are more of them, more sources, and more
texts that can be examined for clues. Te :,,c facsimile of the Mancini Codex made it much easier to understand its structure,
as a result of which several previously hypothetical works of Ciconia have been added confdently to his output. Tere are
songs that can now be placed before :cc, but not many of them.
One breakthrough comes from the odd circumstance that the songs of Antonio Zachara da Teramo show a clear distinction
in style and scope between those in the Squarcialupi Codex and those in the Mancini Codex, with the Squarcialupi pieces
seeming decidedly earlierthis despite the current view that Squarcialupi was actually copied later than Mancini. Famously,
Ciconia is absent from Squarcialupi. But stylistic links between the apparently earlier Zachara pieces and the apparently earlier
Ciconia pieces combine to make it look fairly certain that all date from the :,,cs.
Johannes Ciconia of PaduaJohannes Ciconia of Lige
Anne Hallmark (New England Conservatory of Music)
Tis paper re-examines the implications of some documentary issues for Ciconias early years in Padua, specifcally :c:,,
when he became afliated with Padua Cathedral through the infuence of Zabarella and during the fnal years of the Carrara
regime, following earlier work by Clercx, Fallows, Ndas, Di Bacco, Kreutziger-Herr, Vendrix and Hallmark.
Te newly observed presence in :c: of Pierpaolo Vergerio, twice witness to the recommendation of a benefce for Ciconia,
underscores the composers ties to Paduan circles where humanistic rhetoric was a central concern. Te presence of Vergerio
associate of Zabarella, remarkable orator, Carrara tutor, writer on educationalso reinforces the idea that Ciconia was already
in :c: an accomplished and respected fgure.
A second exploration involves a recent discovery by Paduan historian Donato Gallo, a document describing property and
goods owned by Ciconia through the auspices of the Cathedral, afording a rare glimpse into the domestic circumstances of
the composer. It also provides a new opportunity to compare this residential property in Padua with houses owned by various
Ciconias in Lige at the same time. Whether this sheds light on the composers identity and family in Lige is unclear, but it
is exceptional to possess such detailed information about an early musical fgure. Tis document also re-opens the question of
the composers sometimes conficting roles within the Padua chapterchaplain, mansionarius, custoswhich supplemented
his continuous and salaried role as cantor; these duties can be more precisely detailed with the :cc: modern edition of the
Cathedrals Liber Ordinarius.
Finally I would like to revisit the identity of the composers father. Te dilemma centers around, as Di Bacco says, the
two Paduan documents [in which] Ciconia identifed himself as the son of a Johannes Ciconia of Lige. In :c:, his father
is attested as alive, then in :c, as deceased, although the Lige canon Ciconia is alive in :c,. I would like to reexamine the
identities of all the Johannes Ciconias in Lige in an attempt to clarify who the Paduan composers father was and who the
composer was in Lige.
Johannes Ciconia and the Tenorless Motet
Carolann Buf (Princeton University)
Johannes Ciconias two-part setting O Petre Christi discipuli is classed along with several other pieces as Latin songs in the
works list of Grove Dictionary. Despite the works paraliturgical text and distinctive melodic style, the lack of a tenor voice
defes the classifcation of the piece as a motet. Te grouping of this work with a canon and two contrafacta songs overshad-
ows its stylistic features, which some have described a madrigalian, but lend themselves to aural characteristics similar to
Ciconias motets. Although the work lacks a tenor, and thus cannot be classifed as a motet, it has the distinctive features of a
north-Italian motet: an honorifc text, two upper voices nearly equivalent in range and structure, and extensive use of hockets
and imitative sequences. To fully understand the piece in its proper historical context, one would have to examine it in the
company of the composers motets, regardless of whether it is to be classifed as a motet or not.
35
Abstracts Tursday Afternoon: Session 1- ,:
O Petre gives a glimpse into the compositional world of northern Italy in the frst decades of the ffteenth century. It was a
musical culture in which motets were not necessarily built upon pre-composed chant tenors organized by isorhythmic prin-
ciples. Rather, they are works written with a self-contained duet of equal voices without isorhythmic structure. Te concept
of a tenorless motet prompts reconsideration of the modern defnition of the motet. I propose the reclassifcation of O Petre
as a motet in the Italian style analogous to Alejandro Plancharts reassessment of the cantilena motets in Du Fays oeuvre. By
questioning the classifcation of genres, I confront the defning stylistic features scholars have traditionally used to defne a
work as a motet, following sustained challenges introduced by Julie Cumming and Margaret Bent. Te reclassifcation of a
single work such as O Petre can serve as an exemplar for how one might reevaluate the defnition of the motet in general and
the compositional uniqueness of the Italian motet in particular.
Ciconia, Zachara, and the Italianization of European Music around :cc
MichaelScott Cuthbert (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
Te names of two French composers named Guillaume, born almost exactly one hundred years apart, dominate modern
histories of fourteenth- and early ffteenth-century polyphonic music. Yet despite the connections drawn between Machaut
and Du Fay in historiographical narratives, little stylistically or in the manuscript transmission suggests that France remained
the musical center of Europe in the half century that separated the working careers of these two composers. (Only three manu-
scripts contain pieces by both, none of which are French.) Te situation would not be clearer with any other pair of early ars
nova and ffteenth-century composers. Even Reinhard Strohm, who established France as the center of a European music,
expressed unease about this lineage, saying the peripheral nations in music had managed to turn the tables on the central
tradition, interacting with each other, by-passing the centre.
New (computer-based) catalogues of the ever-expanding web of sources, particularly fragments, points clearly to Italian
music, especially the Mass movements of Zachara da Teramo and the immigrant Ciconia, as extremely infuential in shaping
European style and transmission. Modern views of Italian music have overemphasized the few surviving (Tuscan) manuscripts
of secular music, sources not infuential outside Italy, while neglecting the many fragments with international connections.
Tough few French pieces written after :,,c appear in Central and Eastern European sources, the sacred compositions of
Zachara and Ciconia abound, pulling local musical tastes toward their styles. Tis paper corrects the view of this era and of
Italian trecento music in general by presenting recently discovered musical sources connecting the peninsula with Poland,
Spain, the Netherlands, Germany, Bohemia, Croatia, Slovenia, and Turkey. Close examination of variant readings show that
even in the case of pieces of probable French origin, the versions known outside France tend to derive from Italian variants.
In view of the evidence from the widest range of musical sources, Francophilic Italy emerges as the hub of stylistic and manu-
script transmission at the dawn of the ffteenth century.
Session 1-36 (AMS), [Link]
Milieu and Identity in the Eighteenth Century: Violins, Anthems, Opera, and Scots Songs
Richard Will (University of Virginia), Chair
Haydn, Scots Songs, and Improvement in the Scottish Enlightenment
Andrew Greenwood (Southern Methodist University)
Haydns interest in setting hundreds of Scots songs has been explained in recent musicological studies in terms of exoti-
cism (Cambridge Companion to Haydn), the emergence of categories of folk and art music (Matthew Gelbart), and as a
form of political invention of post-Union Scotland (Richard Will). While each of these scholarly contributions is important,
rarely have Haydns Scots songs been situated in relation to the Scottish Enlightenment intellectual culture from which they
originated. Tis is perhaps understandable given the traditional emphasis on the contribution of Scots to the disciplines of
philosophy (e.g. David Hume), economics (Adam Smith), and human history. Yet there was great interest in music and the
arts during the Scottish Enlightenment. As Edward Topham put it during his travels to Edinburgh in :;;;, in an entry On
the Scotch Music: Music alone engrosses every idea. One such idea, unique to the Scottish Enlightenment, involved the
improvement of human society through successive stagesmost commonly those of hunter-gatherer, pastoral, agrarian,
and modern-commercial.
In this paper, I argue that Haydns Scots songs were the culmination of a historical process in which the circulation of Scots
songs functioned as a musical and cultural network where Scottish Enlightenment theories of improvement (by Adam Smith,
John Millar, Adam Ferguson) were traced out in the eighteenth-century public imagination. Tis network included oral
and printed traditions of Scots songs, Scottish and Italian composers and performers in the Lowland cities (e.g. the castrato
Tenducci singing Scots songs in the :;ocs), visual representations of musicians, writings of Scottish Enlightenment literati
(professors, lawyers, and ministers) on music and agricultural improvement, and national song publishing projectsmost
36
,: Tursday Afternoon: Session 1- AMS/SEM/SMT New Orleans :o::
prominently George Tomsons multi-volume A Select Collection of Original Scottish Airs from the :;,cs onwards containing
hundreds of settings by Haydn that attempted to improve Scots songs with European art music techniques and styles. My
approach also attempts to shed new light on why music played such an important role in the Scottish Enlightenment, and to
explore resulting implications for the study of music and intellectual history more generally.
Te Limits of Cultural Sovereignty: God Save the King in Post-Colonial United States, :;:cc
Glenda Goodman (Te Colburn School)
Te tune God Save the King is hailed as the prototypical national anthem. Presenting stolid patriotism in a solemn,
hymn-like style, this song was a symbol of British nationalism from the time it was written in :;,. Te song was re-texted
frequently, especially in America. Such contrafacting of popular tunes was a centuries-old practice, but the explosion of trans-
atlantic print media in the eighteenth century meant that new versions of the song circulated at an unprecedented rate. By
the :;cs, in the wake of the Revolutionary War, contrafacta presenting American anti-colonial patriotism were ubiquitous in
newspapers and songsters published from Baltimore to Boston. Citizens of the new United States were no longer singing God
Save the King; instead, they sang God Save the United States, God Save the People, and God Save Great Washington.
God Save the King contrafacta reveal the contradictory infuences of nationalism and colonial cultural heritage in late
eighteenth-century United States. Repeated layering of new lyrics vested the tune with multiple meanings: it voiced national
pride and expressed partisan political sentiments, but always reminded Americans that their cultural ties to Britain remained
even after political independence was won. Combing through newspapers and songsters from the :;;cs to :cc, I have found
dozens of American versions of God Save the King, along with accounts of spontaneous performances. With this research
I ofer two contributions. First, I theorize the musical practice of contrafacting. Insights from the study of literary intertextu-
ality allow me to illuminate how multiple (even contradictory) meanings are palimpsestically layered in contrafacted tunes.
Second, I interpret these unique sources through the lens of postcolonial theory in order to understand how music refected
the ambivalent relationship between America and Britain. Recent musicological scholarship has shown that postcolonial
theory ofers compelling ways to understand transnational musical connections (Bloechl :cc), and I explore the benefts and
drawbacks of analyzing eighteenth-century Anglo-American music through this rubric. Ultimately, I argue, God Save the
King reveals a conundrum of cultural sovereignty: the songs British baggage crosscut the nationalist self-conceptions of early
American society, thus exposing the limits of postcolonial independence.
Madame Louise Gautherot: Violin Soloist in Haydns First London Concert
Diane Oliva (University of South Carolina)
Although the importance of Joseph Haydns interactions with the female pianists of London has long been recognized, little
attention has been devoted to Madame Louise Gautherot (ca. :;o::c), the violin soloist in the frst Haydn/Salomon concert
of :;,:. Her contributions to English music life, however, cannot be doubted: in addition to establishing (despite much overt
resistance) that a woman could be classed among Europes greatest violin virtuosos, she introduced Viottis music to London
and thereby helped shape the strand of romanticism that would long characterize British musical culture. Moreover, as one of
the frst professional female violin soloists, Madame Gautherot contributed greatly to the popularity of the violin among wom-
en in the nineteenth century. Reviewers praised her as one of the most celebrated violinists of the :;,cs, and Haydns estate
inventory indicates that he returned to Austria with the handsome portrait of her engraved by the famed Francesco Bartolozzi.
At present, the most comprehensive account of Madame Gautherots career is a brief article in the Online Encyclopedia of
Women. Te presentation, which draws upon contemporaneous newspapers and diaries, as well as previously unexamined
documents in Londons Metropolitan Archives, the Westminster City Archives, and the Bibliothque Nationale de France,
clarifes aspects of her early life in France (where she frequently appeared as a soloist at the Concert Spirituel and in the prov-
inces) and her later career in Ireland and England, where she settled in :;, after the outbreak of the French Revolution. In
both France and Britain she occasionally appeared as a vocalist, performing a Mysliveek aria in Paris and singing in northern
England between :;,: and :;,,. Tese engagements as a singer may document the publics resistance to her appropriation of a
type of instrumental virtuosity long considered masculine. Another adaptation to English expectationsone perhaps neces-
sary for any migr seeking social or professional advancementmay be refected in her conversion to the Anglican Church.
Tis study, by documenting the obstacles that Madame Gautherot confronted despite her outstanding virtuosity, contributes
to our understanding of the uncertain situation of the professional female instrumentalist around :cc.
36
Abstracts Tursday Afternoon: Session 1- ,,
Opera and Lenten Tragedy in Late Eighteenth-Century Naples
AnthonyR. DelDonna (Georgetown University)
On March :c, :;;, the Gazzetta universale recounted in detail the performance of La distruzione di Gerusalemme in Naples,
noting Extraordinary, and universal was the applause accorded to the sacred tragedy presented at the Royal Teatro di San
Carlo. A collaboration between librettist Carlo Sernicola and composer Giuseppe Giordani, this Lenten tragedy represented
an innovative and new area of eighteenth-century drama, one that has been largely overlooked within scholarship about the
eighteenth century. In the following year, San Carlo produced another Lenten tragedy by Sernicola, Debora e Sisara, set to
music by Pietro Alessandro Guglielmi, to be followed by Sernicolas Gionata, composed by Niccol Piccinni in :;,:. Te
productions of La distruzione, Debora, and Gionata established for the frst time an autonomous season of Lenten drama in
Naples and on the Italian peninsula.
Te new genre of Lenten tragedy stands at the crossroads of diverse religious, political, and social developments in contem-
porary Naples, which found collective expression on the royal operatic stage of the capital city. Just as contemporary tragedy
put forward themes of sovereignty, nationalism, and national identity, so too does Lenten drama cast light upon contemporary
Catholicism, its ideology, and practice as well as the rapport between the Bourbon monarchy and court with ecclesiastical
authorities. Te cultivation of Lenten tragedy by the monarchy, however, also became another means for engaging in prevail-
ing contemporary discourse on regalism, anti-curialism, feudalism, and Freemasonry in the public forum of theater. Tese
compositions were operas of unprecedented originality, and refective of continuing artistic developments within stage drama
at the end of the eighteenth century. In particular, they include original aria types, diverse styles of accompanied recitative,
and an unprecedented incorporation of ensembles, whether in the varied forms of small groups, complexes linking more than
a single scene, or the utilization of the chorus. Tey also represent changes in the artistic and cultural context of opera produc-
tion, and distinguish Naples as a cultural center able to create new opera genres that had national resonance at the end of the
eighteenth century.
Session 1-37 (AMS), [Link]
Modern Difculties, Difcult Modernism
Philip Gentry (University of Delaware), Chair
Reconsidering the Maverick: Harry Partch and the Politics of Labeling
[Link] Granade (University of Missouri, Kansas City)
Since the turn of the century, the maverick label has been applied by numerous performing organizations to tie together
composers in a strand of infuence understood as being so far removed from the Western canon that its only relationship to
tradition was reaction against it. But is this popular categorization a useful one? What exactly was the relationship between
these maverick composers and the established European tradition of their day? Tis presentation probes these questions
through Harry Partch, an archetypical maverick composer often described as the most independent, nonconformist com-
poser America has produced. Indeed, Partch even proclaimed that from the frst moment of his musical life, I was going to
be completely free. However, like the maverick label, his claims blanket a more nuanced understanding of the relationship
between his music and the Western musical tradition against which he rebelled. Using newly uncovered grant applications
Partch made to the Guggenheim Foundation in :,,,, :,,, and :,,, as well as recommendation letters written by Henry Cow-
ell, Aaron Copland, Howard Hanson, and Douglas Moore, among others, this presentation produces a diferent view of the
composer. Instead of the consummate outsider, Partch comes to be seen as desiring to take his place in Western music, as being
willing to modulate his goals to match those of the dominant musical trends of his day, and as being concerned with notions
of expression and audience communication. Ten, using Partch as a case study, the presentation reexamines the maverick
label, ultimately shattering the crystalline image associated with it to produce a richer, more resonant one.
Representational Conundrums: Music and Early Modern Dance
Davinia Caddy (University of Auckland)
Recent years have witnessed a surge of scholarly interest in the coupling of music and dance. Questions of representation
loom large: how can music represent choreographic performance, its moving bodies and visual shape-shifting? How can dance
represent music, its internal genetics, associational qualities and expressive rhetoric? Te meaning of representation has also
been debated. Loose notions of parallelism or verisimilitude have long characterized the dance literature, as scholars contrast
representation-as-likeness with its opposite, a condition of resistance or confict. Yet recent initiatives within musicology and
the visual arts suggest that we might reassess the terms of the representational contract routinely wrapped around music and
37
,, Tursday Afternoon: Session 1- AMS/SEM/SMT New Orleans :o::
dance, might think critically, too, about the various ways in which dancers have envisioned and embodied the audio-visual
relation.
My paper chips away at these issues with reference to a style of dance, dating from the turn of the twentieth century, known
nowadays as early modern. Te category embraces a cluster of dance practitioners who rejected the conventions of classical
balletcostuming, dcor, the alternation of mime and pointe-workin favour of a more spontaneous brand of bodily expres-
sion. To the early moderns, dance was a means of projecting the individual impulse to movement. Moreover, it was closely
bound to music, especially nineteenth-century instrumental music, seemingly ripe for stage representation.
Focusing on Loie Fuller, Valentine de Saint-Point and the lesser-known Jean dUdine, this paper documents dancers
musical ambitions, detailed in primary sources (newspapers, specialist journals and autobiographical writings), yet largely
overlooked in the secondary literature. I explore how modes of musical representation were rooted in contemporary ideology,
from the biomechanics of perigenesis (evolution by means of protoplasmic replication) to Futurist theories of lart crbriste.
More than this, I demonstrate how the dancers thoughts on music bring valuable insights to bear on the aesthetic debates and
representational conundrums of Euro-American modernism. Suggesting more than a simple shift from representational art to
abstraction, the dancers bring to critical discourse an ideal union of the arts, unseating established notions of authorship and
mimesis, and articulating a prototypically modernist dilemmawhat it means to represent at a particular historical moment.
