Biographies of Presenters
Lois Ann Anderson (Ph.D. 1968) conducted her research on xylophone and tuned drum music of the
Baganda in Uganda. Her other research projects include the ennanga (harp) tradition of Buganda, oral
traditions of the Berbers of Morocco (Fulbright 1970), a survey of music and clans, rulers, and religious
societies in East Africa (Fulbright grant 1983-84), historical aspects of royal music traditions in the Great
Lakes area of East Africa, and representation of the cultures of Uganda through music in broadcast media.
Her publications have appeared in the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Britannica International
Encyclopaedia, The New Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments, Selected Reports in Ethnomusicology, Uganda Journal,
Essays for a Humanist: An Offering to Klaus Wachsmann, Essays on Music and History in Africa, and African Arts.
Professional appointments include: Lecturer, Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda (1965-66); and
professorial appointments at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (1968-2008).
Susan Asai is a professor in the Music Department at Northeastern University. She employs cultural politics
and identity politics in Asian American music. Asai's publications also encompass Japanese folk performance
and teaching Asian music. Her interests are music as protest and resistance and music of the African diaspora.
Asai‟s article, “Hôraku: Buddhist Performing Arts and the Development of Taiko Drumming in the United
States,” and other writings on Japanese American music place her in the vanguard of writing about the music
of this population. Questia librarians selected her book, Nômai Dance Drama of Northern Japan: A Surviving Spirit
of Medieval Japan, as one of the fourteen best books on folk drama. Recent articles are “Cultural Politics: The
African American Connection in Asian American Jazz-based Music” and “Nisei Politics of Identity and
American Popular Music of the 1930s and 1940s.” Currently, Asai is writing a book on the nexus of music,
identity, and politics of three generations of Japanese Americans.
Philip V. Bohlman is the Mary Werkman Distinguished Service Professor of the Humanities and of Music
at the University of Chicago and Honorary professor at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hannover.
His research and teaching range broadly across the intersections of music and religion, nationalism, and
racism, and he is active also as a performer, serving as the Artistic Director of the "New Budapest Orpheum
Society," a Jewish cabaret ensemble that has recorded three CDs, most recently Jewish Cabaret in Exile (Cedille
Records 2009). Among his recent publications are Jewish Music and Modernity (Oxford University Press 2008)
and Focus: Music, Nationalism, and the Making of the New Europe (Routledge 2011). His current research includes
field studies of religion and the arts in India, music in European Muslim communities, and the Eurovision
Song Contest.
Christi-Anne Castro received her Master's degree and Ph.D. in ethnomusicology from UCLA. She joined
the Department of Musicology faculty at the University of Michigan in 2005. Since then she has taught world
music classes for music majors and non-majors. She also teaches courses on the music of Latin America and
the Caribbean, the music of Asia, and graduate seminars on nationalism, theories in ethnomusicology,
ethnography, fieldwork, and music and the body. Her book on music, cultural politics, and nationalism in the
Philippines will be released by Oxford University Press in 2011.
J. Martin Daughtry is an Assistant Professor of Ethnomusicology in New York University‟s Department of
Music and an Affiliated Assistant Professor in the NYU Department of Russian and Slavic Studies. His
ongoing research projects deal with sung poetry in the post-Stalinist Soviet Union; post-Soviet musical
nationalism; and the transformation, persistence, and attenuation of musical traditions in the wake of
cataclysmic socio-political change. In 2007, Music in the Post-9/11 World, which he co-edited with Jonathan
Ritter, was published by Routledge. He has also published articles on Russian national anthems, uncensored
media in the late Soviet period, and the intermedial translation of poetry into song lyrics. Essays on sonic
palimpsests, the militarization of the iPod during Operation Iraqi Freedom, and the auditory regimes of
wartime are currently in press. He is spending the 2010-2011 academic year in Abu Dhabi, teaching at NYU's
new campus there and working on a book-length investigation of the sonic dimension of the ongoing conflict
in Iraq.
