Synopses & Reviews
Performing Ethnomusicology is the first book to deal exclusively with creating, teaching, and contextualizing academic world music performing ensembles. Considering the formidable theoretical, ethical, and practical issues that confront ethnomusicologists who direct such ensembles, the sixteen essays in this volume discuss problems of public performance and the pragmatics of pedagogy and learning processes. Their perspectives, drawing upon expertise in Caribbean steelband, Indian, Balinese, Javanese, Philippine, Mexican, Central and West African, Japanese, Chinese, Middle Eastern, and Jewish klezmer ensembles, provide a uniquely informed and many-faceted view of this complicated and rapidly changing landscape. The authors examine the creative and pedagogical negotiations involved in intergenerational and intercultural transmission and explore topics such as reflexivity, representation, hegemony, and aesthetically determined interaction.
Performing Ethnomusicology affords sophisticated insights into the structuring of ethnomusicologists' careers and methodologies. This book offers an unprecedented rich history and contemporary examination of academic world music performance in the West, especially in the United States.
"Performing Ethnomusicology is an important book not only within the field of ethnomusicology itself, but for scholars in all disciplines engaged in aspects of performancehistorical musicology, anthropology, folklore, and cultural studies. The individual articles offer a provocative and disparate array of threads and themes, which Solís skillfully weaves together in his introductory essay. A book of great importance and long overdue."R. Anderson Sutton, author of Calling Back the Spirit
Contributors: Gage Averill, Kelly Gross, David Harnish, Mantle Hood, David W. Hughes, Michelle Kisliuk, David Locke, Scott Marcus, Hankus Netsky, Ali Jihad Racy, Anne K. Rasmussen, Ted Solís, Hardja Susilo, Sumarsam, Ricardo D. Trimillos, Roger Vetter, J. Lawrence Witzleben
Synopsis
"Both original and stimulating, this book presents widely known material in a highly theorized and organized manner. Very few authors write about the experiences ethnomusicologists confront while teaching in world music ensembles. The issues this book examinesrepresentation, authenticity, performance practice, to name a feware of great importance to the fields of ethnomusicology, anthropology, and related disciplines."Katherine J. Hagedorn, author of
Divine Utterances: The Performance of Afro-Cuban Santeria"An important book not only within the field of ethnomusicology itself, but for scholars in all disciplines engaged in aspects of performance--historical musicology, anthropology, folklore, and cultural studies. The individual articles offer a provocative and disparate array of threads and themes, which Solís skillfully weaves together in his introductory essay. A book of great importance and long overdue."R. Anderson Sutton, author of Calling Back the Spirit: Music, Dance, and Cultural Politics in Lowland South Sulawesi
About the Author
Ted Solís is Professor of Music in the School of Music at Arizona State University.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction. Teaching What Cannot Be Taught: An Optimistic Overview
Ted Solís
PART 1. SOUNDING THE OTHER: ACADEMIC WORLD MUSIC ENSEMBLES IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
1. Subject, Object, and the Ethnomusicology Ensemble: The Ethnomusicological "We" and "Them"
Ricardo D. Trimillos
2. "A Bridge to Java": Four Decades Teaching Gamelan in America
Hardja Susilo
3. Opportunity and Interaction: The Gamelan from Java to Wesleyan
Sumarsam
4. "Wheres One?": Musical Encounters of the Ensemble Kind
Gage Averill
PART 2. SQUARE PEGS AND SPOKESFOLK: SERVING AND ADAPTING TO THE ACADEMY
5. A Square Peg in a Round Hole: Teaching Javanese Gamelan in the Ensemble Paradigm of the Academy
Roger Vetter
6. "No, Not Bali Hai!": Challenges of Adaptation and Orientalism in Performing and Teaching Balinese Gamelan
David Harnish
7. Cultural Interactions in an Asian Context: Chinese and Javanese Ensembles in Hong Kong
J. Lawrence Witzleben
PART 3. PATCHWORKERS, ACTORS, AND AMBASSADORS: REPRESENTING OURSELVES AND OTHERS
8. "Cant Help but Speak, Cant Help but Play": Dual Discourse in Arab Music Pedagogy
Ali Jihad Racy
9. The African Ensemble in America: Contradictions and Possibilities
David Locke
10. Klez Goes to College
Hankus Netsky
11. Creating a Community, Negotiating Among Communities: Performing Middle Eastern Music for a Diverse Middle Eastern and American Public
Scott Marcus
PART 4. TAKE-OFF POINTS: CREATIVITY AND PEDAGOGICAL OBLIGATION
12. Bilateral Negotiations in Bimusicality: Insiders, Outsiders, and the "Real Version" in Middle Eastern Music Performance
Anne K. Rasmussen
13. Community of Comfort: Negotiating a World of "Latin Marimba"
Ted Solís
14. Whats the "It" That We Learn to Perform?: Teaching BaAka Music and Dance
Michelle Kisliuk and Kelly Gross
15. "When Can We Improvise?": The Place of Creativity in Academic World Music
Performance
David W. Hughes
Afterword. Some Closing Thoughts from the First Voice: An Interview with Mantle Hood
Ricardo D. Trimillos
Works Cited
List of Contributors
Index