Ed Sarath is Professor of Jazz and Contemporary Improvisation
Affiliate faculty, DAAS and Interim Director, Center for World Performance Studies
Director, Program in Creativity and Consciousness Studies

Abstract:
In recent years, I have increasingly found myself at the epicenter of conversations about the future horizons of music studies. This involvement has included my role as lead author of the widely-read change “Manifesto” of the College Music Society national task force, addresses at conferences of the National Association of Schools of Music, appearances at many symposia and music schools/departments around the world, and extensive writing on the topic. Although I am energized by the ever-growing wave of efforts toward reform in our field, I have at the same time never been more convinced of the need for an entirely new level of visioning if an artistically viable, and socially just, music learning paradigm is to emerge. In this talk, I elaborate on this viewpoint through the lens of diversity, and more particularly—race.

My central argument is that even amid escalating appeals to expand the cultural horizons of music studies, African-American music often remains at the periphery in these deliberations. While most reform advocates would likely share my concern about the ethnocentric horizons of the conventional curricular framework, I take the next step and suggest that the change community itself may be prone to this problem. I examine this from two perspectives, one rooted in social justice concerns, the other the formidable artistic/pedagogical tools—with improvisation central among these—that black music offers 21st century musical navigation.

From the first standpoint, the resurgent and highly-charged conversations on black-white racial dynamics of recent years, with corresponding activism taking place on college campuses and city streets, provide a vivid backdrop against which—one would think—the place of black music in music curricula would loom large in reform conversations. Unfortunately, this has not been the case. When, from a second perspective, one looks at the creative foundations, breadth, rigor, and integrative properties inherent in African-American music, the neglect of this resource becomes all the more conspicuous. As I argue below, black music has the capacity to provide entirely new foundations for a wide swath of themes—from improvisation, composition, and transcultural musicianship to technology, self-sufficiency, and entrepreneurship—that are prominent in reform conversations. In short, as I title a chapter in a new book (Sarath,Myers,Campbell 2016): “Black Music Matters.”

I will discuss a course that I will be offering next term with this title, and also a national project I plan to launch, with U-M as the hub.

Bio:
Ed Sarath is Professor of Music, Interim Director of the Center for World Performance Studies, and Director, Program in Creativity and Consciousness Studies at the University of Michigan. Active worldwide as performer, composer, author, and change visionary. He is founder and President of the International Society for Improvised Music. His book Improvisation, Creativity, and Consciousness (SUNY 2013) is the first to apply principles of Integral Theory to music. His most recent recording is New Beginnings, featuring the London Jazz Orchestra performing his large ensemble compositions. Fellow of the American Council of Learned Societies, MacDowell Arts Colony, and National Endowment for the Arts. Recent keynote addresses include National Association of Schools of Music, Society for Consciousness Studies, University of Melbourne, and Nelson Mandela University.