Kerri Kirchheimer Drootin graduated with a B.A. from the UCLA Ethnomusicology program in ‟99 with a
focus on gender studies in popular music and percussion. She is currently a Director of Music Supervision
and Licensing in the NBC Universal Television Music Department and currently works as a music supervisor
on NBC‟s The Office and Parks and Recreation, USA‟s Psych and Facing Kate and SyFy‟s Eureka. Her husband,
Todd, is an audiophile vinyl dealer. They live with their cat named Nasty in the east San Fernando Valley.
Jacqueline Cogdell DjeDje has been on the UCLA faculty since 1979. She teaches theoretical area courses
in African and African-American music and was director of an African-American vocal ensemble. Much of
DjeDje‟s research has focused on performance practices as they relate to the one-string fiddle tradition in
West Africa. In recent years her research has extended to the study of fiddling in African-American culture
and its inter-connections with Anglo-American music. In addition, she has conducted investigations on
African-American religious music. She is particularly interested in how the dynamics of urban life give rise to
change and other musical activity. She has conducted fieldwork in several countries in West Africa (Ghana,
Nigeria, Cote d‟Ivoire, The Gambia, and Senegal), Jamaica, California, and the southern United States
(Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, Kentucky, and Louisiana).
Michael Frishkopf is Associate Professor of Music, and Associate Director of the Canadian Centre for
Ethnomusicology, at the University of Alberta (Canada). He specializes in Islamic ritual, the Arab world, and
West Africa. His interests also include social network analysis, action research, and virtual reality. An edited
collection, Music and Media in the Arab World, is in press (AUC Press), and two books are in progress: The
Sounds of Islam (Routledge), and Sufism, Ritual and Modernity in Egypt (Brill). Dr Frishkopf is a member of the
Editorial Board for the journal Ethnomusicology; Associate Editor of the Review of Middle East Studies, and
founder of the Society for Arab Music Research. He has received research grants from the Social Science and
Humanities Research Council (Canada), the Canadian Heritage Information Network, the American Research
Center in Egypt, the Social Science Research Council, Fulbright, and the National Endowment for the
Humanities.
Robert Garfias is Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Irvine. He completed his
doctorate at UCLA in 1965 and taught at the University of Washington from 1962 to 1982, where he
established the graduate program in ethnomusicology before coming to the University of California, Irvine in
1982. He has conducted research on a variety of musical traditions, including the Turkish Ottoman Classical
system and Japanese court music. He has also made numerous field recordings and documentary films
covering the music of Burma, Japan, Korea, Mexico and Central America, Mozambique, the Philippines,
Romania, Turkey, and Zimbabwe. He has also been actively engaged in the area of public policy and the arts
as a presidentially appointed member of the National Council on the Arts and as a member of the Council of
the Smithsonian Institution as well as with numerous state and local arts agencies.
John Hajda is an Assistant Professor of Music at UC Santa Barbara. He received his M.A. in 1995 and Ph.D.
in 1999 from UCLA, with a specialization in systematic musicology. Hajda's areas of research include
psychoacoustics, especially related to musical timbre, and film music cognition. He will be presenting a paper
at the November 2010 meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology.
David Harnish (Ph.D. UCLA; M.A. U-Hawai„i) is Professor of Ethnomusicology, Co-director of the
Balinese Gamelan, and Associate Dean in the College of Musical Arts at Bowling Green State University.
Author of Bridges to the Ancestors: Music, Myth and Cultural Politics at an Indonesian Festival (University of Hawai‟i
Press, 2006) and co-writer/editor of Divine Inspirations: Music and Islam in Indonesia (Oxford University Press,
2011), he is a double Fulbright recipient and a National Foundation Fellow with interests in festival and ritual
musics, hybridity, pedagogy, world music composition and performance, popular culture, music agency,
dance ethnology, hermeneutics, sustainability, identity politics, and the musics of a variety of geocultural areas
though particularly Indonesia. He is a former consultant for the BBC, National Geographic, Mtv-Fulbright
Awards, and the Smithsonian Institute, and has recorded and/or performed Indonesian, jazz, Indian and
Tejano musics with five different labels.
