January 12, 2011
Performing ethmomusicology: Lectures, seminars, workshops and concerts all quarter
A January 14 concert and workshop by Brazilian-born multi-instrumentalist Jovino Santos Neto and his trio kicks off the School of Musics Performing Ethnomusicology Series, running through Winter Quarter 2011.
The series of lectures, seminars, concerts and workshops, organized by the schools Ethnomusicology division, will focus on musical traditions from around the world and will bring to the UW campus leading scholars and performers in those genres.
Performers on the series include Afghani musician Homayun Sakhi, 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 Autónoma de México will present an array of seminars, workshops, and lectures, all of which are free and open to the public.
Most performance events in the series also are free, with the exception of a January 21 concert by Afghan rabab player Homayun Sakhi. Tickets for that performance are $10, and music major performance passes and Notecards will be honored.
Support for events in this series is provided by the School of Music Ethnomusicology Visiting Artist Program. Additional support for the Jan. 21 Homayun Sakhi events is by the UW South Asia Center, Kabul restaurant, and Ragamala.
Performing Ethnomusicology Series Schedule
Jovino Santos Neto
January 14: Jovino Santos Neto Trio. Brazilian-born Santos Neto worked as a pianist, flutist and producer with the legendary Hermeto Pascoal from 1977 to 1992. Since moving to Seattle in 1993, he has continued to perform with internationally renowned musicians and has received three Latin Grammy nominations.
His trio will perform from 12:30 to 1:20 p.m. in Brechemin Auditorium, and will offer a workshop from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. in Music 213.
January 21: Homayun Sakhi. Born in Kabul in 1976 into one of Afghanistan’s leading musical families. From the age of 10, he studied rabab (short-necked lute) with his father, Ghulam Sakhi, a disciple and brother-in-law of Ustâd Mohammad Omar, the much-revered heir to a musical lineage that began in the 1860s. After living for years in exile in Peshawar, Pakistan, Sakhi moved to Fremont, California to continue teaching and performing.
Sakhi will give a demonstration and discussion of the Afghan rabab from 12:30 to 1:20 p.m., and will give a concert of Afghan traditional music, playing rabab and joined by percussionist Salar Nader on tabla, at 7:30 p.m. in Brechemin Auditorium. Tickets are $10 cash or check at the door. Notecards will be honored.
February 4: Jocelyn Guilbault. Professor of ethnomusicology at the University of California, Berkeley, Guilbault specializes in theory and method in popular music studies, politics of aesthetics, and issues dealing with power relations in music production and circulation. She has conducted extensive fieldwork in the French Creole- and English-speaking islands of the Caribbean on both traditional and popular music.
Guilbault will give a lecture titled Sound Work: On the Aesthetic and Ethical Formations of Trinidadian Soca from 12:30 to 1:20 p.m. in Brechemin Auditorim. He will also give a seminar titled On the Study of Aesthetic and Ethical Formations in Popular Music from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. in the Fishbowl Conference Room.
February 11: Gage Averill. Averill, dean of arts at the University of British Columbia, 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.
Averill will give a lecture titled The Alan Lomax Haitian Music Collection: Performing Repatriation in Haiti from 12:30 to 1:20 p.m. in Brechemin Auditorium. He will also give a performance titled The Frost is All Over–A Fractured Memoir of Performing Irish Rebel and Traditional Music in the New Left from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. in the Fishbowl Conference Room.
February 18: Deborah Wong. An ethnomusicologist specializing in the music of Thailand and Asian America, 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 music, 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.
Won will give a lecture titled Taiko in Asian America from 12:30 to 1:20 p.m., in Brechemin Auditorium. He will give a seminar titled Ethnomusicology and Difference from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. in the Fishbowl Conference Room.
February 25: Antonio García de León. (Rescheduled from Jan. 29) A professor of economics, cultural history and philosophy at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, de León also is a researcher affiliated with the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia.
de León will give a lecture titled The Son Jarocho and Popular Music of Mexico and the Caribbean and a seminar titled Scholarship and Community Arts Activism. Times and locations TBA.
March 4: Munir Beken. An assistant professor of ethnomusicology at the University of California, Los Angeles, Bekens 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.
Beken will give a lecture-recital titled Turkish Ud at 1:20 p.m. in Brechemin Auditorium. He will give a seminar titled The Use of Ud in Contemporary Music from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. in the Fishbowl Conference Room.
March 11: Thione Diop and “Yeke Yeke.” Senegalese percussionist 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.
Diop will give a concert of traditional West African music from 12:30 to 1:20 p.m. in Brechemin Auditorium. He also will give a workshop from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. in 313 Music.
