A delegation of artists and scholars from the Institute of Arts and Culture (ISBI) in Bandung, West Java, visited the University of Pittsburgh from October 9 to 17, 2015. The visit was part of a 2014 Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between Pitt and the Institute that is designed to increase cross-cultural awareness of the arts, cultures, and societies of Indonesia, particularly West Java. The delegation consisted of Dr.
Charles Lwanga’s composition "Best Be" was selected as the 2015 winner of the Society for Ethnomusicology’s Robert M. Stevenson Prize. The Stevenson Prize honors ethnomusicologists who are also composers. The prize committee, chaired by Michael Tenzer, described Charles' "Best Be" as "a well-crafted work that subtly evokes numerous issues of ethnomusicological relevance from the composer's perspective of someone whose own African culture is under pressure from many forces, including tourism, resource exploitation, and the obligations of tradition.
On September 29, 2015, Indra Ridwan (PhD 2014) published an article about his dissertation research in Pikiran Rakyat (“Thoughts of the People”), the most widely circulated daily newspaper in West Java, Indonesia. In this article, Indra discussed Sundanese popular music of West Java (called pop Sunda), particularly the role of the arranger and arrangements. Click here to access the article:
Gamelan tuner Wayne Vitale visited campus this summer to tune the University's iron and bronze gamelan sets. The University Times took advantage of Vitale's visit to develop a fascinating story about the process of tuning a gamelan. According to the U-Times,
Meng Ren, a PhD candidate in Ethnomusicology, is among the 22 recipients of this year’s Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation (CCKF) Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship in the North American region. The CCKF Doctoral Dissertation Fellowships are awarded annually by the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange to outstanding PhD candidates in the broadly-defined field of Chinese Studies/Sinology for their dissertation completions.
PhD candidate Charles Lwanga (Ethnomusicology) has been selected as the winner of this year’s African Libraries Student Paper Prize for his paper “Watch your Tone!: African Popular Music as Illocutionary Act." The prize, awarded by the African Music Section of the Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM), recognizes the most distinguished student paper delivered on the topic of Af
During three days in January, the University Gamelan joined forces with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and other world music performers and groups to introduce fourth graders from all over Western Pennsylvania to the diversity of global musical cultures. The PSO’s “Schooltime” concerts took place at Heinz Hall under the leadership of conductor Fawzi Haimor.
Adriana Helbig Leads the Carpathian Music Ensemble in a recent performance.
The Department of Music will host ethnomusicologists from all over the world when the Society for Ethnomusicology holds its 59th Annual Meeting in Pittsburgh. Sponsored by the University of Pittsburgh, the conference will take place at the Wyndham Grand Pittsburgh Downtown from November 13–16.
This October, the Department of Music will celebrate the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the University of Pittsburgh and the Indonesian College of Performing Arts (STSI). This momentous occasion will include a concert featuring musicians and dancers from the Indonesian College for Performing Arts, lectures by guest scholars, class demonstrations, and collaborations with Pitt’s University Gamelan.