Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Music Akin Euba will retire at the end of the 2011 spring semester, so on March 15 colleagues, students, alumni, and family gathered together to celebrate and share good wishes as he enters the next phase in his career.

Akin Euba’s retirement celebration reflected all the elements of his storied career as a scholar, composer, and performer. During his 18 years with the Department of Music, he has fostered the field of creative musicology, led the Centre for Intercultural Musicology at Churchill College (Cambridge University) and mentored ethnomusicology students who have gone on to lead the field in their own rights. 

Attendees gathered at 4 p.m. in Frick Fine Arts Auditorium where they were treated to lectures by two of Euba’s long-time associates as well as comments by Tim Cribb, a member of the advisory board for the Centre for Intercultural Music at Churchill College. John Robison spoke on Euba’s opera Chaka, and Cynthia Tse Kimberlin, presented a paper titled “The Fiddle, Lyre and the Tortoise: Music and other connections between Ethiopia and Eritrea with Kenya, Somalia and the Sudan.” Cribb, highlighted Euba’s efforts with the Centre, and in particular, the process of producing Euba’s Chaka.

Professor Bell Yung will give a talk as part of Asian Studies Center's Asia Over Lunch series on Thursday, February 3, 2011. The talk takes place at noon in room 4130 of Wesley W. Posvar Hall and is open to the public. Particpants are encouraged to bring a bag lunch. About the prensentation, Yung says,

"In 1975 Hong Kong, I had a fortuitous encounter with the last of China’s professional blind singers and recorded 40 hours of his music and 10 hours of our conversation. I first reported on the project at Pitt 30 years ago. Now, after ten publications, I can share images and recording excerpts that no print publication can express with technology that did not exist at that time.

An Evening of Indian Classical Music performed by Sri Sandip Ghosh will take place at Frick Fine Arts Auditorium of University of Pittsburgh (650 Schenley Dr.) on Sunday, December 5 at 6p.m. General admission tickets are $12; students with valid ID are $8.

As they pursue their graduate studies in ethnomusicology here at Pitt, Yuko Eguchi and Benjamin Pachter are already making a significant impact on the field both locally and nationally.

Congratulations to Professor Helen Rees (PhD ’94, ethnomusicology) on her appointment as Chair of UCLA's Department of Ethnomusicology and Systematic Musicology. She will begin service on January 1, 2011. A distinguished and influential scholar, Rees is the author of Echoes of History: Naxi Music in Modern China (2000) and editor of Lives in Chinese Music (2009).

Andrew Weintraub’s newest book, Dangdut Stories: A Social and Musical History of Indonesia's Most Popular Music has been released by Oxford University Press. Dangdut Stories traces the rise of the Indonesian popular music form from its origins in the 1970s through its emergence as an influential force in contemporary Indonesian social, political, and religious life.

Congratulations to Ryan Durkopp, who was awarded an Institute of International Education (IIE) Fulbright for the 2010-11 academic year. As part of his Fulbright, Durkopp will travel to Kankan, Guinea and conduct dissertation research. He will live and work with griot musicians for 10 months and study how their words and music shape public opinion concerning the current political situation On June 27, Guinea will hold free elections for the first time since 1958, so Durkopp's Fulbright allows him to study that nation's cultural discourse at an extraordinarliy important time.

This past March the University Gamelan, directed by Andrew Weintraub, performed a concert with the Erie Philharmonic as part of Edinboro University’s Friends of Music Concert Series. Under the direction of Daniel Meyer, the Erie Philharmonic performed William P. Alexander’s Winter Solstice: Images From a Journey, and Debussy’s La Mer. The inclusion of Pitt’s gamelan on a program with Debussy underscored the significant impact Indonesian music had on the composer, who famously encountered Javanese gamelan at the 1889 Exposition in Paris.

For Pitt's Department of Music, the end of each semester is always full of wonderful music in diverse styles, and this spring is no exception. The Carpathian Ensemble performed on March 26 at Frick Fine Arts Auditorium, and this video captures the group's lively performance of Chaje Shukarije (Beautfiul Girl). Enjoy!