Tonight I am Playing Madrigals from a Distant Country:
Interwar Japanese Musical Modernism and Settings of Fukao Sumakos Poetry
Kathryn Etheridge (Florida State University)
Although modernism has been understood frst and foremost as a Euro-American, multi-faceted aesthetic movement,
modernism has also been conceptualized by Japanese and Western scholars alike as a historical and artistic epoch in Japan
beginning in the early twentieth century. Te products of interwar Japanese moderniststhose who were active during the
Taish era (:,:::o) and the frst decade of the Shwa era (:,:o,)have often been dismissed as vacant copies of Western
artistic styles. Yet while Japanese artists drew heavily upon Western arts, they were also dealing with, and writing about,
modernist aesthetic issues at the same time that Western artists were grappling with parallel issues, including international-
ism, fragmentation, a substantial break from tradition, and a search for the artistic new. Japanese modernism should be
viewed not simply as a phenomenon motivated by the infuence or imitation of Western artistic movements; interwar artists
transformed Western contemporary values and methods as they actively responded to developments within Japanese mo-
dernity. Evidence of interwar Japanese modernism can be found most especially in painting and literature, two felds which
have received much scholarly attention in recent decades. Japanese music from this period has not yet acquired comparable
consideration; however, interwar Japanese composers of ygaku (art music in a Western style) expressed values similar to their
visual and literary counterparts.
Interwar Japanese modernism provides the conceptual framework for my examination of ygaku compositions by Hashi-
moto Qunihico (:,c,) and Sugawara Meir (:,;:,). Both composers set the poetry of Fukao Sumako, including her
poem Fue fuki me (Woman Piper) from her anthology Mendori no shiya, announced in the Japanese journal Kaiz in April
:,: immediately after she returned from her frst trip to Europe. Tese settings refect modernist values in diferent ways, as
does the international network that formed between Fukao and various Japanese and European musicians during the :,:cs
and :,,cs. In my paper I discuss how this musicultural complex informs interwar Japanese modernism, providing a new per-
spective to the growing body of scholarship on Japanese modernism that brings music to the forefront.
I hear those voices that will not be drowned: Sentimentality under Erasure in Peter Grimes
Christopher Chowrimootoo (Harvard University)
Benjamin Brittens Peter Grimes (:,,) embodies a paradox: it is at once a testament to its composers popularity and a sym-
bol of his neglect. While few could ignore the critical acclaim that the opera received following its now-legendary premiere,
commentators have often exaggerated dissent as a way of defending the work from its own success. Even after the opera had
been widely applauded by press and public alike, one critic continued to predict: Peter Grimes will shock the fashionable
frst-nighters. Te music is merciless, arrogant, tempestuous and makes no concession to the ear. By imagining philistine op-
position to Brittens opera and focusing on its more challenging moments, commentators have been able to stylize the work as
a difcult, modernist opera, which ofers timely, even existential, meditations on postwar alienation.
Trough an investigation of the relationship between the work and its reception, I examine how Peter Grimes has invited
precisely the kinds of selective responses it has resisted. I suggest that, in playing with themes of artistic alienation and check-
ing itself on the verge of melody, the opera allowed audiences to imagine themselves as champions of a difcult and innovative
artwork. I also explore how such images have been consistently thwarted by traces of sentimentality in the operas narrative
and music.
37
Abstracts Tursday Afternoon: Session 1- ,,
Te works success, I suggest, resulted from its ability to mediate between difculty and sentimentality, allowing middle-
brow audiences to buy into the prestige of a vanguard aesthetic even while enjoying the more prosaic pleasures aforded by
opera. By way of a conclusion, I excavate the historiographical and aesthetic stakes of this paradoxical reception; for, in con-
founding oppositions between a difcult modernism and a sentimental mass culture, Peter Grimes ofers a powerful model for
recovering shades of grey in the often black-and-white histories of twentieth-century music.
Session 1-38 (AMS/SMT), [Link]
New Digital Projects for the Study and Dissemination of Medieval and Renaissance Music
John Ndas (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill), Chair
Josquin Research Project: Jesse Rodin (PI) (Stanford University), Clare Robinson (Stanford University)
Te Marenzio Project: Mauro Calcagno (PI) (Stony Brook University), Laurent Pugin (Rpertoire
International des Sources Musicales), Giuseppe Gerbino (Columbia University)
SIMSSA: Ichiro Fujinaga (PI) (McGill University), Julie Cumming (McGill University)
Lost Voices/Du Chemin Project: Richard Freedman (PI) (Haverford College),
Philippe Vendrix (CESR/Universit de Francois Rabelais, Tours)
Susan Boynton (Columbia University), David Crook (University of Wisconsin-Madison), Robert
Gjerdingen (Northwestern University), Anne Stone (Graduate Center, CUNY), Respondents
Digital tools have profoundly reshaped the ways in which literary texts are studied and disseminated. Tese tools bring new
perspectives to the meanings of texts by redefning the relationships between philology and interpretation. Only very recently,
however, has the impact of the digital revolution reached musical studies in similarly transformative ways. Tis session pres-
ents four international groundbreaking projects using digital tools, and examines some of their conceptual ramifcations for
the study and interpretation of musical cultures of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Tese projects provide new under-
standings of traditional issues (such as musical editions, style analysis, and reconstruction of missing music) and enable new
insights by providing access to a wealth of data about musical repertoires in ways unprecedented in scope and methodology.
Te Single Interface for Music Score Searching and Analysis ([Link]) targets digitized musical scoresincluding those
present on the internetin order to make them searchable by using Optical Music (and Text) Recognition; an example is
the Liber Usualis at [Link]/liber/. Recovering Lost Voices: A Digital Workshop for the Restoration of Renaissance
Polyphony reconstructs missing voice parts in a digital workspace where users can compare, contribute and comment on the
diferent solutions, connecting them with corresponding concepts in practical and theoretical writings of the period (duch-
[Link]). In the Marenzio Online Digital Edition ([Link]) the sources are digitally collated, improving
speed and accuracy; the output occurs in a dynamic web-based digital interface in which the critical commentary and other
materials interact productively with the musical text. Finally, the Stanford Josquin Research Project ([Link]) makes a
growing body of Renaissance polyphony searchable. It also includes a parallel perfect interval fnder, a feature that highlights
all dissonances in a composition, and other analytical tools.
Te three-hour session is divided into two parts. In the frst, each project is presented for ffteen minutes, followed by a
ten-minute question period. In the second part, the participants in the projects are joined by four responders to discuss four
conceptual implications: the results enabled by digital tools in the areas of music theory and analysis; the impact of dynamic
digital editions on the understanding of musical works; the pedagogical use of the data; and the role of the music scholar in
view of such collaborative projects. Te pre-circulated materials on the internet include demonstrations of all four, as well as a
position paper that introduces the four issues raised in part two, jointly written by the directors of the projects.
Session 1-39 (SMT), [Link]
New Orleans: Music, Time and Place
Horace Maxile (Baylor University), Chair
Some Perspectives on Race in Early New Orleans Jazz
MatthewW. Butterfeld (Franklin and Marshall College)
Tis paper concerns how the social and cultural meanings of early New Orleans jazz were played out among diferent com-
munities defned by race, ethnicity, and class. While recent research has examined the signifying power of the constitutive
3839
, Tursday Afternoon: Session 1- AMS/SEM/SMT New Orleans :o::
elements of this music, especially within and between New Orleanss blacks and Creoles of color, less attention has been given
to its attractiveness to white musicians and their audiences, both in New Orleans itself and elsewhere. What was so appeal-
ing about the frenetic drive, the seemingly uncontrolled polyphony, and the barnyard hokum of an ensemble like the
Original Dixieland Jazz Band? Early jazz certainly ofered White America a release from the constraints of Victorian social
mores and an avenue for social and sexual rebellion. But it also articulated the possibility of an alternative American whiteness
directly opposed to European whiteness. As Roger Taylor argues, New Orleans jazz enabled the exploration of what it meant
to be white and Americani.e., to be European, but to have forsaken Europeby means of bringing blackness into whiteness,
and thereby obtaining some release from being white, but at the same time not being black and remaining white. Tis paper
evaluates these claims and examines the stylistic features of New Orleans jazz exhibited in the music of ensembles like the
Original Dixieland Jazz Band and King Olivers Creole Jazz Band as vehicles for the elaboration of a particular form of white-
ness defned problematically in relation to the prevailing social norms of the early twentieth century.
the subdudes and Teir New Orleans Sound
David Smyth (Louisiana State University)
In March :,;, four New Orleans musicians agreed to play a rather unusual gig at Tipitinasa well-known venue for local
music of various stripes. Tey brought only instruments they could easily carry, which that night were acoustic guitars, an
accordion, and a tambourine. Te musicians were Tommy Malone, Steve Amade, John Magnie, and Johnny Ray Allen. All
had been members of local bands for years, including Te Percolators and Te Continental Drifters. Te acoustic sound and
vocal harmonizing they pioneered that night led to the formation of the subdudes, a band that epitomizes the musical melting
pot that is New Orleans.
My presentation explores the harmonic vocabulary of selected numbers from the groups frst four commercial albums
(:,, to :,,). Te band draws together progressions from blues, gospel, rock, and soul music, but unites them with rhythms,
instrumental colors and vocal harmonies with a distinctive New Orleans favor. Te group appropriates tunes and vocabulary
that unmistakably connects them to numerous local traditions, including Mardi Gras Indians, Professor Longhair, the Neville
brothers, the Radiators, and Doctor John. My analyses reference a number of paradigmatic progressions (cataloged in Everett
:cc, and Biamonte :c:c), but with particular attention to the subtle ways in which chord voicings, instrumental coloration,
harmonic rhythm, and texture infuse these basic patterns with distinctive colors and favors. In this way, the subdudes dem-
onstrate the spirit of renewal and connectedness that has long marked the wondrous diversity of New Orleans sounds.
Examining (Dis)Unity in Rap and Problems in Music Teory
Philip Ewell (Hunter College / Graduate Center, CUNY)
Rap is only now emerging as a feld of study in music theory. Tis is unsurprising since rap is only some thirty years old. Te
scant music-theory oferings in rap scholarship generally focus on beatand how lyrics ft with those beatsand fow. Exam-
ining the relationship between rap words and music is certainly useful. However, there are many other profound and unique
aspects to rapsocial, cultural, political, racial and, indeed, sonicthat music theory is ill equipped to deal with. Partly for
this reason, rap scholarship fourishes in other felds while lagging in music theory. In this paper I endeavor to expand the nor-
mal purview of theory to encompass other potential areas in rap scholarship, while explaining why theory often falls short in
dealing with rap. I will also examine the process of composing a rap tune and how beats works with lyrics. I will do so through
examining certain raps and, notably, those of New Orleans rapper Lil Wayne, who is renowned for never writing his lyrics
down. (Normally, rappers keep books of rhymes that they use once they have a beat to work with.) In order to understand
how this impacts his fow, I will look at his style and compare it with other rappers from his generation. Further, I will touch
on the concept of musical unity and disunity with respect to rap and why it is that rap is often scorned by music theorists.
Teres a Little Lagniappe in My Roux:
Extending our Teoretical Rubrics to Include Spiritual Implications
EmmettG. PriceIII (Northeastern University)
Musical analysis has been a most powerful tool over the centuries as a determining method of answering the fundamental
question: How does the music work? Over these centuries, although numerous individuals and schools of thought have made
dramatic improvements in expanding the tool kit to propose more robust answers to this fundamental question, there is still
vast room for improvement. Tis paper aims to make a progressive contribution by considering the deeper connections of
cultural, social, political and economic issues with the goal of fnding room for spiritual issues that might aid in the develop-
ment of new interpretive readings. Utilizing the sounds and sentiments of Louisiana-based music and culture, we will draw
39
Abstracts Tursday Afternoon: Session 1- ,;
on the sounds and sentiments of Little Richard, Irma Tomas and Master P to encourage increased interest in the spiritual
implications within our analytical frameworks.
Session 1-40 (AMS/SEM/SMT), [Link]
Te North Atlantic Fiddle: Historical, Analytical, and Ethnographic
Perspectives on Instruments and Styles in Motion
George Ruckert (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Chair
Byron Dueck (Open University), Chris Goertzen (University of Southern Mississippi), Respondents
Refecting their diverse disciplinary perspectives, the members of this panel employ a range of methodologies to exam-
ine fddling practices in motion. Teir topics include the genesis of Texas contest-style fddling, changes in one infuential
West Virginia fddlers style over time, the appropriation of Norwegian instruments by Irish fddlers, and the emergence of
alternative musical identities in Irish-American fddling. In two of the papers, interviews with living musicians illuminate
these transformations. Te other papers are more historical in focus, exploring the contributions of musicians through their
recorded legacy. All of the presenters address culture contact and juxtapose the fuidity of oral tradition with the fxed punc-
tuation of recordings. And all undertake intimate musical analysis, whether through the comparative study of fddle tunings
and styles, the close consideration of variation technique and multi-part textures, or the examination of gestural rhythm in
violin bowing.
All of the presentations engage change over time. Two contribute to our understanding of pivotal historical moments: the
emergence, beginning in the :,:cs, of commercial country music and competition fddling, and the folk music revival of the
:,,cs and ocs. Two examine contemporary practices as extensions or transformations of longer historical processes: the indi-
genization of the violin, and the reciprocal infuence of Irish and Irish-American fddling.
Finally, the presentations are concerned with examining and contextualizing contemporary music making. Two papers
explore how instruments, styles, and innovations move across borders in the present day. Te others examine moments a few
decades earlier in the circulation of musical styles, providing a context for what might be called the ongoing cosmopolitaniza-
tion of the vernacular.
Te papers are followed by two prepared responses by scholars both of whose own research and teaching have spanned the
Atlantic and several fddling traditions.
Eck Robertsons Sallie Goodin and the Cultivation of the American Old-Time Division Style
Nikos Pappas (University of Kentucky)
On July :, :,::, Texan Alexander Eck Robertson recorded four American old-time fddle tunes for the Victor Talking
Machine Company in New York City. Te selections constituted the prevailing styles of fddling, ranging from traditional
Scottish and English-derived repertories to modern rag-infuenced showpieces. Robertsons :,:: sessions are considered to be
the earliest examples of commercial country music, predating hillbilly and race records created by the Okeh label, as well as
commercial recordings of folk revival favorites sponsored by Henry Ford on Edison Records.
Among them, Sallie Gooden became famous for its extensive variation treatment. Many fddlers consider this way of ap-
proaching a tune the genesis of Texas contest-style fddling. Robertson, a commercial performer at Old Confederate Soldiers
Reunions and Medicine Shows throughout the American South, did not represent the hillbilly type of performer, but rather
a professional stage musician. For this reason, his fddling came to embody a cultivated approach to a traditional art form,
separate from functional dance music.
Indeed, an analysis of Robertsons recording of Sallie Goodin demonstrates a motivic form of variation technique wherein
each part undergoes variation based upon a short melodic or rhythmic fgure, in ever increasing variety. Tis approach to mo-
tivic variation, along with other devices, mirrors the cultivation of divisions among Lowland Scottish fddlers in the eighteenth
century. Tis study explores the connections between the two, illustrating how a fundamentally eighteenth-century Scottish
style of improvisation and technique appeared in the hands of a traditional, professional Texas Panhandle stage performer.
Analyzing Gestural Rhythm in Appalachian Fiddle Music: A Study of
Bowing and Syncopation in the Music of Clark Kessinger
Joti Rockwell (Pomona College)
Tis paper argues for a consideration of musical gesture when theorizing syncopation in American music. Drawing from
Gritten and King (:cco and :c::) and extending the work of Temperley (:,,,) and Huron and Onmen (:cco), it analyzes
the music of fddler Clark Kessinger and suggests that gestural rhythm is a rich source for the study of syncopation. While
40
, Tursday Afternoon: Session 1- AMS/SEM/SMT New Orleans :o::
transcription-based melodic analysis of his fddling renders much of his music rhythmically continuous, the analysis of bow-
ing shows his playing to be highly varied in terms of rhythmic duration and accent; furthermore, these gestural rhythms give
insights into the stylistic evolution of his career.
Kessinger is the fddler who is perhaps most emblematic of two key historical periods for fddle music in the United States:
the rise of commercial recordings, feld recordings, and fddle competitions beginning in the :,:cs, and the rediscovery, re-
invention, and preservation of this music during the urban folk revival of the :,,cs and ocs. He enjoyed a recording and per-
forming career in the earlier period but subsequently played little music professionally until his rediscovery and reemergence
in the :,ocs. At this point, the virtuosity and showmanship that had initially brought him a measure of commercial success
helped win him new audiences, and his performances subtly evolved in concert with the aesthetic preferences of the revival.
Analysis of Kessingers music can thus contribute to folk revival historiographies involving the dynamics of musical transmis-
sion, the social dimensions of tradition/innovation, and the politics of style.
Tis paper examines rhythm and bowing patterns in Kessingers recordings from the two eras; it also takes into account
an important transitional recording (ca. :,) housed in the Library of Congresss Archive of Folk Culture. Analysis of these
recordings demonstrates how Kessinger expanded his range of techniques late in his career, and it pinpoints how he may have
adopted certain principles of classical violin playing (this is a topic of continued speculation among scholars of his music, e.g.
Wolfe :cco). It also highlights the continually varying relationship in his music between the length of the bow strokes used
and the metrical pulses underlying a given tune.
Playing with Identity, Fiddling with Post-Ethnicity? Liz Carroll and the Turtle Island String Quartet
Aileen Dillane (Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, University of Limerick)
Tis paper involves a close analysis of the fnal track from the :cc: CD Lake Efect by Chicago fddle player Liz Carroll
and the degree to which it is suggestive of post-ethnic identifcation (Hollinger :,,,, :cco). Informed by extensive personal
interviews with Carroll and feldwork undertaken in Chicago, a three-fold musical analysis is performed on the title track,
which is made up of a traditional Irish slip jig, Catherine Kellys, and a tune composition by Carroll, Lake Efect. Te frst
step in the analysis involves looking at the typical thirty-two-measure structure of Irish traditional dance music forms (the
round) and seeing how Carroll creatively interacts with the traditional tune she deliberately chose for its more unusual
features (Carroll :cco). Her rendition of this ,/ slip-jig is revealed as, on one hand, operating within the boundaries of an
established traditional idiom while, on the other, treating the tune to some unexpected rhythmic articulations that destabilize
the inherent symmetry of the traditional form. Next, Carrolls composition Lake Efect, with its less identifably traditional
structure, is examined. Here the focus is on certain melodic and rhythmic motifs that Carroll apparently intended to index
diference, identifying them as Irish, American, jazzy, Celtic, bluesy, and old-timey. Attention is then turned to
the arrangement of Carrolls tune by Evan Price, featuring the Turtle Island String Quartet (including Price) and Liz Carroll
on fddle. Certain elements of both tunes are picked up and amplifed by Price, who seems to express more explicitly what is
operating more implicitly in Carrolls tune and compositional choices. Specifcally, the arrangement draws attention to the
particular gestures or codes that Carroll has identifed as sonic indices of diferent identities. Moreover, actual phrases and
motifs from Catherine Kellys are interpolated into the structure of Lake Efect. Such strategies suggest a moving beyond mere
juxtaposition of old and new, traditional and contemporary, self and other, fddle and violin, towards something that has the
potential to be understood as post-ethnic, even where this is not the expressed ideological position of either Carroll or Price.
