Category: News
News of the Center
The Columbia Middle Eastern Music Ensemble (CMEME)
is a new performance ensemble devoted to vocal and instrumental music
from the Middle East and other nearby regions, including the Balkans,
North Africa, and Central Asia. Co-directed by ethnomusicologists and
musicians Dr. Farzaneh Hemmasi and Ozan Aksoy, and established by Dr. read more »
The graduate program in Ethnomusicology in the Department of Music at Columbia University will admit its next incoming cohort for the 2013-2014 academic year, with applications reviewed beginning in December 2012. The program in Ethnomusicology is not admitting a cohort for 2012-2013 and is therefore not accepting applications in the current (2011) cycle.
For questions regarding the 2012 admissions cycle, contact Professor Lila Ellen Gray (
leg2114@columbia.edu).
This ethnographic journey into the New York Salsa scene of the 1990s is the first of its kind. Written by a musical insider, and from the perspective of salsa musicians, Sounding Salsa is a pioneering study that offers detailed accounts of these musicians grappling with intercultural tensions and commericial pressures. Christopher Washburne, himself an accomplished salsa musician, examines the organizational structures, recording processes, rehearsing, and gigging of salsa bands, paying particular attention to how they created a sense of community, privileged "the people" over artistic and commercial concerns, and incited cultural pride during performances.
read more »
This article, written by Chie Sakakibara and Aaron Fox, is currently featured on the website of the Barrow Arctic Science Consortium (BASC). BASC is helping to support Aaron Fox and Chie Sakakibara in their research in the North Slope of Alaska. The article includes historical photos as well as photos from Aaron and Chie's recent research trip to Barrow, Alaska.
Further press about the project has been published in The Arctic Sounder (download the pdf). The project has also been mentioned in the "Alaska
Newsreader" section of the Anchorage Daily News -- check it
out here.
Click on the photo to see a large image of a photo taken by Laura Boulton during November, 1946 of the singers she recorded in Barrow, Alaska. From left to right, the identified singers in the photograph are: Leo Kaleak (seated left), Otis Ahkivgak (standing left), Willie Sielak, Guy Okakok, and Alfred Koonoalak. Not in the photo, but identified on the recordings, are three children: Mary (also known as "Eva") Ahvik, and Harold and Eddie Kagak (identified as "Eddie Orson" in Boulton's notes). Not in the photo, but prominently featured on the recordings, is singer Joe Sikvayugak (spelled "Sikvayunak" in Boulton's notes). This photo appears in two published locations. The version above is copied from Boulton's 1968 autobiography, now out of print, entitled The Music Hunter. A better-quality print was also published, but with extensive cropping, in the liner notes to Boulton's 1955 Folkways recording, now available from Smithsonian Global Sound, The Eskimos of Hudson Bay and Alaska.
If you are a member of the Point Barrow Iñupiat community and are looking for the website mentioned by Aaron Fox and Chie Sakakibara as heard on Earl Finkler's radio show on KBRW on Tuesday morning or at the community meeting at the Iñupiat Heritage Center on Tuesday evening, please click here for the website link.
A username and password are required to access the website. If you did not receive this information personally from Prof. Fox in Barrow, please write to him directly at aaf19@columbia.edu for the password.
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(Publicly available:)
To listen to Chie Sakakibara and Aaron Fox discuss the repatriation project with Earl Finkler on KBRW, the Voice of the North Slope (from Dec. 6, 2007) please click here (or control/right click the link to download the 19MB .mp3 file).
read more »
Where do Columbia University Ethnomusicologists work? All over the world!
Click on one of the markers for links to more information about specific projects.
Blue markers represent current
fieldwork projects by our graduate students. Red
markers indicate Center repatriation projects and exchange programs. Yellow
markers represent projects by Columbia Ethnomusicology faculty members. Purple
markers indicated field projects completed by alumni of our program.
Use the zoom controls (+/-) and direction control arrows, or click and drag the map graphic with your mouse to navigate. You can double-click within the inset world map in the lower right hand corner to rapidly recenter the map as well.
You can view the most current Google Maps version of this map as it is developed
by clicking here.
(opens in a new window).
This map is optimized for Firefox/Camino
browsers and may not work correctly in all browsers. read more »