Charlotte Heth, former Assistant Director for Public Programs of the National Museum of the American
Indian. Professor Emerita and former chairperson of the Department of Ethnomusicology and Systematic
Musicology, former Associate Dean of the School of the Arts at UCLA, president of the Society for
Ethnomusicology 1993-95. From 1976-1987 she was Director of UCLA‟s American Indian Studies Center
and from 1987-89 Director of Cornell University‟s American Indian Program and Visiting Professor of
Music. Her primary research interests are in American Indian music and dance and American Indian
education. In 2008-10 she was visiting curator for Native North American exhibit at the Musical Instrument
Museum. She is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma.
Kathleen Hood received her Ph.D. and M.A. in ethnomusicology from UCLA, specializing in the music of
the Near East and Africa. She has taught ethnomusicology courses at the University of California, Los
Angeles, the University of California, Riverside, and Pomona College. Her book, Music in Druze Life: Ritual,
Values, and Performance Practice (Druze Heritage Foundation, 2007), focuses on the music of the Druzes, an
Arabic-speaking people of the Near East, who are members of an eleventh-century Islamic sect. In July 2010,
she conducted a pilot fieldwork project on the music of the Bedouins in the North Badia of Jordan. The
project was made possible by a grant from the Firebird Foundation. Currently, she is the Publications
Director and Events coordinator at The UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, Department of
Ethnomusicology. She is also a professional cellist, performing both Western classical and Arab music.
Birgitta Johnson has a Ph.D. and M.A. in ethnomusicology from UCLA, specializing in African-American
music and culture. Her dissertation “Oh, For a Thousand Tongues to Sing: Music and Worship in African
American Megachurches of Los Angeles, California,” examines musical preferences and adaptation in three
urban megachurch congregations. Her academic and performance interests include soul/nu-soul, gospel
music, praise and worship music, hip-hop, and Afro-Cuban music. In addition, Birgitta plays piano, violin,
West African and Afro-Cuban percussion. She has performed with master conguero Francisco Aguabella, and
recorded with the Gospel Music Worship of America Mass Choir (GMWA Live in Kansas City 2004 and
GMWA The Tampa Experience) and the Faithful Central Bible Church Mass Choir (Live from Faithful
Central Zion Rejoice!). She has been a lecturer at UCLA, Pomona College, Pitzer College, and Scripps
College. She is currently a postdoctoral fellow in the Art & Music Histories Department at Syracuse
University.
Jay Keister received his Ph.D. from UCLA in 2001 and is currently Associate Professor at the University of
Colorado, Boulder. His book Shaped By Japanese Music: Kikuoka Hiroaki and Nagauta Shamisen in Tokyo
(Routledge 2004) focuses on traditional music in modern Japan. He has published articles on Japanese music
in the journals Ethnomusicology, Asian Music, The World of Music and on Japanese dance in Asian Theatre Journal.
He also co-authored an article on progressive rock in the journal Popular Music.
Jean Ngoya Kidula is Associate Professor of Music (Ethnomusicology) at the University of Georgia in
Athens, GA. Her publications include articles on Kenyan ritual and religious folk and popular music, and on
music in the African Academy. She has also written on gospel music in North America and Africa. Kidula is
a co-author of Music in the Life of the African Church (2008). Her current research is on historical, contemporary,
and popular spiritual and ritual music and musicians in Africa with a focus on Kenya and Tanzania. Her
research extends to the musical impact of the historical and contemporary African Diaspora on Africa and
Scandinavia.
Cynthia Tse Kimberlin (M.A. '68, Ph.D. '76), Executive Director of the Music Research Institute and
Publisher at MRI Press in Richmond, California, has taught at San Francisco State University, University of
California at Berkeley, University of Ife, Nigeria (currently Obafemi Awolowo University), and Addis Ababa
University, Ethiopia. Her areas of interest focus on the music of Africa, traditional and art music of Africa,
intercultural music, ethno-biography, and global issues relating to music change. Her articles have appeared in
numerous periodicals, including Ethnomusicology, Selected Reports in Ethnomusicology, Bulletin of the International
Council for Traditional Music, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, International Encyclopedia of Dance, The
World of Music, Journal of the Musical Arts in Africa (Cape Town), Muziki (Pretoria), Journal of the International
Alliance for Women in Music, Ethiopianist Notes (currently Northeast African Studies), Encyclopaedia Aethiopica,
Dictionary of African Biography (WIP), and Management Dynamics. She is also co-editor of Towards An African
Pianism: Keyboard Music of Africa and the Diaspora, MRI Press (2005).