Instrument Morphology and Innovation: Hardanger Fiddle Inspiration in North Atlantic Fiddling
Colin Quigley (Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, University of Limerick)
When the violin in its present form was introduced in northern Italy in the sixteenth century and subsequently rapidly
spread throughout Europe it often encountered pre-existing instruments of the bowed-lute type. Tiberiu Alexandru remarked
on three aspects of the transfer to the violin: frstly, wherever this happened there was a tendency to apply to the violin a
playing technique learned from earlier indigenous instruments; secondly, there were often modifcations to the structure of
the violin; thirdly, diferent tunings were adopted to facilitate the execution of the characteristic repertory of each region.
Traditional fddles throughout Europe and the New World thus exhibit a wide range of morphology, tunings, techniques, and
timbres. Contemporary players continue to experiment and borrow to extend the scope of their instrument. Tis has become
one source of innovation in traditional fddling. Tis paper focuses on a particular instance, the current Irish interest in the
hardanger fddle and the rich sonority of its sympathetic strings. Caoimhn Raghallaigh is the best known Irish musician
using hardanger and a newly constructed hybrid fddle; but there are other examples of the phenomenon in Ireland and further
afeld: Mairad N Mhaonaigh of the Irish band Altan featured the instrument on a TG program following her on a musi-
cal journey through Norway; there is a website ([Link]) illustrating the process of converting a normal
fddle to approximate a hardanger with sympathetic strings that has provoked responses from a variety of interested fddlers,
40
Abstracts Tursday Afternoon: Session 1- ,)
especially from Ireland; others are easily found through a simple web search, such as Jennifer Wrigley (Orkney) or John Ward
of the Homespun Ceilidh Band (USA). Following Alexandrus scheme I examine the transfer of instrument structure, tunings
and playing techniques. A more contemporary organological perspective will engage the semiotics of these choices. Analysis
of this case aims to generate general hypotheses for a wider study of the phenomenon.
Session 1-41 (AMS), [Link]
Politics and Subjectivities of Soundtracks: New Approaches to Classic Film Scores
Carolyn Abbate (University of Pennsylvania), Chair
Fighting for the Enemy? Musical Duplicity as Propaganda in Te Iron Curtain (:,)
Nathan Platte (University of Iowa)
Te mingling of music and Cold War propaganda in Darryl Zanucks Iron Curtain, a flm based on an actual Soviet spy
ring, sparked furor at the time of its release. Blasted by Soviet and American presses, the flm came under criticism for its
seamy depiction of Communist infltration and opportunistic use of Soviet music. Indeed, passages taken straight from sym-
phonic works of Shostakovich, Prokofev, Khachaturian, and Myaskovsky comprised nearly the entire score and remained on
the flms soundtrack after legal actionmade on the composers behalfsought to remove them. Tat these same composers
had been humiliatingly charged with formalism by their own government months earlier only increased the irony.
Scholarship on Te Iron Curtain has acknowledged the courtroom wrangling but not the capacity for outside music to
both sustain andmore unexpectedlycomplicate a propagandistic narrative. At frst roughly edited excerpts from Shosta-
kovichs Fifth and Sixth Symphonies accompany sober, newsreel-like narration and blare diegetically in ofces of a Soviet
embassy. Gradually, however, musics role expands as fuently edited excerpts from Khachaturian and Prokofev underscore
Russian characters private reexamination of ideological convictions. Here, the clichd use of nationally-stamped music to
reinforce an us vs. other dynamic partially dissolves; Soviet symphonism now illuminates character subjectivity to elicit
spectator sympathy.
Trough this transformation music director Alfred Newman efects a savvy shift: from the spare, predominantly diegetic
musical accompaniments used in Zanucks other semi-documentaries (including Iron Curtains cinematic model, Te House
on ):nd Street) to a style patterned after World War II-era pro-Soviet flms (Song of Russia, Mission to Moscow, Te Battle of Rus-
sia) in which Russian folk and concert selections encouraged compassionate audience responses. By manipulating genre-based
scoring strategies, Newman renders a soundtrack novelty as deeply ironic musical propaganda. Drawing upon contemporary
reception, production materials, and W. A. Sheppards work on earlier musical propaganda in Hollywood World War II flm,
this study shows how Iron Curtains compiled soundtrack destabilizes an otherwise simplistic screed, with music serving both
to afrm and defect ideologies projected upon it.
Music and the Modern Subject in Hitchcocks Psycho
Stephan Prock (New Zealand School of Music)
Scholars have attributed Alfred Hitchcocks greatness as a director to his penchant for depicting violence and irrationality
through a paradoxically detached, objective style of flmmakingthe shower scene from Pyscho being the classic example.
And like many great directors in the post-studio era of Hollywood flmmaking, Hitchcock was well aware of musics power
either to enhance or undermine his directorial vision. In Psycho, he exhibited a general unease with musicand presumably
musics power to illuminate the subjective interiority of characters, which might contradict or overwhelm the objective style
he was cultivating. Te director instructed composer Bernard Herrmann not to write music for the shower scene; indeed,
Hitchcocks written instructions for the composer showed that he wanted almost no music in the flm as a whole, although we
have no way of knowing whether he was wary of music per se, or of the power of Herrmanns compositional voice (indeed, con-
temporaries speculated that Hitchcock perceived Herrmanns contributions to his flms as a threat to his directorial autonomy
and authorial status). I claim, though, that Herrmanns successful negotiations with Hitchcocks distrust of the traditional
musical subject in flm led him in their fnal collaborations to develop a strikingly new approach to a modern musico-dramatic
sensibility, using music, paradoxically, to enhance a sense of emotional distance aligned with the directors gaze rather than
bolstering the fction of the characterss inner truth.
In this paper, then, I argue that it was not just the much discussed particular elements of Herrmanns musical style that
made him so well-suited to underscore Hitchcocks tendency toward a cool, detached objectivity in his flms. Rather, I claim
that strategies Herrmann employs in the score for Psycho actively obscure the musical legibility of the individual psyches
and emotional states of cinematic characters. By tracing in detail some of these strategies throughout the flm, I demonstrate
that Hermanns music is a more powerfuleven perhaps essentialpartner than commonly understood in what is widely
41
,o Tursday Afternoon: Session 1- AMS/SEM/SMT New Orleans :o::
celebrated as Hitchcocks achievement in Psycho: namely, the audiences identifcation not with the characters on screen but
with the scopic detachment of the director himself.
A Stalinist Retro-Musical: Mises-en-abyme of Muzykalnaia istoriia (:,c)
Anna Nisnevich (University of Pittsburgh)
When the flm Muzykalnaia istoriia (A Musical Story) starring prominent tenor Sergey Lemeshev hit Soviet movie theaters
in :,c, it was celebrated in press as the frst truly musical Soviet comedy. Tis nearly unanimous take on the new release
strikes as rather odd ca. :,c: dozens of musical comedies had been produced in the USSR in the :,,cs, including such famed
collaborations between the composer Isaak Dunaevsky and the director Grigory Aleksandrov as Jolly Fellows, Circus, and
Volga-Volga. Tese flms, which brought together music and ideology via ever-more vivid articulation of the joyous symbiosis
between singing individuals and the sung-about realm, are still viewed by scholars as bearing the standard of high-Stalinist
flm musical.
My paper explores the emergence in the early :,cs of an alternative standard. Instead of charting a utopian path towards
industrial plenitude, Muzykalnaia istoriia presented a touching tale of a talented taxi driver gradually realizing his personal
dream of singing on a major operatic stage. In lieu of original music, the flm featured excerpts from Romantic operas,
most prominent among them Tchaikovskys Eugene Onegin. Unlike Dunaevskys chartbusters, craftily balancing between the
folksy, the jazzy and the anthem-like to acoustically project the new social formation, this flms mostly lyrical sound had come
already furnished with meaning and storied habits of performance. It was those furnishings stemming from famed turn-of-
the-century performances, I contend, and the ways they came to be integrated into the flms plot, that invited the viewers to
hear Muzykalnaia istoriia as more distinctly musical than earlier Soviet musicals. Drawing on archival research, I trace the
making of the flms soundtrack while detailing the levels at which the once-fted vocal qualities and antiquated politesse are
embedded into the flms action. Part and parcel of the Soviet project of culturedness (kulturnost) unfurling on the brink of
the World War II, the flm foregrounded anew the disciplined humanity (gumanizm) of the Soviet subject. Enlisting Tchai-
kovsky, Muzykalnaia istoriia scaled the Dunaevsky utopia down to human size while at the same time constructing a story of
acculturation that could vie for preeminence with those already brandished by the Soviet Unions soon-to-be foes.
Session 1-42 (AMS), [Link]
Reforming Ideas of Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Music
Kate vanOrden (University of California, Berkeley), Chair
Arcadelts Bemban Legacy: Quand io pens al martire
Paul Harris (University of Puget Sound)
Jacques Arcadelt is typically described as one of the fnest frst-generation, Italy-based madrigalists. His Primo libro di
madrigali (Gardano, :,,) became one of the most frequently reprinted music books of the Renaissance, going through at least
ffty-eight editions to :o,. Te continued success ofand apparent demand forhis music is often explained as refecting a
desire for simple pedagogical pieces to prepare singers for the more demanding works of the later sixteenth century by the likes
of Marenzio, Lasso, Wert, and Rore. However, reprint history, intabulation rates, parody works, and archival materials suggest
an alternate interpretation whereby the madrigals of the :,,cs survived as a popular, non-professional repertory alongside the
more avant-garde, courtly repertories of the late sixteenth century.
Several madrigals from Arcadelts Primo libro are ascribed varying degrees of fame, with Il bianco e dolce cigno, which
opens most editions of the Primo libro, often cited as his most famous, if not one of the most famous madrigals ever. However,
Quand io pens al martire, which concludes all known editions, may be an overlooked classic. It represents a nexus of celeb-
rity in mid-sixteenth-century Europe: it was the only madrigal in the book setting a text from Pietro Bembos Gli Asolani of
:,c, (and the only madrigal from the Primo libro whose author is currently known); it was frst intabulated by the great lutenist
Francesco da Milano in the :,,cs and became one of the top three most frequently intabulated models throughout Europe;
and Orlando de Lasso composed a parody mass on Quandio pens in :,o,, fully thirty-one years after its initial publication
(and, even later, Lasso referred to it in a letter of musical puns to his friend Duke Wilhelm).
Te widespread appeal of Quandio pens may be partly attributed to its musical style as essentially an Italian-texted
French chanson. It features large-scale musical repetition creating the impression of a quasi-strophic work rather than the
more typical through-composed Italian madrigal. Its ennobled literary and musical pedigree, and its blend of Italian and
French styles were likely central to its wide geographic and temporal dissemination.
42
Abstracts Tursday Afternoon: Session 1- ,:
Saving Songs in Imperial Prague, :,;o:o::
ErikaSupria Honisch (University of Missouri, Kansas City)
All hagiography is contemporary hagiography, writes Simon Ditchfeld (:,,,), glossing Benedetto Croces dictum that all
history is contemporary history. Supposing that music can function as a form of hagiography, this paper explores how sacred
music helped defne the present by rewriting the past in Prague on the eve of the Tirty Years War. Dozens of motets by Cath-
olic composers active in Prague during the reign of the Habsburg Emperor Rudolf II (:,;o:o::) honor and invoke saints, from
widely venerated fgures such as St. George, to those such as St. Wenceslas who were especially beloved in Bohemia. We also
fnd several triumphalist motets for the Feast of All Saints, notably Philippe de Montes Hodie dilectissimi omnium sanctorum
(Venice, :,;) and Jacobus Galluss :-voice settings of Cantate Domino canticum novum and Laudate Dominum (Prague, :,,c).
Such motets are typically viewed as exceptional artifacts of an environment where alchemical interests trumped religious
imperatives; their connections to local traditions are further obscured by the standard model for Habsburg devotional prac-
tices (pietas austriaca). Situating sanctoral motets in a rich discursive complex of hagiographic texts (e.g. vitae) and acts (e.g.
pilgrimages), I argue that these sonic celebrations of sanctity were among the most powerful means by which Bohemias
Catholics reasserted their authority in a region that had split from Rome long before the Lutheran Reformation. Led by the
native-born provost of Pragues cathedral chapter, galvanized by Jesuits, and bolstered by the Imperial presence, Catholics
used sacred songs to stake a claim on Bohemias sanctoral past, and to undermine the assertions of Utraquistsfollowers of
Jan Hus (d. ::,)about the antiquity (and authenticity) of their traditions.
Ironically, this revivalist project, emblematized by the enthusiastic excavation of saintly bodies, became one of preservation
as local liturgies came under pressure from the standardizing decrees of the Council of Trent. Drawing attention to the use of
sanctoral motets to achieve both political and salvifc ends, this paper ofers a case study in the phenomenon Ditchfeld terms
the preservation of the particular and a response to Craig Monsons admonition (:cc:) that the history of post-Tridentine
sacred music is . . . local history.
Gilles Hayne and the Jesuit Imagination
Christopher Phillpott (Florida State University)
Te reputation of early-seventeenth century Flemish composer Gilles Hayne (ca. :,,c:o,c) has enjoyed a revival in contem-
porary scholarship of the Low Countries, due to his level of accomplishment within institutions tied to the Prince-Bishopric
of Lige. Locally active as canon and grand chantre at the collegiate church of Saint John the Evangelist, Hayne also served
as music director to the Prince-Bishop of Cologne Ferdinand of Bavaria and the Duke of Neuburg and Count Palatine of the
Rhine Wolfgang Wilhelm. Paradoxically, his music has not itself sparked the same level of interest as his career, as it is typi-
cally seen as an embodiment of conservative post-Tridentine polyphony, refective of Liges and southern Germanys strides
toward the liturgical reforms taking place in Rome in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.
What has been lacking in scholarship about Hayne is a closer reading of the musical style that moves past the surface-level
connotations of liturgical polyphony. Tis is especially important since post-Tridentine music was not a monolithic tradition,
least of all in the Roman ecclesiastical centers that are conventionally seen as loci of musical conservatism. Of cultural signif-
cance are progressive strands of musical practice found in Jesuit-afliated institutions that valued the role of more rhetorically-
oriented music in its ministry, refected in the incorporation of basso continuo, subtle virtuosity, clear and directed tonal
structures, and strong orational approaches to text-setting into the polyphonic fabric of early seventeenth-century choir school
music. Such music fourished especially in south German and Flemish principalities entrenched in the Counter-Reformation
and much under the infuence of Jesuit devotional aesthetics. Tis can be seen in the motets of Hayne, who was himself a
Jesuit and received a bursary around :o: to continue his post-secondary education within his religious order in Rome. Using
general stylistic observation and analysis of formal design, modal-hexachordal transposition and hierarchy, and text setting,
this paper argues that Haynes music operated within a widespread conception that viewed sacred music as working along the
rhetorical principles of oratio, important in the Jesuit study of classical rhetoric and its application in the arts.
Of sarabandes, courantes, and Gravity in Seventeenth-Century French Keyboard Music
Rose Pruiksma (University of New Hampshire)
Despite substantial scholarship showing that the French sarabande in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries encom-
passed a range of tempos and expressive characters, textbooks, critical editions, and performances of this repertory perpetuate
a one-dimensional image of this dance as dignifed, slow and serious. Te sarabande and its companion dances (allemande and
courante) are routinely removed from their contexts and reshaped into standardized representations that, while easy to defne,
result in performances that distort and confne the multiple possibilities and connotations of these dances.
42
,: Tursday Afternoon: Session 1- AMS/SEM/SMT New Orleans :o::
Tis paper focuses on tempo relationships between courantes and sarabandes in order to address a fundamental misunder-
standing of these dances as they are most commonly performed and represented. While David Buch (:,,) and others have
posited tempo relationships among core dances of the suiteallemande, courante, and sarabandeas generally progressing
from the slower to faster tempos, these dances are most often taught and performed as a moderate-moderate-slow grouping,
or even as moderate-fast-slow. Te authority of textbooks, their accompanying recordings, and performance directions in
critical editions solidifes an anachronistic notion of these dances, drowning out the few specialists assertions to the contrary
and obscuring important evidence about these dances gleaned from theatrical and literary contexts. In fact, the courante was
considered the slowest, most dignifed of the French dances well into the eighteenth century.
Trough my re-examination of primary sources, including ballet and opera, I show that the historical sources do not sup-
port uniform application of stock tempos to baroque dance-types across the instrumental repertory. Tis paper interrogates
standard performance practice and thinking about dance-types and tempos in order to increase our understanding of the
subtle but powerful gestures of baroque dance, recovering a range of possible tempos and expression for both the courante
and sarabande while also acknowledging their relationship within a set of dances. An exploration of the ambiguity, nuance,
and variety contained in these dances leads to a fuller understanding of the expressive range of baroque dance music, whether
intended for the ballroom or not. Tis should, in turn, lead to more musically satisfying performances of this repertory.
Session 1-43 (AMS), [Link]
Singers: Practices, Roles
Gabriela Cruz (University of Michigan), Chair
Solfeggi Were Not What You Might Tink
Robert Gjerdingen (Northwestern University)
Composers of pedagogical materials have been responsible for some of the most boring music ever imagined. For every rare
set with the brilliance of Chopins Etudes or the depth of Bachs Art of Fugue, there are innumerable plodding collections
labelled Exercises, Lessons, and so forth. Anyone thus venturing into the world of the eighteenth-century solfeggio could
be forgiven for expecting little more than dry pedantry preserved in hastily written manuscripts of dull melodies.
