A February 11 lecture and performance by Gage Averill, dean of arts at the University of British Columbia, is the next event in the School's Performing Ethnomusicology Series, running through Winter Quarter 2011.
The series of lectures, seminars, concerts and workshops organized by the school's Ethnomusicology division focuses on musical traditions from around the world and is bringing to the University of Washington campus leading scholars and performers in those genres.
Averill's research focuses on the ideological context of music production with special attention to the role that music and expressive culture play in social transformation. A world-renowned Haitian scholar, Averill is in the running for a 2010 Grammy Award for his project Alan Lomax in Haiti: Recordings For The Library of Congress, 1936-1937.
Other guests to be featured in the series include Turkish Ud player Munir Beken and Senagalese percussionist Thione Diop. In addition, scholars from the University of California, University of British Columbia, and the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico will present an array of seminars, workshops, and lectures, all of which are free and open to the public.
All remaining events in the series are free and open to the public.
Performing Ethnomusicology Series Schedule
February 11: Gage Averill
Dean of Arts at the University of British Columbia, Gage Averill conducts research focusing on the ideological context of music production with special attention to the role that music and expressive culture play in social transformation. A world-renowned Haitian scholar, Averill was nominated for a 2010 Grammy Award for his project Alan Lomax in Haiti: Recordings For The Library of Congress, 1936-1937.
- 12:30-1:20 p.m., Brechemin Auditorium: Lecture: "The Alan Lomax Haitian Music Collection: Performing Repatriation in Haiti"
- 2:30-4:30 p.m., Fishbowl Conference Room: Performance: "The Frost is All Over--A Fractured Memoir of Performing Irish Rebel and Traditional Music in the New Left"
February 18: Deborah Wong
An ethnomusicologist specializing in the musics of Thailand and Asian America, Deborah Wong is a professor of music at the University of California, Riverside. Her book Speak It Louder: Asian Americans Making Music (Routledge, 2004) explores music and identity in Southeast Asian immigrant musics, Chinese American and Japanese American jazz in the Bay Area, as well as Asian American hip-hop. She has studied Japanese American drumming (taiko) since 1997 and is a member of Satori Daiko, the performing group of the Taiko Center of Los Angeles.
- 12:30-1:20 p.m., Brechemin Auditorium: Lecture: "Taiko in Asian America"
- 2:30-4:30 p.m., Fishbowl Conference Room: Seminar: "Ethnomusicology and Difference"
February 25: Antonio Garcia de Leon
A professor of Economics, Cultural History, and Philosophy at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, Antonio Garcia de Leon also is a researcher affiliated with the Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia.
- 12:30-1:20 p.m., Music Room 213: Lecture: "The Son Jarocho and Popular Music of Mexico and the Caribbean"
- 2:30-4:30 p.m., Music Room 27: Seminar: "Scholarship and Community Arts Activism"
March 4: Munir Beken
Assistant Professor of Ethnomusicology at the University of California, Los Angeles, Munir Beken's career spans theory, composition, ethnomusicology, and performance. As a composer, he has written a state-commissioned ballet suite for orchestra, won awards for film music, and scored television documentaries both domestically and internationally. His scholarly work focuses on modal theory. He was one of the founding members of the State Turkish Music Ensemble. As a soloist on the ud, he has performed in venues across the U.S. and has recorded a solo CD with Rounder Records.
- 12:30 p.m., Brechemin Auditorium: Lecture-Recital: Turkish Ud
- 2:30-4:30 p.m., Fishbowl Conference Room: Seminar: "The Use of Ud in Contemporary Music"
March 11: Thione Diop and "Yeke Yeke"
Senegalese percussionist Thione Diop is a master of the djembe, sabar, tama (talking drum), and djun djun. Based in Seattle since 1999, he has toured internationally with musicians such as Poncho Sanchez, Alpha Blondy, Lucky Dube, and Max Romeo. He is the creator and producer of the annual Spirit of West Africa Festal at the Seattle Center, and Kasumai Africa at the Northshore Performing Arts Center in Bothell.
- 12:30-1:20 p.m., Brechemin Auditorium: Concert of traditional West African music
- 3:30-5:30 p.m., Music 313: Workshop