The School of Music and UW Department of Native American Studies co-sponsor “Recording Technology, Traditioning, and Urban American Indian Powwow Performance,” a presentation by Dr. John-Carlos Perea, Associate Professor of American Indian Studies at San Francisco State University.
PROGRAM DETAILS:
Perea examines the use of analog and digital recording technologies as part of the music. His presentation explores the use of analog audiocassette recorders and digital audio recorders as a means of learning, disseminating, and archiving powwow music, paying particular attention to the transition from analog to digital in the history of each drum group. Utilizing frameworks drawn from both ethnomusicology and American Indian Studies, his research sounds the complex relationship between recording technologies and powwow musicking and reflects upon the implications of that relationship for future generations of singers.
Artist Bio: John-Carlos Perea
John-Carlos Perea (Mescalero Apache, German, Irish, Chicano) is an ethnomusicologist and assistant professor of American Indian Studies in the College of Ethnic Studies at San Francisco State University. His research interests include the politics of noise and sound studies, urban American Indian lived experiences and cultural productions, music technologies, recording and archiving practices, Native and African American jazz cultures, and the Creek and Kaw saxophonist Jim Pepper. Oxford University Press published John-Carlos’ first textbook, Intertribal Native American Music in the United States, in 2013. His essays have also been published in MUSICultures (formerly the Canadian Journal for Traditional Music / La Revue de musique folklorique canadienne), the Encyclopedia Britannica, and the Grove Dictionary of American Music.
In addition to his scholarly activities, Perea maintains an active career as a multi-instrumentalist and recording artist in the San Francisco Bay Area. He has recorded on eighteen albums as a sideman and recently released his second album as a leader, Creation Story. In 2007, John-Carlos won a GRAMMY® Award as a member of the Paul Winter Consort for pow-wow and cedar flute songs contributed to Crestone. Perea served as a Governor to the San Francisco Chapter Board of the Recording Academy from 2011-2013 and recently completed a term as President of the Northern California Chapter of the Society of Ethnomusicology (2013-2015).