Perhaps the frst among many surprises would be the fact that eighteenth-century solfeggi were compositions for voice and
continuo. Tis practice was maintained well into the nineteenth century, though the part for fgured or unfgured bass eventu-
ally became a fully-notated piano accompaniment. Even more recent and time-honored collections like the Solfge des solfges
(Paris, ::) were originally issued with accompaniments.
A second surprise might be the often staggering level of difculty. Many opera composers wrote solfeggi (Pergolesi, Hasse,
Leo, Jommelli, Mozart, etc.), and their solfeggi are at least as difcult as their arias. In other cases solfeggi were written by
retired vocal virtuosi like the castrati Aprile or Bernacchi. Bernacchi, whose student Raaf would premier the role of Idomeneo
for Mozart decades later, wrote solfeggi requiring an almost superhuman vocal technique and the ability to negotiate the most
remote modulations. Tat might sound like an exaggeration, but note that a collection of his solfeggi from the Santini Collec-
tion (:;cs?) concludes with two studies on whole-tone scales!
Te presentation outlines the vast repertory of manuscript solfeggi, play representative examples, describe what is known
(and unknown) of their creation, use, and reception, and demonstrate the new NEH-funded online editions. All told, solfeggi
represent one of the largest, most sophisticated, and most signifcant repertories of eighteenth-century music still largely un-
known even to period specialists. A landmark print like the Parisian Solfges dItalie (:;;:), for example, was one of the great
compendia of the age. Today its new digital edition could serve as a benchmark not only for studies in computational musicol-
ogy but also for contemporary pedagogy.
Retrospection and Nostalgia: Creating the Perfect Ending
Kimberly White (McGill University)
In a mtier that relied on body labor and the whim of public taste, a singers career at the Paris Opra during the height
of grand opera in the :,cs and cs lasted only as long as her physical capacities, talents, and popularity allowed. Primary
singers were often rewarded with a retirement benefta farewell concert and fundraiserwhere the performer had one last
chance to put her stamp on the roles she had created or shaped. Singers exercised full control over repertoire choices and hired
the most sought-after actors and dancers to boost audience attendance and critical attention. Archival documents show that
singers also created press releases and invited critics from Parisian journals. Tese concerts thus provide an exceptional op-
portunity to study singers role in publicity and image-making during the fnal moments of their career.
In this paper I argue that the retirement beneft concert was instrumental in shaping retrospective perceptions of an artists
career and, what is more, creating a sense of nostalgia, an essential emotion in the emerging celebrity culture. Drawing on
43
Abstracts Tursday Afternoon: Session 1- ,,
a wide range of archival documents, critical reviews, and retrospective biographical articles, I explore how four Opra stars
used this moment to refect on their most signifcant contributions and create a new narrative that efectively glossed over any
negativity or controversy. Forced to retire prematurely after losing her voice, Cornlie Falcons beneft became a moment of
public mourning for the loss of a brilliant star. Te performance of her most important creations, Rachel (La Juive) and Val-
entine (Les Huguenots), highlighted her dramatic skills and exoticized beauty. Rosine Stoltzs beneft helped to make amends
for her controversial infuence during Lon Pillets administration. Laure Cinti-Damoreaus beneft included fragments from
diferent opera genres to represent her career at the Ttre Italien, Opra, and Opra Comique and reinforced her image as
the ever-adaptable artiste. Preferring to leave the Opra rather than face rivalry from the recently-hired tenor Duprez, Adolphe
Nourrits choice of old and new repertoire (Armide and Les Huguenots) not only emphasized his career span but also his par-
ticipation in the development of grand opera.
Russian Opera Rebels: Fyodor Komissarzhevsky, Nikolai Figner, and the Rise of the Tenor Antihero
Juliet Forshaw (Columbia University)
Commentators on nineteenth-century Russian opera have long noted its reliance on older bass protagonists, who contrast
strikingly with the omnipresent young tenor leads of Italian and German opera of the same period. In Russia as elsewhere op-
era relies on a set of vocal conventions whereby the bass voice tends to connote age and patriarchal authority, and the frequent
casting of a bass as male lead therefore invites speculation about Russian operas political and social conservatism. Yet from
the :ocs on tenor roles gradually rose in prominence. Tree of themDon Juan in Dargomyzhskys Te Stone Guest (:;:),
the Pretender in Musorgskys Boris Godunov (:;), and Gherman in Tchaikovskys Te Queen of Spades (:,c)are especially
noteworthy because they rebel against authority fgures and in doing so seem to express the tension between the autocracy and
the increasingly disgruntled middle and upper classes that was characteristic of the later nineteenth century.
My paper sheds light on these three roles by examining the lives and careers of the two tenors who created them: Fyodor
Komissarzhevsky (:,::,c,) and Nikolai Figner (:,;:,:). Unlike their more tractable tenor colleagues, these men rebelled,
vocally and otherwise, against the dictatorial management of the Imperial theaters and the rigid tastes of the opera press.
Both men were also connected with broader political rebellion: Komissarzhevsky fought in the Garibaldi uprisings in Italy,
and Figners sister was a high-ranking member of the Narodnaya Volya (Peoples Will), the revolutionary cabal that was
responsible for the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in ::. Komissarzhevsky and Figner transmuted their own life expe-
riences into memorably rebellious performances and as such are two of the most important but overlooked fgures in late
nineteenth-century attempts to introduce anti-tsarist sentiment into the heavily censored Russian operatic establishment.
Trough a survey of previously neglected performance reviews, letters, memoirs, photographs, and biographies, my paper
shows how Komissarzhevsky and Figner facilitated the rise of the dramatic tenor in Russia, captured the imagination of the
reform-minded intelligentsia, and contributed to public ferment in the years leading up to the :,c, Revolution.
Pauline Viardot and Te Viardot-Turgenev Collection, Houghton Library
Hilary Poriss (Northeastern University)
In :c::, Houghton Library of Harvard University acquired an extraordinary collection of materials pertaining to the life and
career of one of the nineteenth centurys greatest prima donnas, Pauline Viardot (::::,:c). Te daughter of Manuel Garcia
(Rossinis frst Almaviva in Il barbiere di Siviglia) and the sister of the famously short-lived Maria Malibran (:c,o), Viardots
career spanned over twenty-fve years, during which she participated in operatic premieres (Meyerbeers Le Prophte), revivals
(Glucks Orfeo), and hundreds of other productions. In addition to her career as a singer, Viardot was a pivotal fgure in the
musical and literary culture of the time, acquainted with some of the centurys most important artistic and literary personali-
ties including George Sand, Clara Schumann, and Jenny Lind, to name only a few. Viardot has been of great interest to schol-
ars and biographers (including Everist, Harris, FitzLyon, Steen), and the documents in this collectionwhich include letters,
drawings, her (incomplete) journal, and musical scores, among hundreds of other itemsserve to expand exponentially our
current understanding of Viardots career and relationships.
Tis presentation begins with an overview of the new holdings, providing a detailed tour through the most important items.
In addition to adding chaptersif not volumesto Viardots biography, moreover, the documents in this collection provide a
unique glimpse into the broader domain of diva culture and the authority that some of the most powerful nineteenth-century
prima donnas exerted over the operatic world. To illustrate, the second half of the presentation focuses on one item: Viardots
manuscript copy of the role of Fids from Le Prophte. Although scholars have long speculated that Viardot collaborated
closely with Meyerbeer on this work, this score provides the frst written record of her contributions, including the composi-
tion of embellishments, cadences, and melodies. In conclusion, this presentation aims to explore the opportunities this collec-
tion opens up for scholars and biographers, and to illustrate its value for future research on Viardot in particular and on diva
culture in general.
43
,, Tursday Afternoon: Session 1- AMS/SEM/SMT New Orleans :o::
Session 1-44 (AMS/SEM), [Link]
On Bells, Bugs, and Disintegrating Tape:
Listening for Metaphysics in Ambient Sound
Mitchell Morris (University of California, Los Angeles), Chair
Te study of ambient sound is, almost by defnition, beyond the purview of conventional music scholarship. Although
sound studies is itself a burgeoning feld of academic research, it remains interdisciplinary in both methodology and scope.
With this panel proposal, the prospective participantsa musicologist, an ethnomusicologist, and a systematic musicolo-
gisteach speak to the unexpected signifcance of ambient sound while jointly testifying to the need for further interdisci-
plinary collaboration.
In each of these three proposals, an unassuming cluster of sonorities helps to sustain a long-held cultural investment in
some kind of metaphysics. Although the specifc circumstances could not be more dissimilar, all three papers zero in on the
relationship between ambient sound and an inefable spirit. In the case of civic and ecclesiastical bells in early modern Eu-
rope, clattering peals provided a ftting backdrop to the conficted fgurations of subjectivity that begin to take shape at the
dawn of the Enlightenment. Around the same time, in Edo period Japan, a renewed interest in ancient verse and a growing
popular fascination with natural sounds converged in a broad, metaphysically charged conception of song (uta). And in the
aftermath of September ::, :cc:, the noisy glitches of disintegration in William Basinkis tape compositions gave voice to the
possibility of freedom and variation within a Hegelian notion of a teleological spirit.
Te cultural and historical particularities of these three case studies provide the participants with an opportunity to explore
the methodological range of contemporary music scholarship. A study of the clatter of bells calls for an engagement with both
early modern philosophy and psychoacoustics. In the second paper, the socio-historical analysis of both poetics texts and lis-
tening practices help to clarify the cultural impact of changing conceptions of sound in Edo period Japan. Lastly, in the case
of Basinkis Disintegration Loops, interpretation of a particular work leads to a consideration of the ethical stakes of artistic
practice. By bringing these disparate cases and perspectives into dialogue, the participants in this panel hope to illuminate the
efcacy of ambient sound.
Clattering Bells as a Field of Experience and Cognition
Paul Chaikin (University of Southern California)
Writing about the auditory landscapes of rural France in the early nineteenth century, the historian Alain Corbin reminds
us that in this world, devoid of ambient industrial noise, the loud clatter of bells exacted an extraordinary efect on village
life. Teir clamor marked the passage of time and played an important role in ordering lived experience, conferring symbolic
authority on religious, civic, and festive afairs. People enjoyed being sporadically deafened by frecrackers, cannons, and
above all, clattering bells, all of which were regarded as indispensable compliments to public rejoicing. Te notion that
people might relish cacophony is difcult to reconcile with conventional handles on aesthetic refection, especially with respect
to a time and setting that we tend to romanticize as quaint, pastoral, and above all, dulcet. Nevertheless, if we trust Corbins
account of village bells in nineteenth-century France, we are led to some fascinating questions about ambient sound, psycho-
acoustics, and the nature of aesthetic experience.
Clattering bells are often loud and dissonant, with a dense texture and complex relationship to metered rhythm. Teir
sound is both bright and jarring; a sonority that is somehow noisy, beautiful, solemn, cheerful, and instantly recognizable,
all at once. For everything that can be said about clattering bells as agents of history, their efcacy is ultimately rooted in the
otherworldly sounds that they produce.
In this paper, I relate the socio-cultural history of civic and ecclesiastical bell ringing in Europe to the perception and cogni-
tion of bells as acoustic phenomena. My hypothesis, in short, is that bells tend to be heard in a way that prompts listeners into
a mode of perception that simultaneously provokes an awareness of their own subjective freedom and a sense of deference to
a greater authority. Tis double-edged confrontation with subjectivitya consequence that refects both the acoustic charac-
teristics of struck bells and our innate and conditioned listening habitshelps to explain the institutionalization, expansion,
and persistence of bell ringing across Europe over the past four centuries.
Nature and the Metaphysics of Voice in Edo Period Aesthetics
James Edwards (University of California, Los Angeles)
In his infuential eighteenth-century political and philological treatise Kokuik (Toughts on Our Country), Nativist
philosopher Kamo no Mabuchi (:o,;:;o,) asserts that insofar as they contain only what is natural, the ffty sounds of the
Japanese syllabary distill the voices of Heaven and Earth. While not the frst thinker to characterize Japanese as a natu-
ral language, Mabuchi inaugurated an intense philosophical concern with the sound of literary Japanese, particularly the
44
Abstracts Tursday Afternoon: Session 1- ,,
Japanese songs (waka or Yamato-uta) anthologized in canonical texts such as the eighth-century Manysh and the tenth-
century Kokin wakash. In contrast to earlier, logocentric hermeneutics, Edo period Nativist philology upheld the sonorous
qualities of classical versefor example, its shirabe, or tuning, and kakuch, or toneas the keys to its singular naturalness
and purity.
Signifcantly, the Edo period was also marked by heightened general interest in the sounds of nature themselves. Nowhere
is this more apparent than in the practice of mushikiki, or insect-listening. A seasonal social activity, insect-listening was em-
braced by Edo period city-dwellers as an opportunity to showcase their sensitivity to the innate pathos of natural phenomena,
specifcally the song of the pine-cricket, heard as a medium which invites the tears of men (Yamagishi :cco: :;). In this
paper, I suggest that both the Nativist desire to recover the sung or intoned quality of classical Japanese verse and the height-
ened interest in natural sounds evinced by practices such as insect-listening can be traced to a widespread fascination with the
tropes of voice and word-spirit (kotodama) in Edo period aesthetic, political, and theological writings. Kotodama rhetoric holds
that the word-spiritwhich connects Japanese words to their referents on an ontological levelcomes alive in their correct
voicing, often conceived as singing or intonation. Tis metaphysically charged concept of voice, however, was not restricted to
human speech, but extended to the voices of animals and insects, and even to the sounds of wind and water, all of which were
interpreted as giving voice to the enspirited text that is the cosmos.
Te Ethics of Apocalypse
Joanna Demers (University of Southern California)
Apocalyptic scenarios often represent the end as a horrible possibilitysomething we should think would be absolutely
terrible. But what about artworks that depict apocalypse as something desirable? Is such a desire ethical? I pursue these ques-
tions as they apply to William Basinskis ambient electronic work, Te Disintegration Loops (:cc:,). During the early :,cs,
Basinski laid down a large amount of synthesized fragments consisting of tonal, consonant melodies onto reel-to-reel tape.
When in :cc: Basinski began to archive this material onto digital media, the intervening years had so damaged the tape that
the mere act of replay scraped away the magnetized particles that encoded the sound. Time, and the efort to save his music
from time, destroyed Basinskis music; he promptly realized the serendipity and released his fnds as a reaction to the attacks
of September ::th, :cc:.
Te Disintegration Loops aestheticizes annihilation, making collapse seem not only inevitable, but attractive. For the draw
of this piece consists in the questions it poses about destruction: how will Basinskis music decay over time? What will the
empty tape sound like after the music has been erased? Is this what our world will sound like, after humanitys apocalypse?
I contend that Basinskis apocalypse can be understood as a system analogous to G. W. F. Hegels system, his overarching
philosophical model that accounts for everything from individual consciousness to governments, art, and natural phenomena.
(Tis metaphor is borne out by the fact that Hegels system itself contains a few apocalypses of its own, namely the famous
end of art and end of history.) Critics of Hegels system like Gianni Vattimo accuse it of demanding total, static unity that
tolerates nothing outside itself. Proponents of Hegels system like Catherine Malabou regard it as an organic mechanism that
allows for change, contingency, and diference. Basinskis choice to represent apocalypse as both beautiful and preordained
(qualities that Hegel attributes to his system) could be construed as ultimately denying the importance of the individual and
of diference. Yet I argue that Basinski leaves room for freedom and chance in a composition that depicts unavoidable doom.
Session 1-45 (AMS), [Link]
Race and Class in Early Twentieth-Century American Opera
Larry Hamberlin (Middlebury College), Chair
New Evidence on Artists of Color at the Metropolitan Opera
Carolyn Guzski (SUNY, College at Bufalo)
Historical perspectives on the relationship between race and art music in the United States have been severely limited by
a lack of recorded evidence, resulting in a narrative that has proven inadequate to address the scope and complexity of issues
involved.
Te topic is particularly confused with respect to performance at the Metropolitan Opera, which emerged as the de facto
national lyric theater during the early twentieth century. While contralto Marian Andersons :,,, debut is justifably her-
alded as the frst appearance by an African American in a major role (Ulrica, Un ballo in maschera) at the house, sources
have variously identifed its frst actual performers of color as ballerina Janet Collins (Aida, :,,:), Negro Art Teatre founder
Hemsley Winfeld (Te Emperor Jones, :,,,), and an all-black chorus employed in John Alden Carpenters Skyscrapers (:,:o).
Newly uncovered documents indicate, however, that all were preceded by a contingent of black male dancers who appeared
in a :,: staging of Henry F. Gilberts Te Dance in Place Congo. Te productions racial aspectsunacknowledged by the
45
, Tursday Afternoon: Session 1- AMS/SEM/SMT New Orleans :o::
Metropolitan itselfwere noted by New York Globe critic Pitts Sanborn, who refected the views of close associate Carl Van
Vechten by remarking that the few real Negroes on the stage were worth many times all the host of disguised whites. Ex-
panded documentation on Skyscrapers has also revealed the identities of two African American soloists in its central spiritual
scene (the frst singers of color at the Metropolitan), as well as precise knowledge of the contribution of choral director Frank
H. Wilson, a noted actor who created the role of Porgy in :,:;.
Beyond performance concerns, the new fndings illuminate the confuence of an unusually wide range of cultural streams
on theatrical practice at the leading American performing arts institution, which drew on the worlds of vaudeville, minstrelsy,
sacred music, and the legitimate stage. Moreover, I argue against the sudden dramatic rupture of a presumed racial ban at
the Metropolitan. Rather, the color line dissolved over a substantial span of time, in a gradual process that painted numerous
shades of gray over the early decades of the twentieth century.
Cheap Opera in America, :,, to :,:c
DanielaSmolov Levy (Stanford University)
Te explosion of popular, inexpensive opera in America around the turn of the twentieth century might seem surprising
given the increasingly rigid categorization of entertainment into elite and popular types during that period. On the one hand,
as Lawrence Levine and Paul DiMaggio have demonstrated, elites enacted a sacralization of select entertainment genres
into forms of high culture, creating a class-based cultural hierarchy. On the other hand, operas accentuated exclusivity, as
evidenced by the founding of the elite-oriented Metropolitan Opera, coincided with the furry of what was variously known
as cheap opera, educational opera, and popular-price opera. Te simultaneous sacralization and popularization of opera
thus poses a puzzle.
