ZOOM Passcode: 919304 

Prof. Timothy Rice, Distinguished Professor, Emeritus, Ethnomusicology, UCLA

It has been said that ethnomusicology is what ethnomusicologists do. Those of us who work in schools and departments of music often do many things and have multiple roles to play. As researchers, we may teach about the world's musical traditions, the musical traditions of the U.S. and the Americas, and the particular cultures, people, and genres we have researched in depth. In our roles as citizens of the university or college where we teach, we often take on other roles as performers, composers, music theorists, music educators, music historians, and administrators. In my own career these last three roles have figured most prominently. To these roles I have brought the values inherent in the discipline of ethnomusicology: advocating for diversity, equity, and inclusion and opposing ethnocentrism and racism. This presentation examines my own life-long experiences in such institutions, including course and curricular innovations that express these values. Among other things, I discuss my recent attempt to move the curriculum of a school of music away from the eurocentrism at its core by becoming, in effect, a music historian. And I conclude with some reflections on why moving away from ethnocentrism to inclusion in schools of music has proven so difficult and one approach to doing so.

Timothy Rice, Distinguished Professor, Emeritus, of ethnomusicology at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), has written many books and articles about the traditional music of Bulgaria and Macedonia. He also writes about theory and method in ethnomusicology, including Ethnomusicology: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2014) and Modeling Ethnomusicology (Oxford University Press, 2017). He was the editor of the journal Ethnomusicology (1981-1984); the founding co-editor of the ten-volume Garland Encyclopedia of World Music (1992-2002); and the President of the Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM, 2003-2005). As the founding director of the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music (2007-2013), he contributed to discussions of curricular reform at the National Association of Schools of Music (NASM) and the College Music Society (CMS). In 2019 he was named an honorary member of the Society for Ethnomusicology for his contributions to SEM and the field of ethnomusicology.

Part of the Ethel V. Curry Distinguished Lecture in Musicology Lecture Series