Tree case studies, based on a range of new source materials including personal memoirs and contemporary press reports,
illustrate the little-studied landscape of inexpensive operatic enterprises. Henry Savages Boston-based touring opera in Eng-
lish, Oscar Hammersteins summer Manhattan Opera oferings, and Ivan Abramsons productions on New Yorks Lower
East Side represent the abundance and diversity of operatic activity of the era. Despite their difering approaches, these three
managers all espoused the Progressive Era ideology of uplift in their eforts to democratize opera, echoing the agenda of turn-
of-the-century social and political reformers. Opera performances, whether in the original language or in English, or even
in Yiddish, at low prices and often at regular theaters were clearly a vibrant and dynamic element of American culture. Even
as operas highbrow elements came to dominate its reputation toward the end of the nineteenth century, the genres unique
fexibility in language and staging style allowed for low-price popularizing eforts that fostered social inclusivity without com-
promising cultural prestige. In solving the puzzle of how operas exclusivity could in fact foster popularity, I suggest several
socio-economic and ideological factors as the causes of both the surge and the character of these popular opera endeavors. I
further argue that operas highbrow status was, ironically, the central feature of its popular appeal, evident in opera managers
emphasis on ofering artistically serious productions while promoting the accessibility of the elite-associated genre.
Session 1-46 (AMS/SEM/SMT), [Link]
AMS-SEM-SMT Mentoring Panel
Patricia Hall (University of Michigan), Chair
Carol Oja (Harvard University), Ellen Koskof (Eastman School of Music,
University of Rochester), Michael Cherlin (University of Minnesota)
When the frst of the professional societies committees on women was established in :,;,, the mission was to collect sta-
tistics on women, promote scholarship on women, encourage networking and assert a need for women to chair sessions at
national meetings. By the :,cs mentoring had become a focus, with an even-increased emphasis in the :,,cs.
Tis panel assumes that the issue of mentoring women is not just about women but indeed benefts all members of the soci-
ety. As Janet Knapp wrote in her frst statement about the AMS committee on the Status of women in :,;,, As one member
of the group sagely remarked, fndings about the status of women are bound to tell us something about the status of men.
And it assumes that although the three disciplines have distinct needs and issues, when we return to our home departments
we tend to mentor across disciplinary lines.
Te Society for Ethnomusicology is launching a new mentoring program through its Section on the Status of Women
(SSW) that links senior scholars who have conducted extensive feldwork with those who are just beginning this part of the
research process. SEM recognizes feldwork as an often challenging experience that can involve misunderstandings concern-
ing issues of social etiquette, self identity, and representation, as well as issues of personal safety, harassment, or abuse based
on gender and/or sexuality. Mentors and advisees are linked through an online site, where a coordinator determines issues of
most concern to the advisee. Confdentiality is assured and any signifcant other accompanying the researcher in the feld is
encouraged to participate.
46
Abstracts Tursday Afternoon: Session 1- ,;
Similarly, the Committee on the Status of Women for the Society for Music Teory is launching a mentoring program spe-
cifcally aimed at women who will be submitting articles to Music Teory Spectrum. In addition to pairing women with senior
scholars who have had articles published in Spectrum, they hope to make women more aware of the positive changes that have
occurred in Spectrum in the last few years. Tese changes include the publication of more articles incorporating pedagogy,
women composers, feminist theory, and other topics of interest to women scholars.
Te panel is followed by an informal reception/cocktail hour hosted by SEM, to facilitate informal discussion between pos-
sible mentors and advisees.
Session 1-47 (SEM), [Link]
Cultural Politics from the People Up (East Asia)
JosephS.C. Lam (University of Michigan), Chair
Contextualizing the :;, Reform of the Music for the Sacrifcial Rite at the Royal Ancestral Shrine
Anthony Law (University of Maryland)
Having been designated Intangible Cultural Property No. : in :,o by South Korea and an Oral and Intangible Heritage of
Humanity in :cc: by UNESCO, the music for the sacrifcial rite at the Royal Ancestral Shrine has long been a symbol of cul-
tural history admired by most Koreans. While the voices of the modern participants in the performance have been considered
in dealing with the scholarly issues such as nationalism, authenticity, and identity, etc. (Lee Hye Young :cco), the voices of
the participants in the performance in its former royal context, i.e. a sacrifcial rite performed by the king (or his proxy) dur-
ing the Chosn dynasty (:,,::,:c) has not received much attention. From documentary sources we know that the music that
had been performed for more than a century since the late sixteenth century fell short of the expectation of its participants.
However, it was not until :;, that the frst change was made to the repertoire in an attempt to rectify the inappropriateness of
the music. Tough the stream of the disputes prior to the reform and the result of the :;, reform have been examined (Kim
Chongsu :,,), it remains necessary to contextualize the :;, reform. Based on the minutes taken during the meetings of the
king and his ministers, this paper examines the process leading to the reform and explores the important role of history in
music, which in this case overrode the aesthetic and practical consideration of the reform.
Aural Governmentality and Minority Discourse in China
Adam Kielman (Columbia University)
I examine two parallel streams of Chinese minority musical activity in order to propose a framework for understanding
musical expressions of ethnic and regional diference in contemporary China. First, I discuss state-sponsored performances
of minzu tuanjie (nationalities unity) that have been central to the PRCs construction of Han and minority identities, fo-
cusing on the televised performances in the :cc, Sixtieth Anniversary National Day Evening Gala. I then discuss a vibrant
underground scene in the southern cities of Guangzhou and Shenzhen made up of minority-led bands that fuse traditional
musics with jazz, rock, and reggae. Tese bands ofer a counterpart to centralized representations of ethnic and regional varia-
tion. However, rather than a binary of hegemony/resistance, I suggest that these two streams of musical activity are in fact
closely intertwined in what I call aural governmentality. Balancing Foucaults concept of governmentality with Chinese
sociomusical philosophies from the Warring States Period (;,::: BCE), aural governmentality describes the ways musical
production on all levels is enmeshed in state ideologies. I trace aural governmentality to eforts throughout Chinese history to
categorize peoples and regions through the production of massive anthologies, from the three-thousand-year-old songs pre-
served in the Shijing, through revolutionary music gathered in the :,cs, to a ,cc,ccc-page anthology begun in the :,cs. As
maps inscribe landscapes as places, anthologies, genre classifcation, and minority performance serve to reinforce ethnic and
cultural topographies that the PRC is heavily invested in maintaining.
Te Revival of Red Songs in :c::: Singing in Praise of the Chinese Communist Party
Meng Ren (University of Pittsburgh)
July :, :c:: was the ninetieth anniversary of the funding of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP); meanwhile the day also
marked the climax of the nation-wide craze of singing red songs. Te red songs praise, compliment and commemorate
the CCP and the various revolutions led by the Party. Tis paper highlights the purpose and function of red song singing
in contemporary China. In major cities of China, state-run danwei (work units) organized professional and amateur choirs
to perform red songs in various events celebrating the CCPs birthday. For instance, in Zhengzhou of Henan province,
choirs from state-own work units such as business frms, schools, hospitals, and factories all participated in a large-scale red
song singing competition with an avowed theme of Without the CCP, Tere will be no New China, organized by the local
47
, Tursday Afternoon: Session 1- AMS/SEM/SMT New Orleans :o::
government. Te red songs commemorated Chinas history of resistance to foreign conquest, revolutions against authority
and celebration of victory (Bryant :cc), and helped generations of Chinese to overcome hardships and deprivations. What
does it mean for the young people who are unfamiliar with the past to engage with such genre? How does the danwei system
assist the red song campaign and related political propaganda? By drawing upon my research concerning the red song
singing activities in Zhengzhou and interviews with members of danwei-based choirs, this paper explores the reasons, sig-
nifcance and receptions of the Chinese red songs revival, as well as the role of the central government and local danwei in
promoting those songs.
Session 1-48 (SEM), [Link]
Exploring, Experiencing, and Embodying Music through Dance:
A Workshop in East Javanese Masked Dance
Christina Sunardi (University of Washington), Presenter
Tis one-hour workshop explores Javanese gamelan music through dance movement, building on scholarly studies of the re-
lationships between music and movement in diverse styles of dance performance from diferent areas of Indonesiaincluding
West Java (Spiller :c:c), Central Java (Kartomi :,;,), Bali (Tenzer :ccc), and South Sulawesi (Sutton :cc:). In the workshop,
participants will be encouraged to explore and experience relationships between music and dance through their own bodies
by focusing on dance and music from East Java. Drawing on feld research in and subsequent visits to East Java from :cc, to
:c::, I teach selected movements from the masked dance Gunung Sari. I teach as I have been taught and thereby emphasize
links between music and dance. I sing the accompanying drum pattern(s) while demonstrating a movement and then invite
participants to follow as I repeat the movement and drum pattern(s). In addition to teaching participants to manipulate the
dance scarf, I teach them to use a set of ankle bells, which further connects dance movement to musical sound. I play a feld
recording in order to teach partakers to focus on specifc aspects of the accompanying gamelan music: the drumming, the
skeletal melody, and the gong. To review the highlighted relationships between movement and music, as well as to give par-
ticipants a sense of the stunning artistry of expert performers, I conclude by showing an excerpt from a feld video of a dancer
performing the movements covered in the workshop.
Session 1-49 (SEM), [Link]
Te Lifecycles of Research: A Roundtable Reimagining of Field Recording,
Publication, Preservation, and Access in the Digital Era
AnthonyF. Guest-Scott (Indiana University), Chair
AlanR. Burdette (Indiana University), Clara Henderson (Indiana University), John Fenn (University of
Oregon), Laurel Sercombe (University of Washington) Jonathan Lederman (University of Oregon)
In the language of business, lifecycle can be used to mean the total impact of a system, product, or service, from the
gathering of raw materials through their end of life management. Te Special Interest Group for Archiving of SEM is spon-
soring this roundtable discussion of the lifecycles of research. Our central argument is that the proliferation of new digital
technologies for recording, publication, preservation, and access is foregrounding the need for a more holistic approach that
integrates these dimensions of our scholarly output. As we will discuss, by employing such an approach, ethnomusicologists
can create preserved and accessible research products that extend beyond the life of a single project. Furthermore, we will lead
a discussion about how such a holistic approach to integrating these technologies raises fundamental questions at the heart of
what we produce as a discipline and with whom we will share it. Accordingly, the participants in this roundtable will address
issues of born digital fle management, media-rich publication, repatriation and a decentering of access, legal and ethical con-
trols, and institutional supports for preservation and access. Te digital revolution is driving changes and our institutions are
struggling to keep up with the necessary infrastructure and tools for long-term preservation and access to the products of our
research. In order to help drive this process or to simply survive it, we need to be educated about the challenges we face and
design models that help us navigate our ethnographic present and our professional future.
4849
Abstracts Tursday Afternoon: Session 1- ,)
Session 1-50 (SEM), [Link]
Modes of Music Circulation and Teir Efects
Hilary Finchum-Sung (Seoul National University), Chair
Nation and Incivility In the Domain of Sheet Music Opera
Katie Graber (Otterbein University)
In late-nineteenth-century United States, parlor performances of European opera arias were commonly associated with
American ladies, but were rarely defended as an American form of music making. Operas publication as sheet music not only
placed it in a feminine realm, but also brought it into proximity with other racialized music such as African-American, Irish,
and German dialect songs. Families sheet music collections give us clues about how people understood these now-disparate
genres. In the nineteenth century, associations with other crude, foreign musics meant that parlor arias were heard neither
as true American music making nor as true (refned) operatic renditions. Women in parlors were portrayed as amateur musi-
cians generating mediocre renditions of banal popular arias. An :;: article in the Chicago Tribune stated that there are very
few young ladies who bring away from their boarding-school or seminary experiences more than the ability to use the most
common French and German phrases, [and] the faculty of playing the piano badly. In order to understand the signifcance
of this complaint about American ladies inability to perform sophisticated Europeanness, this paper will analyze the mutu-
ally reinforcing notions of race, ethnicity, gender, refnement, and nation in that era. Tese ideas were especially salient in
relation to opera, a genre that was saturated with contradictionselite/common, foreign/American, white/other, feminine/
masculinein its variety of contexts and venues.
Music Circulation and the Informal Economy in Tbilisi, Georgia
Brigita Sebald (University of California, Los Angeles)
After the fall of the Soviet Union the state-controlled music industry was dismantled but Georgian-language popular mu-
sicincluding rock, rap, and Soviet-style estradahas not yet been integrated into the international music industry. Tis ap-
pears to make it unique in the popular music literature. Because Georgia does not have a music industry, many of my interview
respondents claimed that music distribution does not occur, and that begs the question of whether popular music can even
exist without being circulated in some way. In Georgia, music circulation is analogous to and symptomatic of the larger sys-
tem of clan capitalism, where relationships are shaped by a series of tightly bound familial-like networks that determine who
makes popular music, and its lyrical and musical form. Based on my observations during two years of feldwork conducted
in Russian and Georgian, popular music functions as a kind of social capital that lends prestige to the political leaders, who
act as patrons, to listeners, who use it to increase their social standing, and to musicians, who use greater access to resources
to enhance their popularity. Since musicians are patronized by economic leaders who are simultaneously vying for political
control of the country, popular music also becomes a place where political power is debated and determined. Te system of
circulation illuminates the complex relationship between neo-feudalistic social structures like clans and patronage that oper-
ate on a local level, as well as the international neoliberal capitalist system of cultural production.
Planet YouTube: New Social Media and the Globalization of K-pop
Eun-Young Jung (University of California, San Diego)
New social media are rapidly transforming the musical world, ofering opportunities for near-instant exposure across the
globe. Tis paper opens a new line of inquiry into the particulars of this media usage, focusing on Korean popular (K-pop)
musicians and their production companies, who have been particularly astute in their rapid mastery of user-generated social
networking sites and video sharing sites: Facebook, Twitter, and especially YouTube. In addition to exercising its typical
functions of disseminating music videos and responding to fans feedback, the K-pop industry now aggressively exploits
these new social media, facilitating explosive transnational musical promotion that, I argue, is resulting in accomplishments
unimaginable only a few years ago. Te K-pop band Big Bang, for example, won the :c:: MTV Europe Music Awards Best
Worldwide Act Award. Teir album Tonight became the frst K-pop album to reach the top :c on the U.S. iTunes chart and is
the only non-English-language album in the top :cc. Many others are now also taking center stage in the international K-pop
craze. By investigating exemplary K-pop bands and their fast-growing visibility in the major social media spaces like YouTube,
where the viewers reception is instant and often verbalized, this paper attempts to understand contemporary popular culture
consumption behavior in the mediascape being created by the users of these new media. As background, this paper also briefy
reviews the K-pop world in the years prior to Facebook and YouTube and focuses on the changes in promotion strategies and
market environments over the last half decade.
50
o Tursday Afternoon: Session 1- AMS/SEM/SMT New Orleans :o::
Session 1-51 (SEM), [Link]
Music and Confict
Sarah Weiss (Yale University), Chair
Music before Mosques: Reasons for the April :,:o Riots in Calcutta
Colleen Bertsch (University of Minnesota)
Music was played in front of a mosque in Calcutta on April :, :,:o by a Hindu procession and incited one of the deadliest
communal riots before the partition of India and Pakistan in :,;. Tis was not just a simple case of loud music disrupting
a public space, nor was it the frst time that these two communal groups clashed over the issue of music before mosques.
Tis paper takes a historical look at the issue of music being played before mosques in India in the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries. I analyze Madras High Court documents from :, and : and Te Lahore Tribune newspaper cover-
age during the beginning stages of the Calcutta riots in order to determine why the playing of music before mosques was a
contentious issue between Hindu and Muslim groups. Drawing evidence from these sources, I purposefully argue one side of
a complicated story: Hindu proponents took the issues of music, festivals, and cow protection to the courts, newspapers, and
city streets, and in doing so, used literacy and education to help establish Hindu as Indias national identity. But the Hindu
nationalists also used sonic warfare in the public streets. Exploring the power of sound can help us to articulate the psychologi-
cal importance of music being played before mosques in relation to Indias communal tensions. By interpreting these historical
documents and leading a discussion about sonic warfare, I will discuss possible reasons for the riots in Calcutta in April, :,:o.
Applied Ethnomusicology in Post-Confict and Post-Catastrophe Communities
Erica Haskell (University of New Haven)
Troughout history applied ethnomusicologists and cultural advocates have contributed greatly to facilitating confict reso-
lution and cultural development in post-war and post-catastrophe environments. In the wake of both conficts and natural
disasters these cultural aid workers bear much needed resources and are often welcomed with open arms to host countries.
Informed by the authors feld research in Bosnia, Kosovo and Cambodia, this essay explains the multiple roles applied eth-
nomusicologists and cultural projects in general can have in post-confict and post-catastrophe situations. In both situations,
practitioners have applied their skills to ease social upheaval, create economic opportunities for musicians, strengthen exist-
ing cultural venues and institutions as well as establish new ones. In other cases musical and cultural projects are developed
and run by actors with relatively little expertise in cultural issues. Tis essay also addresses some fundamental issues applied
ethnomusicologists face in navigating the diverse feld of international development in which social, economic and political
concerns often sideline equally important cultural ones. Humanitarian situations ofer special opportunities and challenges to
ethnomusicologists focused on aiding and advocating for musical communities at risk. Settings where outsiders involvement
is widespread may allow applied ethnomusicologists added access to tangible and intangible resources although they may face
daunting logistical problems. Post-confict and post-catastrophe cultural and institutional voids have been flled by applied
ethnomusicologists and other actors with new projects that employ resources to create new performance venues, media outlets,
music schools, museums and sustainable businesses.
Cadenza, or Just an Ambiguous Fermata: Te Position and Reading of the
Musical Experience in Holocaust Narrative and Testimonial Studies
Joseph Toltz (University of Sydney)
Te place of music in Holocaust testimonial studies occupies an ill-defned role in a greater historical narrative. Post libera-
tion, Jewish historical commissions collected recordings of songs of camps, ghettos and partisans. In the :,;cs, biographies of
musicians from the Auschwitz orchestras appeared, and modernist repertoire composed in the Terezn ghetto was rediscov-
ered. In :,,:, Gila Flams study of d addressed musical experience as a feature of life in a Nazi-run ghetto, through direct
musical testimony from survivors. Shirli Gilberts recent work has addressed the pitfalls in categorising musical experience
and activity as redemptive narrative, while Alan Rosens work on the :,o project of David Boder reveals the crucial role that
music and recording played. Should we consider music separate to other testimony? How does music function in the context?
Why was it that it took so long to be admitted into the conversation? Was the silence enabled by Teodor Adornos aesthetic
imperative formulated in the wake of the complicity of music in the Nazi project? My paper will propose the development of
a discourse of musical testimony in light of more recent studies of musical reception. Te concept of musical testimony ofers
the possibility for new approaches to the Holocaust, working with survivors as living witnesses. It allows for interaction with
the generations succeeding the initial survivors, thereby contributing to Jewish memory studies, liberating Holocaust studies
from the reliance on generational memory, and permitting new forms of commemoration.
51
Abstracts Tursday Afternoon: Session 1- :
Session 1-52 (SEM), [Link]
Musically Meaningful Soundscapes
Tom Porcello (Vassar College), Chair
Sound, Space, and Social Practice in the Zionskirche
Alison Furlong (Ohio State University)
Although the former East Germany was marked by a profound sense of stagnation, the :,cs revealed incremental shifts;
the ways individuals lived their daily lives within and around the state structure were changing, as were perceptions about
the possibility of change. Tese minute transformations revealed themselves in products of ofcial culture such as art, flm,
and music, as well as in the cultural performance of daily life. In East Berlins Zionskirche (Zion Church), these incremental
changes manifested in the convergence of multiple sound worlds, producing a vibrant social space for expression in which di-
verse musical and social groups as punks, blues-loving hippies, and liturgical musicians formed a single heterogeneous public.
I argue that the musical practices of those acting within the church were critical to this formation. Using archival materials,
art and documentary photography and flm, ethnographic interviews, and architectural studies, I examine the way in which
image and sound intertwined within the Zionskirche to produce a complex, though coherent, social space. It was the very het-
erogeneity of this popular space, both as a site for music-making and as a place of public discourse, that marked it as distinct
from the ofcial culture outside. Music as ofcial culture has often been privileged over music as everyday cultural practice in
studies of the GDR, leading to a binary opposition of resistance and resignation. My approach provides a counter-narrative,
revealing a more diverse, multivalent musical and social world.
Sounding and Composing the Harbour: Performing Landscape and Re-contextualizing the
Soundscape of Place in the Harbour Symphony (St. Johns, Newfoundland)
Kate Galloway (Memorial University of Newfoundland)
Since the :,;cs, the academic community has engaged in a renewed interest in the cultural impact of the environment on
society. In recent years, environmental artworks have proliferated throughout the academy, and the increase in compositions
that address the environment is in direct correlation with the greening of society. Te Harbour Symphony, inaugurated in
:,, at the biannual Sound Symposium-an experimental music festival held throughout St. Johns, Newfoundland (Canada)-is a
collection of site-specifc works composed for the soundscape and landscape of St. Johns Harbour, and the horns and whistles
of the harbours ships. Te Harbour Symphony is a creative endeavor intended to unite city and nature, fostering awareness in
the community that the harbour, the surrounding natural environment, and the acoustic heritage of the city should be valued
and maintained. Since its inception, numerous composers have created works that interpret the soundscape and landscape
of the St. Johns harbour, particularly the distinct soundmarks of the tugboats, trawlers, and ocean freighters. Grounded in
ethnographic research-including interviews, performance ethnography, and listening response analysis-this paper enhances
our understanding of the shifting roles of everyday sounds and music in society. Drawing on ethnomusicology, performance
studies, and interdisciplinary sound studies scholarship, I investigate how the creative use of the soundscape of the developing
urban center of St. Johns, how this landscape is sounded and performed, how industrial sounds are compositionally re-con-
textualized, and question how place and soundscape impact and are inscribed in modern cultural expressions and comment
upon the ever-changing environment.
Bringin Back the Roots: Rearticulating a Creole Sound in Southern Louisiana
Jessamyn Doan (University of Pennsylvania)
In :cc, the Creole fddler Cedric Watson left the Cajun band he had founded to perform Creole music in contemporary
Louisiana. His new band brought together Caribbean percussion, zydeco accordion, Creole fddle, and Cajun songs with the
stated mission of exploring the sounds of a Creole past. Tis eclecticism stands in stark contrast to the previously articulated
norms for musical style in the area. Zydeco is presumed to be synonymous with Creole music, whose sound has shifted toward
a more mainstream African-American norm. Its success leaves traditional Creole fddle techniques and old lala songs strictly
to the old men and their back porches, excluded from commercial recordings. Cajun music still has a place for those old
songs, in its reverence for the French language and traditional playing styles, but as it is performed almost exclusively by white
musicians, there is not necessarily space for a Creole sound that emphasizes a colorful past. In this paper, I argue that Watson
and others complicate the racially-segregated musical spaces of Southern Louisiana and articulate a uniquely black Louisiana
Creole sound within the white-washed world of roots music. In addition to resuscitating dying Creole traditions, they gesture
towards dance forms like the kalenda, echoing similar traditions in New Orleans, Martinique, and Trinidad. Teir music
52
: Tursday Afternoon: Session 1- AMS/SEM/SMT New Orleans :o::
repositions Louisiana at the top of the Caribbean, drawing on a shared history of slave trading, free black migration, and
creolization to undermine a local discourse that assumes traditional music and fddle playing are sonic indicators of whiteness.
Session 1-53 (SEM), [Link]
Resignifcation of Musical Meaning I
MelvinL. Butler (University of Chicago), Chair
Constant Repertoire in Varying Performance Contexts:
Te Case of Djama Songs among the Youth in Ghana
Divine Gbagbo (Kent State University)
Tis paper examines the processes involved in the production of contextual meaning in Djama (Jama/Dzama/Gyama), one
of the indigenous forms of socio-recreational music performed by the youth of the Ga ethnic group in Ghana. Tyson (:,,,)
reasserts that Culture is a process, not a product; it is a lived experience, not a fxed defnition. Te preceding reiterates the
centrality of contextual study of the various domains of music cultures (Nketia :,,c). Accordingly, any approaches to the de-
scription and analysis of a musical style should take due cognizance of the conditions in which styles are formed, maintained,
modifed and abandoned (Blum :,,:). Refexively, contextual factors inform the creative agency of performers, as their se-
lectivity in turn facilitates the construction of meanings during performances. In resonance with the preceding perspectives,
this paper further explores reasons that account for the popularity of Djama, which has literally become the ofcial medium
of musical expression for the Ghanaian youth, for multiple socio-cultural contexts including sports, funerals, weddings, and
festivals. Given that certain songs are constantly used regardless of the context, I will analyze the lyrics of selected songs and
situate them within their contexts of use, and then illustrate the creative devices that Djama performers use in ensuring that
textual meanings of these songs change to match the context. Tis paper is based on a research I conducted in Ghana in :c:c,
and video clippings will enhance my presentation.
Refugee Music Divided Within: Sacred Anthem or Commercial Folk Pop
Ulrike Praeger (Boston University)
We lost everything. But not our music. And not our musical talents, said eighty-fve-year-old Gretl Hainisch explaining
the signifcance of music for her and other ethnic Germans who were expelled from their native regions of Bohemia, Moravia,
and Czech Silesia to mainly Germany in the aftermath of World War II. Still today, for Hainisch and some ;c other Sudeten-
German refugees interviewed for this study, singing and playing traditional folk songs and other music associated with the
Czech lands are central for revitalizing the memories of their lost homeland in the assimilated diaspora of post-War Ger-
many. Within this music, a certain repertoire acquired after the expulsion a sacred connotation of loss and belonging for
Sudeten Germans. Tis repertoire is at the same time brought to the German host population as commercial entertainment
by television shows devoted to folk and popular music. For example the song Feierobnd, which signifes death and loss in a
Sudeten-German context, is in recent shows performed by smiling young ladies as a commercial folk pop tune representing
beauty and youth. In this process, meaning and signifcance of the music are altered, which instils a fear of cultural loss in
the Sudeten-German community. Te music in one guise consoles while in another disturbs. Tis study of Sudeten-German
music in postwar Germany thus intersects with broader musical and cultural themes, such as music as marker of home and
identity reconstruction in processes of acculturation, and music reception in transcultural contexts.
Heaven, Hell, and Hipsters: Attracting Young Adults to Megachurches through
Hybrid Symbols of Religion and Popular Culture in the Pacifc Northwest
Maren Haynes (University of Washington)
Te attraction of unconventional churchgoers to Seattle megachurch Mars Hill evades demographic trends. Youth ages :
:, comprise the core of the churchs two thousand weekly attendees, despite head pastor Mark Driscolls controversial promo-
tion of strict gender binaries and fundamentalist sectarian theology. Further confounding this growth, sociologist OConnell
Killen has noted that the Pacifc Northwest boasts the countrys lowest rate of church afliation (:cc). How, in this so-called
religious none-zone, has Mars Hill grown so rapidly among young adults? I suggest that only a portion of Mars Hills
regional growth relies on content preached in the pulpit. American churches increasingly engage with mass media outlets,
speaking the language of secular society to attract converts (Quentin Schultze :cc,). Ethnomusicologists Stowe (:c::), In-
galls (:cc) and others have examined the Contemporary Christian Music industry which consistently parallels the trajectory
of popular music. Using a hybrid of ritual theory (Randall Collins :cc) and non-linguistic semiotics (Charles Peirce :,,,), I
53
Abstracts Tursday Afternoon: Session 1- ,
compare these industry parallels to the connection between Mars Hills music ministry and Seattles vibrant indie music scene.
By identifying Mars Hills mimicry and re-inscription of local concert culture aesthetics, I posit secular ritual in a sacred space
has created a potent ritual environment, contributing massively to the churchs appeal among a majority unchurched demo-
graphic. Ultimately, I emphasize the central role of popular music forms in the contemporary proliferation of megachurches.
Session 1-54 (SEM), [Link]
Sampling Black Atlantic Memory in the Postcolony
Christina Zanfagna (Santa Clara University), Chair
Hes Callin His Flock Now: Sefyus Postcolonial Critique and the Sound of Double Consciousness
[Link] Rollefson (University of California, Berkeley)
On the :cco track En Noir et Blanc the Parisian rapper Sefyu (Youssef Soukouna) makes the case that black and white
thinking is a form of colonial nostalgia for supposed purer times. Notably, to make his case that mixit is nothing tragic,
the track traverses the Black Atlantic from Paris via Senegal to New Orleans, indexing the sonic contours of black American
music and articulating them to the global experience of postcoloniality. Sefyus track establishes the transatlantic intertextual
link by sampling Nina Simone performing Ellington/Strayhorns Hey, Buddy Bolden from the :,,o musical allegory A Drum
is a Woman. Te sample is a splintered and echoing phoneme from the line: When Buddy Bolden tuned up you could hear
him clean across the river. Indeed, Simones track about Bolden, the New Orleans trumpeter who Ted Gioia calls the elusive
father of jazz ends with the lines Hes callin his fock now. Here they come . . . In this paper, I embed a deep reading of
Sefyus track in the context of my feldwork experiences with hip hop communities in Paris to underscore Sefyus underlying
assertion that double consciousness is the particularly American form of the global postcolonial condition. In so doing, I
introduce Edward Saids dialectical or polyphonic model of contrapuntal analysis from his :,,, Culture and Imperialism
as a frame to argue that we can hear the interdependence of colonizer and colonized resonating in hip hops production of a
paradoxically commercial authenticity and conclude that hip hop is a constitutively postcolonial art form.
Modernities Remixed: Music as Memory in Rap Galsen
Catherine Appert (University of California, Los Angeles)
Dakars soundscape is permeated by mbalax, the popular musical hybrid of imported and local musics that emerged shortly
after Senegals independence from France in :,oc and continues to occupy a central place in Senegalese media, social events,
and daily life. Since the :,cs, however, many urban youth have gravitated towards hip hop as a creative outlet, often incorpo-
rating indigenous elements into their music. Based on twelve months of ethnographic research in Dakar, this paper examines
hip hop tracks as musical narratives of overlapping and interconnected historical eras and geographical locations, and posits
Senegalese hip hop performance as aural palimpsest memories of colonial, postcolonial, and neocolonial racialized struggle on
both sides of the Atlantic. In Dakar, the residual dislocations of colonialism loosen youths connections to traditional social
networks even as lasting indigenous social norms concerning both musical practice and intergenerational relationships limit
their means of negotiating contemporary, globally situated urban space. Tis paper explores how Senegalese youth increas-
ingly turn from mbalax, the modern tradition of a postcolonial urban population, towards an alternative, spatially distinct ur-
ban modernity signifed in hip hops aural layering of histories of African American experience. Trough practices of sampling
that intertextually engage hip hop and local music, and through insisting on hip hops essential Americanness, rather than its
indigenous roots or hybrid revisions, Senegalese hip hop articulates against an historic yet dynamic Black Atlantic nexus. Tis
transatlantic engagement of local music and globalized hip hop strategically remixes distinct experiences of postcoloniality,
creating a voice for marginalized Senegalese youth.
El Madi Fate (Te Past is Gone): Moroccan Hip Hop, Urban Nostalgia and Nass el-Ghiwane
Kendra Salois (University of California, Berkeley)
From their frst release in :,;c, the legendary Casablancan band Nass el-Ghiwane voiced a nostalgia which placed local
expressions of Muslim piety at the center of their imagined past subject. As second-generation migrants from around the
country, the band members combined a variety of inherited expressive traditions in their urban milieu to create what is
credited as the frst national popular music. Grounded in the local and global Black Atlantic forms of the Moroccan Gnawa
and :,;cs rock, their music nonetheless reafrmed the discursive bond between Moroccan identity and Muslim faith. Today,
young Moroccan hip hop musicians, especially those born and raised in Casablanca, proudly claim descent from this creative
lineage. Tis paper argues that Nass el-Ghiwanes potent brand of nostalgia, produced during the political, economic, and
cultural instability of the :,;cs, provides sonic and ethical inspiration for Casablancan youth struggling to defne themselves
54
, Tursday Afternoon: Session 1- AMS/SEM/SMT New Orleans :o::
under the equally profound instability wrought by neoliberalization. Armed with hip hops aesthetic and critical approaches,
musicians legitimate themselves to defenders and detractors alike by quoting cherished Nass el-Ghiwane lyrics, imitating
the bands arrangement and performance practices, and invoking their narratives of loss in contemporary critiques of socio-
economic change. In sampling lyrical, musical, and sentimental resources from Nass el-Ghiwane, hip hop musicians not only
authenticate themselves within the transnational hip hop tradition by reappropriating their heritage, but also argue for their
fundamentally urban, contemporary Moroccan identity, one with its own distinctive expressions of Muslim faith.
Session 1-55 (SEM), [Link]
Where the Other Black Girls Rock, Trash, and Grind!:
Black Women Challenging Limitations in Performance and Fandom in Popular Music
Birgitta Johnson (University of South Carolina), Chair
All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, But Some of Us Are Brave:
Te Cultural Politics of Black Women Musicians with an Axe to Grind
Mashadi Matabane (Emory University)
Black women have a broad participation as musicians in the United States from the eighteenth century to the present. Yet
the architecture of their musicianship, with the electric guitar in particular, remains obscured. An iconic American instru-
ment important to the creation, innovation and spread of blues, gospel, and rock, powerful racial-gender politics have heavily
invested in a tenacious representational domination and idealized elevation of the electric guitar as a culturally white and/
or masculine enterprise. My title is borrowed from the canonical black womens studies book of the same name as a way to
describe popular cultural representations and academic scholarship where white male electric guitarists are privileged, all the
women seem to be white and all the blacks are men. By comparison, pioneers like Memphis Minnie, Sister Rosetta Tar-
pe, and Peggy Lady Bo Jones; and their contemporary guitar-playing counterparts like B.B. Queen, Tamar-kali, Suzanne
Tomas, and Shelley Doty (to name a few) are under acknowledged. Why is their cultural presence still so powerfully over-
looked, rendered spectacle or as an anomaly? Trough a black feminist theoretical analysis coupled with oral history interviews
conducted with diferent electric guitarists, this paper considers how the electric guitar impacts their self-presentation, cultural
expression, and performance practice. It also considers how these musicians: :) challenge dominant social meanings and cul-
tural fantasies about the instrument, :) demonstrate creative possibilities valuable to the politics of location specifc to black
women in the United States, and ,) critique popular (often narrow, pathologized) representations of the black female body.
Black Metal is not for n@#$s, stupid b@#h!: Black Female Metal Fans Inter/External Culture Clash
Laina Dawes (Independent Scholar)
Within the past three decades, thanks to the advent of music video stations and the relative ease of online technology, a
cultural and ethnically diverse populace has had unlimited access to a myriad of musical genres and cultures. Despite this,
musical preference for certain genres of music is still thought to be based on race and economic class lines in popular culture,
and those who choose to avoid those lines and participate in musical cultures outside of what they are perceived to listen to,
are often regarded as race traitors or racially confused.
Tis paper will highlight research I conducted in preparation for the writing of my book, What Are You Doing Here, which
focuses on Black women who are involved in the metal, hardcore and punk scenes. While my research and interview respon-
dents are involved in the extreme musical cultures and well-versed in their own racial authenticity, the confict they face within
their families, communities and among other participants in their chosen musical scene can serve as a deterrent in enjoying
and participating in their passion. I will also discuss the role that extreme musical genres has had in shaping not only the
cultural identity among Black female listeners, but has also assisted them in boosting their individuality, self-esteem and has
served as a healthy outlet to express anger and frustration in a healthy way.
Women of the L.A. Undergrind: Female Artists Creating
Alternatives to Mainstream Hip-hops Plastic Ceiling
Birgitta Johnson (University of South Carolina)
With the exception of Nicki Minaj, many have noted the deafening absence of female hip-hop artists in mainstream
popular music. For those who remember rap musics early commercial periods when women regularly rocked crowds and the
Billboard singles charts, the lack of female artists is yet another indicator that hip-hop culture has been co-opted by corporate
capitalism. For those whose view of women in hip-hop is limited to video vixens and references to artists of the :,cs, the
55
Abstracts Tursday Afternoon: Session 1- ,
absence of female artists reinforces beliefs that hip-hop is an all boys club mired in hyper-masculinity and misogyny. Te
absence of headlining female artist in the twenty-frst century, however, is not due to lack of viable artists. Te underground
scenes of urban America include many skilled artists daring to have a voice in a commercial genre currently lacking a signif-
cant chorus of female perspectives. Tese women and the fans that support them have been aided by afordable production
software, electronic social networking, artists collectives, and hip-hop feminist scholarship. So why hasnt all this activity
broken through mainstream hip-hops plastic ceiling? Tis paper will delineate the myths about female hip-hop performers
that have fostered a virtual gender lockout in mainstream hip-hop. Second, it will describe the response of female artists to
being under-represented and how technology has empowered them to sidestep limitations to create alternative paths for artis-
tic expression. Lastly, it will profle one teenage female emcee/songwriter and a west coast all female collective based in Los
Angeles to illustrate this current era of empowerment for women in hip-hop performance culture.
55
Tursday Evening, 1 November
Session 1-56 (AMS), [Link]
Te Art of War: American Popular Music and Sociopolitical Confict, 18601945
Albin Zak (University at Albany, SUNY), Chair
Goodbye, Old Arm: Civil War Veterans Disabilities in Popular Songs
Devin Burke (Case Western Reserve University)
Te Civil War rendered hundreds of thousands of Americans disabled. Over ,,ccc of these soldiers survived the war with
amputated limbs, fngers, hands, and joints. Te violence and resulting vast population of disabled veterans deeply challenged
American beliefs about disability, masculinity, and patriotism. Before the war, the image of the patriotic soldier was the
healthy white male. After the war, the amputation stump became visual shorthand for military service and sacrifce.
In music, this cultural shift manifested in two diferent kinds of Civil War popular songs about veterans disabilities. Te
frst kind of song illustrates the pre-war conception of disability as defectiveness. I focus on two representative songs, Te In-
valid Corps and How Are You Exempt? Each song presents a parade of people who are judged medically unft to fght, and
both musically and lyrically the songs depict the disabled as comically grotesque fgures. Tese songs and others also confate
the disabled with women, African-Americans, and other categories of people considered to be physically defective at the time.
Te second kind of song presents the emergent post-war conception of veterans disability as patriotic and even erotic. I
focus on several songs which appeared in multiple versions by diferent composers, including Good-bye, Old Arm and Te
Empty Sleeve. Tese songs were popular enough that both civilian and military authors produced versions, and they were
printed by major publishers such as Oliver Ditson and Company. Te versions of Good-bye, Old Arm in particular present
richly-layered depictions of disability. In every version, a soldier sings a farewell ballad to his freshly-amputated arm, thanking
the arm for its virile strength and loyalty to the Union. Tese songs present the disabled veteran, and indeed the amputated
arm itself, as complex symbols of both patriotism and Victorian heterosexual masculinity.
Maryland, My Maryland: Regionalism, Patriotism, and the Song of a Divided Nation
Jim Davis (SUNY Fredonia)
Popular music is a particularly efective tool for mapping the turbulent social landscape of the American Civil War; in the
words of eyewitness William Gilmore Simms, music shows with what spirit the popular mind regarded the course of events,
whether favorable or adverse; and, in this aspect, it is even of more importance to the writer of history than any mere chronicle
of facts. While the lyrics of these songs echo the attitudes and beliefs of individuals and entire communities, the contrasting
uses and receptions of certain pieces also reveal how musical practice emulated the wars distinctive personal and ideological
conficts.
Drawing on letters, diaries, and memoirs of soldiers and civilians, this paper investigates the genesis and reception of James
R. Randalls Maryland, My Maryland (:o:) and the various factors that infuenced its rapid rise, fall, and revival during
and after the war. Maryland, My Maryland exemplifed the symbiosis between popular music and the Civil War, not in
the way it supported a particular political agenda, but in how its stormy reception unintentionally refected the contradictory
motivations behind the confict. For example, Maryland, My Maryland was written in Louisiana, not Maryland; its bel-
ligerent and romanticized lyrics were set to a college song cum Christmas hymn that was then used as a martial tune; and it
became one of a handful of Southern anthems even though it celebrated a state that never joined the Confederacy. Te story
of Maryland, My Maryland involves quintessential patriotic tropes side by side with paradoxes that mirror the social discord
produced by the war. Mixed reactions to the piece exposed the expanding gulf between soldier and civilian listeners along
with the unavoidable tension between regional loyalty and national patriotism that characterized the American Civil War.
Musical Comedy Meets Musical Nationalism: Rodgers and Harts On Your Toes and WPA America
Dan Blim (University of Michigan)
On Your Toes (:,,o) was one of Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Harts most successful musicals and one of their most revolu-
tionary. Te frst musical to credit the role of choreographer, On Your Toes astonished audiences with two full-length ballets
choreographed by the recent European migr George Balanchine. Scholars have largely positioned On Your Toes as an im-
portant precursor to Oklahoma! and West Side Story due to its integration of dance into the plot. Yet this view has overlooked
the contradictory reception of the ballets at the time and the contemporaneous debates about American musical nationalism
in which On Your Toes actively participated.
Abstracts Tursday Evening: Session 1- ;
Te show revolves around the commissioning, composing, and performing of Slaughter on Tenth Avenue, a WPA-pro-
duced jazz ballet, in contrast to the imported European ballet La Princesse Zenobia. A thorough examination of newspaper
coverage, critical reviews, and oral histories with cast members reveals contradictions in reception and deeper anxieties about
ballet and popular music within American culture. La Princesse Zenobia, provoked starkly diferent reactions among audi-
ences along socioeconomic lines, while Slaughter on Tenth Avenue was simultaneously held in high regard as a paragon of
serious American art and as an uproarious satiric jab at artistic modernism.
Tis paper contextualizes this contradiction within wider debates within the WPA about the roles of European highbrow
art, epitomized by ballet, and the American vernacular music of jazz and Tin Pan Alley within the WPAs mission of foster-
ing American musical nationalism. Drawing on government reports and documents, libretto and score drafts, and the career
ambitions of Balanchine and Rodgers, I demonstrate how questions of class, race, and gender shaped both the production and
reception of the ballets in On Your Toes, and how the Broadway musical sought to answer the WPAs challenge to establish a
vernacular American art form.
Session 1-57 (AMS), [Link]
Charles Ivess Fourth Symphony and the Past, Present, and Future of Ives Scholarship
[Link] Burkholder (Indiana University), Geofrey Block (University of Puget Sound), Christopher Bruhn
(Denison University), Dorothea Gail (University of Michigan), DavidC. Paul (University of California,
Santa Barbara), Wayne Shirley (Library of Congress), JamesB. Sinclair (Charles Ives Society)
In January :c:: the Charles Ives Society published the critical edition of Ivess opus magnum: the Fourth Symphony. Using
this work as a starting point, the panel refects on the past, present and future of Ives scholarship, asking whether we may have
reached the end of a phase in scholarship focusing on the deconstruction of Ives myths. Te panel then assesses new paths
for future Ives research, both in the technical understanding of Ivess music as well as more culturally determined approaches
to the Ives phenomenon.
J. Peter Burkholder was a longtime president of the Charles Ives Society. His books, especially All Made of Tunes (:,,,),
dispel many of the myths which had depicted Ives as a dilettante totally detached from the classical tradition. Burkholders
work enables the recent fourishing of serious Ives scholarship.
Geofrey Block pioneered the scholarly study of the Concord Sonata in a Cambridge monograph (:,,o). Writing about
this signature piece, he met a challenge all too familiar in Ives researchcovering huge swathes of unexplored terrain all by
himself.
Questions of chronology are particularly relevant to reassessing the myths around the degree to which Ives was an outlier
from the mainstream. Challenged perhaps by the provocative article of Maynard Solomon, Wayne Shirley examined Ivess :,:,
draft of Fourth of July to demonstrate how overtly modern Ives already was in this early period. Shirley has also contributed to
the Ives critical edition, especially by editing the last movement of the Fourth Symphony.
Coming out of a particular tradition of German Ives scholarship, Dorothea Gail conducted extensive archival research
into the manuscripts of Ivess Fourth Symphony to establish a compositional history by careful analysis of the compositional
process. In her :cc, German language monograph Charles E. Ives Fourth Symphony she documents the complex world of revi-
sions, analyzes the work and refers to its multiple meanings.
James B. Sinclair is executive editor of the Charles Ives Society. Tis function requires balancing the needs of professional
scholarship with the realities of the condition of Ivess manuscripts. In :,,, he published the new catalogue of Ivess works, the
starting point for serious research on the manuscripts. As a conductor he is also able to share a specifc knowledge of perform-
ing and recording these works.
Christopher Bruhn examined Ivess Concord Sonata through the philosophy of William James. Bruhn considers the Fourth
Symphony a crucial element in a musical multiverse of Ivess works that are closely related to the Concord. Te Fourths deeply
spiritual content also resonates with Jamess well-known series of lectures, Te Varieties of Religious Experience.
David C. Paul is fnishing a book about Ivess reception history. It sheds light on the diferent images of Ives resulting from
a centurys worth of artistic philosophies, political agendas, and scholarly paradigms: pioneer of musical modernism, Cold
War icon, victim of socio-sexual mores of Gilded Age American culture, and perpetrator of one of the greatest musical hoaxes
of all time.
57
Tursday Evening: Session 1- AMS/SEM/SMT New Orleans :o::
Session 1-58 (AMS), [Link]
Fantasy, Cinema, Sound, and Music
Mark Brill (University of Texas at San Antonio), Chair
James Deaville (Carleton University), [Link] Stephen (University of Texas
at San Antonio), JamieLynn Webster (Portland, Ore.)
Tis panel examines the way in which music and sound articulate the fantastic in cinema and contribute to the creation of
fantasy narratives. Te four panelists have written extensively on the subject, and will spearhead discussion of the multiple
ways in which composers portray and comment on narrative and aesthetic issues that are unique to the fantasy flm genre,
comparing various methods and approaches. Selected flm excerpts illustrate these points, and much time is allocated for
audience comments and participation.
Mark Brill (Fantasy and the Exotic Other: Te Films of Ray Harryhausen) begins the discussion by examining the depic-
tion of the exotic Other in the music for the flms of Ray Harryhausen. Te scores by Bernard Herrmann and Mikls Rzsa
are replete with essential Oriental signifers inherited from nineteenth century writers, artists and composers, and refect an
Orientalist discourse that remained prevalent in fantasy flm in the :,,cs and :,ocs. Te composers embraced the literary and
classical aspects of each flm, emphasizing depictions of heroism, and fantastical and mythological creatures and events for
which Harryhausen was famous.
James Deaville (Sword and Sorcery: Fantasy Films in the :,cs) contrasts this tradition with a discussion of a new genre
of fantasy flm that emerged during the :,cs which came to be known as sword and sorcery, encompassing such titles as Te
Beastmaster, Conan the Barbarian, and Krull. Tese releases distinguished themselves from earlier mythological flms (based
on fgures like Hercules, Jason, and Sinbad) in that they featured newly created characters from mythical, barbaric ages. To
conjure up this world, composers relied upon primitivist musical gestures (percussive timbres, powerful rhythms, etc.) and
heroic motifs (e.g. fanfare-like brass motives). While both had existed in previous cinema, their combination comprised the
new style and distinguished the sword and sorcery scores of Lee Holdridge, Basil Poledouris, and James Horner.
Drew Stephen (Who Wants to Live Forever: Glam Rock, Queen and Fantasy Film) examines the scores of the rock group
Queen for the flms Flash Gordon and Highlander, which are notable for their prominent use of rock music and the unprec-
edented involvement of rock musicians in the creative process. Te scores established a new vocabulary of musical gestures
that stood in stark contrast to the orchestral scores that were ubiquitous in fantasy flms of this era. By considering both
scores within the discursive parameters of heavy metal and glam rock, Stephen demonstrates the ways that rock music styles
and elementstimbre, rhythm, meter, mode, harmony, formsupport dramatic situations and convey power, strength, and
heroism.
Jamie Lynn Webster (Creating Magic with Music: Te Changing Dramatic Relationship between Music and Magic in
Harry Potter Films) focuses on the phenomenally popular Harry Potter flms. Although much research has focused on de-
fning the properties and limits of the Classic Hollywood style, audiovisual analysis of these flmsfor which a sequence of
directors and composers took partreveals how the accumulation of small variations in the technical approaches to musical
underscore ultimately results in signifcant diferences in both the experience of the flms and the ideological interpretations
of the story. Aesthetic diference makes a diference in this flm series, thus articulating stylistic subcategories within the
Classic Hollywood style and refecting contemporary applications of the style within mainstream fantasy flm.
Session 1-59 (AMS/SEM/SMT), [Link]
Fifty Years of Bossa Nova in the United States
Frederick Moehn (Universidade Nova de Lisboa) and Jason Stanyek (University of Oxford), Co-Chairs
Carla Brunet (University of California, Berkeley), Larry Crook (University of Florida),
Christopher Dunn (Tulane University), Kariann Goldschmitt (New College of Florida), Sumanth
Gopinath (University of Minnesota), Charles Kronengold (Stanford University), Darien Lamen
(University of Pennsylvania), Charles Perrone (University of Florida), Irna Priore (University
of North Carolina, Greensboro), Marc Gidal (Ramapo College of New Jersey)
Te :c:: conference of the AMS/SEM/SMT coincides almost precisely with the fftieth anniversary of one of the most fa-
mous concerts of popular music in U.S. history: the evening of bossa nova that took place at Carnegie Hall on November ::,
:,o:. Te performance featured major American jazz musicians and more than twenty Brazilian singers and instrumentalists,
most of whom had traveled to New York expressly for the concert. Crucially, many of these Brazilian artists chose to remain
in the United States after the show and, almost immediately, a deluge of recordings by American jazz and pop musicians made
in collaboration with their Brazilian counterparts ensued. Most conspicuous was Getz/Gilberto, an album that would go on to
5859
Abstracts Tursday Evening: Session 1- )
win two Grammy awards and irrevocably alter the trajectory of popular music in the U.S. Indeed, ffty years after the Carnegie
Hall concert, bossa nova continues to have an extremely resonant presence in the United States: it is heard practically without
cease in restaurants, elevators and waiting rooms, and its grooves have been featured widely in lounge mixes and in drum-
and-bass fusions. In the jazz world, bossa nova standards are perennial, and the genres rhythmic sensitivity and distinctive
harmonic language can be applied to just about any song.
As one of the worlds most heard and performed musics, bossa nova is richly deserving of extensive, cross-disciplinary
analysis. Te two co-organizers of this :c-minute joint session of alternative format roundtable bring together nine schol-
arswith at least two from each of the three participating societiesto provide varied critical perspectives on bossas history
in the U.S. All of the participants are contributors to an edited volume under contract with Oxford University Press tentatively
entitled Brazils Northern Wave: Fifty Years of Bossa Nova in the United States and, for this roundtable, each presenter gives a
ten-minute-long presentation. A range of topics is considered, including: the aesthetics of sonic smoothness; bossas studio-
driven arrangement practices; new patterns of rhythmic accompaniment developed by North American bossa drummers;
bossa novas re-imaginings of Brazilian femininity in the American context; the development of the idea of tropical cool;
bossas ubiquity and the distracted listening of the new global bourgeoisie; the complexities of translation entailed in
rendering Portuguese lyrics into English versions; bossa novas place within recent transnational remix economies; the politics
and aesthetics of accent in non-Brazilian performances of Portuguese-language bossa standards.
With a balance of historical, ethnographic and musical-analytic approaches, this diverse series of critical investigations into
bossa novas presence in the United States holds great signifcance for conference attendees from each of the participating so-
cieties. Presentations include carefully chosen audio-visual examples stitched into a single PowerPoint presentation to enable
smooth transitions between segments, and the two organizers provide an introduction to the central problematics of studying
bossas transnational history. Individual papers are punctuated with brief, pre-written responses by the panelists and also with
performative interludes that disambiguate bossas sonic structures. Te last hour of the session is devoted to discussion with
the audience.
Session 1-60 (SMT), 8:00-11:00
French Music, Ancient and Modern
Marianne Wheeldon (University of Texas at Austin), Chair
Composing with Ornaments: Couperin, Brahms, and Ravel
Byron Sartain (Stanford University)
When we think of Franois Couperin, we think of ornamentation. Yet his ornaments, conventionally understood as mere
embellishments, often stigmatize his work as musically insubstantial. Were the decorative surface stripped away, the simplest
of shapes would remain, writes Richard Taruskin in his Oxford History, issuing the standard charge against Couperins opu-
lent textures.
Unfortunately, the perception of Couperins harpsichord pieces as ornamented music only obscures his compositional prin-
ciples. I suggest instead that his work is more sympathetically and fruitfully understood as music of ornaments. Preference for
the noun (which Couperin used exclusively) over the verb comes with several implications. Most directly, it raises the question
of how he uses ornaments as phrase-building materials rather than as cosmetic enhancements. Furthermore, in such a compo-
sitional scheme, other musical elements can function as ornaments at broader structural levels. As I demonstrate, Couperins
structural ornaments take several forms: basic motives subject to permutation; sequenced phrases exploring diverse tonal areas;
varied and extended repetitions; extra measures that break phrase patterns, and supplemental voices that intermittently enrich
textures.
Tis perspective might also help explain later composers interest in Couperins music. Te Prelude and Rigaudon from Rav-
els Tombeau de Couperin, for instance, demonstrate all of the characteristics listed above. Brahmss music does not simulate
Couperins so clearly, but his developing variations principle does echo Couperins use of structural ornaments. Selections
from Brahmss late piano workscomposed throughout his involvement with Chrysanders edition of Couperins harpsichord
musicreveal several compositional afnities signaling shared (though likely not borrowed) musical goals.
Hearing Improvisation in the French Baroque Harpsichord Prelude
StephenC. Grazzini (Indiana University)
Although the French baroque harpsichord prelude was primarily an improvised genre, nearly a hundred written examples
have survived. Most of these written preludes use some form of unmeasured notation, and this is where students of the genre
have tended to focus their attention, seeking to codify its use of symbols or to identify familiar rhythmic patterns beneath the
unfamiliar surfaces. Tis paper argues, however, that the notation should only be a preliminary concern. Te real interest of
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these pieces is in the way that they relate back to improvisationunderstood in this case both as a practice of extemporaneous
playing, and as a historical concept related to freedom, spontaneity, and imagination.
I begin by characterizing the preludes as model performances, pieces that demonstrate a method of improvising preludes
using the techniques of continuo accompaniment. Next, I compare this implicit improvisation method to those described
in recent studies of German baroque keyboard music and pedagogy. Te German-inspired methods tend to rely on prede-
termined harmonic plans and patterns of fguration. And although this might be a pedagogical simplifcation, it does serve
aesthetic ends: it encourages tonal and motivic coherence, perhaps in order to conceal the fact that a piece is being improvised.
Te French preludes, on the other hand, with their irregular patterns of rhythm and fguration and their non-teleological ap-
proach to form, seem designed to highlight this fact. I conclude by suggesting that these aspects of the preludes style are based
on a coherent view of improvisation as a process of exploring.
Messiaen and the Composers Eye: Analyzing Debussy in the Trait
TimothyB. Cochran (Westminster Choir College)
Amid volumes of self-refective theories, Tome VI of Messiaens Trait de rythme, de couleur, et dornithologie features analy-
ses of Debussys music exclusively. Tis paper will demonstrate how Messiaens analytical insights often emanate from theo-
ries, concepts, and personal afnities that inform his own work.
I have chosen three of Messiaens analytical concepts to examine within the context of his wider compositional practice.
First, I demonstrate how Messiaens description of Debussys rhythm of dynamics manifests his theory of rhythm as multi-
parametric, and depends on concepts essential to his own Quatre tudes de rythme. Next, I turn to Messiaens analyses of
Debussys dominant-ninth chords avec la tonique la place de la sensible, in which he often treats the leading-tone as an unre-
solved appoggiatura above the core structure of a suspended V, chord. Tis same distinction between an altered V, sonority
and added appoggiaturas is essential to several of Messiaens invented chords. Finally, I read Messiaens analysis of inexact
augmentation in Debussy as a token expression of his afnity for additive procedures that yield disproportionate expansion;
such interpretations are bound up with his signature use of ancient Indian rhythmic formulae.
By situating Messiaens approach to Debussy within his vast network of theories and techniques, this paper demonstrates
that Messiaens analysis and composition are not activities divorced from one another, but are united by similar conceptions
of musical structure.
Takemitsus Dialogue with Debussy: What Quotation of Dream Can Teach Us about La mer
Douglas Rust (University of Southern Mississippi)
Toru Takemitsus :,,: two-piano concerto, entitled Quotation of Dream, and Debussys classic symphonic tone poem, La
mer, share an uncommon relationship where the later composition contains seventeen brief quotations of the earlier work (and
each quotation is labeled on the published score). Tis situation lends itself to a music analysis that is intertextualone that
builds upon post-structural approaches to literary theory and semiotics from the latter twentieth century to better understand
the relationships between these two texts. Te approach used in this presentation relies upon the work of Michael Klein, whose
:cc, book suggests many diferent approaches to intertextual interpretation that can be useful for music analysis. One of these
approaches, developed from the semiotics of Umberto Eco (:,;o), recognizes signifcant musical passages (in our context, the
quotations of Debussy) as nodes in a network of signs that interpret each other, using references to other works and a contex-
tual analysis of each quotation to introduce conventions of form and structure that lend specifc syntactic meanings to each
quoted passage. Some of the quotations retain their original syntax while others do nota situation that tempers the efect
of each quoted excerpt upon its new context. Tese interpretations of syntax will provide a new perspective upon the formal
design and aesthetic ambitions of Takemitsus piece, and they will suggest ways in which Takemitsus artistic response to La
mer could infuence our own.
Session 1-61 (AMS/SEM), [Link]
Method in Collaboration
Combined Meeting of the AMS Jewish Studies and Music SG and SEM SIG for Jewish Music
JudahM. Cohen (Indiana University), Moderator
Te meetings frst half features a presentation by Philip Bohlman (University of Chicago) entitled Geographies of Jewish
Music Research. Tis topic provides the basis for discussion of problematic methodology within studies on Jewish music as
well as consideration of remedy in interdisciplinary collaboration. With prominent participation by the assembled leadership
of both groups, including the recently elected chair, Lily E. Hirsch, and board members of the JSMSG board members
Philip Bohlman, Judah Cohen, Klra Mricz, and Ronit Seterthe sessions second half concerns the goals of the JSMSG
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as they relate to those of SEMs Special Interest Group for Jewish Music as well as communication about future cooperation
between the two groups. With this agenda, this meeting stimulates evaluation of recent trends in approaches to Jewish music
as well as collaborative response.
Session 1-62 (SMT), 8:00-11:00
Methodology in Mathematical Music Teory: A Panel DiscussionSpecial Session
JasonD. Yust (Boston University), Chair
RachelWells Hall (Saint Josephs University), Guerino Mazzola (University of Minnesota),
Steven Rings (University of Chicago), Dmitri Tymoczko (Princeton University)
Te extensive interface of music theory and mathematics can be seen in the diversity of research that draws on both. While
researchers come to mathematical music theory from many diferent backgrounds and with many diferent goals, they share
one challenge: the combination of disciplines inevitably provokes refections on methodology and the role of mathematics in
music-theoretic reasoning.
Te discussion will begin with position papers from each of the four panelists. Dmitri Tymoczko will advocate for explana-
tory and compositional uses of mathematics in music over aesthetic and formalist applications (the latter represented by
David Lewin and Guerino Mazzola). Mazzola will argue that musical creativity in composition and theory can be semioti-
cally deepened and made precise by use of mathematical abstraction, drawing on his own work and presenting an illustrative
interpretation of the variations from Beethovens op. :c,. Steven Rings will consider the relationship between mathematical
representations and musical experience, arguing against a soft Platonism in which mathematical statements are considered
more true to musical experience precisely by virtue of being mathematical. Rachel Hall will address the uniquely interdisci-
plinary nature of mathematical music theory from an applied mathematicians perspective, focusing on the friction between
rigorous mathematics and aesthetics in Lewins approach to music analysis.
After the position papers each of panelists will ofer a short response of up to ten minutes apiece, drawing on elements of
the three other position papers. Te discussion will then open to questions from the audience and free discussion among the
panelists and with audience members.
Session 1-63 (AMS), [Link]
Moving Roots of Music: Te Many Worlds within
New Orleans
Bruce Raeburn (Tulane University), Chair
William Buckingham (University of Chicago), Shane Lief (Tulane University), Robin
Moore (University of Texas at Austin), Ned Sublette (New York, N.Y.)
A more comprehensive understanding of New Orleans culture involves adopting a transnational frame of reference that con-
siders infuences on jazz and other genres from beyond the boundaries of the United States. Tis panel aims to challenge the
assumptions of established narratives about musical styles associated with New Orleans, as detailed in Bruce Raeburns New
Orleans Style and the Writing of American Jazz History. Suspending concepts of genre enables a fresh look at the actual musical
practices of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, many of which do not fall neatly into any present-day categories
of performance. Tis panel also takes as a point of departure Alejandro Madrids observations in the colloquy Studying U.S.
Music in the Twenty-First Century in the latest issue of JAMS: Te white-black racial dichotomy that has dominated the
U.S. national imagination for most of the countrys history has been central in defning the idea of American music and,
thereby, in shaping musicology as a discipline in the United States during the late twentieth and twenty-frst centuries. In
light of this racial discourse, we can read the academic validation of jazz, for example, not only as a triumph for broadening
the curriculum but also as a sign of the disturbing ethnic imaginary that sees the United States as a black-and-white nation.
In response, our panel discussion explores new possibilities of understanding New Orleans music in a rich context of multiple
languages and cultural identities. Will Buckingham discusses pedagogical practices and modes of socialization, presenting
on selected New Orleans music teachers such as Peter Davis and Manuel Manetta and assessing their pedagogical activities
in the context of their ethnic and racial identities. Shane Lief discusses musicians of various cultural backgrounds, including
Armand Veazey and Antonio Maggio, and examine their careers in the context of diferent linguistic communities in New Or-
leans at the previous turn of the century. Robin Moore focuses on Hispanic and Francophone contributions to New Orleans
cultures in the early twentieth century as a means of critiquing jazz historiography and the frequently nationalist discourses
with which it is associated. Ned Sublette explores the impact of recording technology and describe New Orleans music in
terms of a multidimensional kalunga line (referring to the Kongo concept of the threshold dividing the land of the living from
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that of the dead), refecting shifting social categories. Bruce Raeburn chairs the ensuing discussion among the participants
and audience. Tis session therefore includes both established and emerging scholars who seek a broader context for tracing
the development of New Orleans music. Grounded in the details of the most recent historical research, the panel discussion
looks past the conventional mythologies surrounding the genesis of New Orleans music and explore the wide range of cultural
traditions that defy inherited paradigms of interpretation.
Session 1-64 (AMS), [Link]
Music and Nature: Relations, Awareness, Knowledge
Aaron Allen (University of North Carolina, Greensboro), Chair
From Pythagorean hammers to acoustic guitar construction, listening to nature as a historical, contingent, and changing
part of our lives has become an increasingly important part of the intellectual work of music scholarship. Tis panel explores
the way beliefs about musics nature have shaped our relationship with the non-human world. Our three panelistsan ethno-
musicologist, a musicologist, and a music theoristengage with natures place in English guitar workshops, with musics role
in the politics of ecological awareness, and with the ambiguous status of natural laws for modern tonality. Taken together,
these talks raise questions about musics place at the line between natural power and social responsibility that are especially
poignant for the New Orleans location of AMS/SEM/SMT :c::.
Tis panel positions music scholarship as a discourse that speaks across our three professional societies and beyond them
to engage with topics in environmental studies, ecology, cultural history, and the natural sciences through questions about
musical relations, musical awareness, and musical knowledge. With its breadth of scope and diversity of voices, this panel is a
platform for re-thinking traditional divisions between music and nature in music scholarship, and from there, for building
the groundwork to re-think the way studies of music can relate to a broader world that is more than human culture.
RELATIONSA Social and Environmental History of Small Guitar Workshops in England
Kevin Dawe (University of Leeds)
Guitar makers continue to put down roots worldwide, establishing a particular identity for their products. Increasingly,
luthier identities are linked to a well-established and cultivated sense of place, rooting their wares in a particular landscape
(even if wood supplies can come from far and wide), as if their work were a seamless expression of that landscape. For example,
Devon-based Brook guitars have models named after each of the rivers in that county. Tis is often accompanied by claims
to responsible natural resource use and management, and a small-is-beautiful business model, furthering claims to sustain-
ability with little impact on the natural surroundings (or nature someplace else). Signifcant in the small-scale cottage in-
dustry of guitar builders in England (as elsewhere) is the intimate but also idealized relationship between local craftsmanship,
ethno-aesthetics and place. Given the dwindling supplies of traditional tone-woods worldwide, evidence suggests that guitar
workshops draw attention to the potential success and sustainability of cottage industries that increasingly use local materi-
als. Te considerable symbolic power of the ubiquitous guitar, as well as the cachet attached to hand-built and custom made
instruments means, I argue, that the establishment and promotion of responsible and green workshops are signifcant and
afective in the environmental public sphere (even when they sell without the addition of green certifcation). Moreover, such
workshops and their products, as well as their personnel, are increasingly important (and presented as) emblems of local and
national identity, rurality, nostalgia and community building, in tune and in touch with the surrounding natural environ-
ment, its history, the English countryside, and the cultures and crafts of olde England, acting locally but thinking globally.
AWARENESSHello, the Earth is Speaking: Four Case Studies
of Ecological Composition, Performance, and Listening
Sabine Feisst (Arizona State University)
For many centuries nature has been a rich source of musical inspiration. Yet in the last six decades unprecedented envi-
ronmental disasters, the radioactive contamination of Japanese fshermen by the :,, nuclear fallout on Bikini Atoll, the
devastating efects of farm pesticides on wildlife in the U.S. and the recent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico have propelled
musicians worldwide to develop art that displays environmental awareness. In this paper I focus on four diferent artists ex-
ploring ecologically inspired composition, performance and listening: the French and Australian composers Luc Ferrari and
Leah Barclay, American clarinetist David Rothenberg, and American composer-accordionist Pauline Oliveros. I show how
these musicians have related to their non-human environments and expressed ecological concerns and probe whether their
creative activities advance ecological consciousness. I specifcally examine Ferraris All, ici la terre (:,;:;), an ecological
multimedia spectacle for orchestra, tape and slides; Leah Barclays Sound Mirrors (:c:c), an immersive sound installation fea-
turing the sound of rivers in Australia, India, Korea and China and their adjoining communities; Rothenbergs performances
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elevating whales and birds to equal musical partners through interspecies jamming; and Oliveross practice of Deep Listen-
ing rooted in ecological principles.
My study builds on research by such musicologists as Bhme-Mehner, Harley, Mche, Morris, Setar, Toliver, and Von
Glahn. I embrace concepts from ethnomusicology, literary eco-criticism, and environmental studies, drawing on writings
of Buell, Cunningham, Feld, Glotfelty, Guy, Krause, Solomon, Westling and others. I also use published and unpublished
statements of the artists in question. With the exception of Oliveross work, Ferraris, Barclays and Rothenbergs music have
received little attention in musicology. I thus intend to introduce their work into the musicological discourse and thereby hope
to contribute to a better understanding of the growing body of music concerned with one of the most pressing issues of our
timeenvironmental degradation.
KNOWLEDGENature, Culture, and the First Principle(s)
of Music: Two Myths of Teoretical Revelation
DavidE. Cohen (Columbia University)
Western music theory, for obvious reasons, has always been one of the chief sites in which nature and culture, variously
understood, stake their respective claims to be the source of the frst principle(s) of music. In this paper I examine two nar-
rativesin efect, mythsthat dramatize and fctionalize crucial moments in which such a purported frst principle is
supposedly frst revealed, thus inaugurating a new form or conception of music-theoretical knowledge based, respectively, in
nature or in culture. And, as myths often do, they not only say more than they intend; they also, as my deconstructive read-
ings show, say something like the opposite of what they intend.
Te legend of Pythagorass discovery of the ratios of the consonances in the ringing of the blacksmiths hammers (read here
in its earliest extant version), purports to tell of the revelation of a purely natural fact of acoustics, utterly independent of hu-
man culture, as the foundational frst principle of music. Yet culture, in the forms of metallurgy, social organization, and the
preexistence of musical instruments, pervades the story and indeed is indispensable to its plot: without it there could be no
knowledge of musics nature.
Two millenia later, Franois-Joseph Ftis (:;:;:)eminent music theorist and historian, and early promoter of musical
ethnographyrecounted a similarly fctionalized moment of epiphany, the revelation of the grand vision embraced by his
concept of tonalit, the principle underlying all musica principle which he sees as not acoustical or mathematical but meta-
physical, that is, aesthetic, psychological, and, most important, culturally determined through and through, so that each
people has its own unique tonalit and hence its own music. Yet, as I show, his principle is, in its own way, equally dependent
on natural facts of acoustics and mathematics.
One possible moral of these stories is that, since there was apparently never a time when the respective roles and relations of
nature and culture in music were as clearly defned as we might like them to be, it is perhaps we who should, in this regard as
in others, adjust our expectations.
Session 1-65 (SMT), 8:00-11:00
Schumann and Chopin
Michael Klein (Temple University), Chair
Acting Art Song: Musical Structure(s) as Subtext
Jefrey Swinkin (University of Michigan)
Te expert singer-actor develops an inner monologue for each song he or she sings, one that charts the mental and emotional
process as it unfolds over the course of the song. In developing this subtext, art-song stylists can draw upon the music-struc-
tural richness ofered by a Schubert, Schumann, or Brahms. Such structure, interpreted imaginatively and metaphoricallyas
analogous to emotional and psychological statescan provide fodder for an inner monologue, the rendering of which pro-
duces certain demonstrable music-interpretive variances.
Te difculty, however, with construing music-structural relations in this way is that they are susceptible to multiple in-
terpretations. Hence, such relations can be imbued with specifc signifcance only within a particular para-musical context.
Mine, in considering Schumanns Frauenliebe und -leben (Du Ring in particular), will be a feminist one. Building upon the
work of Suzanne Cusick and Ruth Solie, both of whom note the misogynist undercurrent of Schumanns chosen text, I shall
develop an interpretation of Du Ring in which the female protagonist swims against this current.
My process will be (:) to read the musical structure as consisting of parametric crosscurrentscounterposing, in particular,
hierarchical and horizontal domains that cannot be fully integrated, thus educing a potential source of unease and resistance;
(:) to infer from such a reading sentient states, which I will concretize in the form of an inner monologue; (,) to demonstrate,
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via a performance recorded by myself and a mezzo soprano, how this inner monologue produces and is on some level conveyed
by concrete interpretive nuances.
In Modo duna Tragedia: Narrative Reversal and Failed Transcendence
in the Second Movement of Schumanns Piano Quintet
Emily Gertsch (University of Georgia)
Tis paper explores the manner in which structural and expressive musical devices contribute to narrative in the second
movement of Robert Schumanns Piano Quintet (In Modo duna Marcia). Grounded in the methodologies of Byron Almn
and Robert Hatten, my approach seeks to enhance their theories by exploring how oppositions in foreground voice leading
can be mapped onto expressive oppositions, and therefore enrich the narrative interpretation. I will argue that, while this
movement contains many of the topical features one associates with tragedythe most prominent being the refrains minor-
key funeral marchSchumann presents formal and structural problems that complicate a tragic narrative reading. Te frst
part of my analysis will use Harold Blooms theory of the anxiety of infuence to speculate that Schumanns movement may
be a willful misreading of the rondo from Beethovens Pathtique sonata. Te remainder of the paper will provide detailed
structural support to trace musical oppositionsin topic, style, key, motive, hypermeter, texture, and foreground voice lead-
ingthat support a reading of this movement as a failed tragic-to-transcendent narrative.
Sonata Form in Chopin: An Evolutionary Perspective
AndrewI. Aziz (Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester)
Tis study examines Chopins developing use of sonata form, with specifc focus on the ways that formal innovations in
his piano concertos anticipate formal patterns in his late sonatas (Piano Sonatas no. : and no. ,, Cello Sonata). I examine
the role of the second-theme group (S) as a primary form-defning unit in Chopins sonatas, and reconsider a recent debate
between Wingfeld and Hepokoski/Darcy regarding the application of Type : analyses to Chopins works. While Wingfeld
proclaims that this analytical category is most appropriately applicable to binary forms composed in the eighteenth century
(:;c;c), I posit that the tendencies which evolve within Chopins forms, specifcally with regard to the S group, underscore
the Type : category, providing a foundation for reconsidering these traditional eighteenth-century forms in nineteenth-cen-
tury contexts. Part I tracks the evolution of the S group in Chopins early sonatas (Piano Sonata no. : and Piano Trio) and the
Piano Concerto