Steven Loza is Professor of Ethnomusicology at UCLA, and Adjunct Professor of Music at the University of
New Mexico, where he formerly directed the Arts of the Americas Institute. He has been the recipient of
Fulbright and Ford Foundation grants among numerous others, and served on the national screening and
voting committees of the Grammy Awards for many years. He has also taught at the University of Chile,
Kanda University of International Studies in Japan, and the Centro Nacional de las Artes in Mexico City. A
performer of jazz and Latin jazz, Loza has recorded two CDs. He has also produced numerous concerts and
arts festivals internationally and served as director of the UCLA Mexican Arts Series from 1986-96 and codirector of the Festival de Musicas del Mundo in Mexico City in 2000. His publications include many articles
and books, including Religion as Art: Guadalupe, Orishas, and Sufi; Tito Puente and the Making of Latin Music; and
Barrio Rhythm: Mexican American Music in Los Angeles.
James Makubuya, Ph.D. (Ethnomusicology), M.M (Western Music) and B.A. (Music and Literature), is a
teacher and professional musician that also trained with various African master musicians. Along with endongo,
his main instrument, James is also proficient in piano, other diverse African instruments, Ugandan dances and
choreography. An Associate Professor of Music, Wabash College Music Department Chair, James‟ research
focuses on East African organology. His articles have appeared in the Galpin Society, African Music,
Ethnomusicology, and International Harp journals. His soon-to-be published organology book is entitled,
Meaning, Power and Significance of Folk Instruments: More Than Sound Production Objects. As a professional musician,
James has performed in Carnegie Hall, Eastman School of Music, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Boston
Museum of Fine Arts, Celtic Folk Festival, Canadian Museum of Civilization, Santa Fe Chamber Music
Festival, etc. A recording artist as well, James has been featured in the movie Mississipi Masala, several
documentaries, and six studio CD publications.
William P. Malm, born in LaGrange, Illinois in 1928, received his Master‟s from Northwestern in 1949 and
his Ph.D. from UCLA in 1959. He was a professor at the University of Michigan from 1960 to 1994, where
he also served as the director of the Japanese Music Ensemble. He was also director of the Stearns Collection
of Musical Instruments at the University of Michigan until 1993. A specialist in Asian music, Malm conducted
extensive research on Japanese music and dance. His books include Japanese Music and Musical Instruments (1959
& 2000), Music Cultures of the Pacific, Near East and Asia (1967), Six Hidden Views of Japanese Music (1968), and
An Anthology of Nagauta (2010).
Peter Manuel (Ph.D. UCLA, 1983) is a professor at John Jay College and the Graduate Center of the City
University of New York. He has researched and published extensively on musics of India, the Caribbean,
Spain, and elsewhere. His seven scholarly books include Cassette Culture: Popular Music and Technology in North
India, Popular Musics of the Non-Western World: An Introductory Survey, East Indian Music in the West Indies: Tansinging, Chutney, and the Making of Indo-Caribbean Culture, the co-authored Caribbean Currents: Caribbean Music from
Rumba to Reggae, and the edited volume Creolizing Contradance in the Caribbean. His two documentary videos
include the recent Tassa Thunder: Folk Music from India to the Caribbean. He formerly concertized extensively on
sitar, and was an amateur flamenco guitarist and jazz pianist.
Scott Marcus received the B.A and M.A. from Wesleyan University with a focus on North Indian classical
music and Javanese gamelan before entering the Ph.D. program at UCLA. He received the Ph.D. in 1989
from UCLA, writing his dissertation on “Arab Music in the Modern Period.” Scott has taught at UCSB since
1989, where he founded and continues to direct the UCSB Middle East Ensemble and the UCSB Music of
India (sitar) Ensemble. Scott's published scholarship has focused on the Eastern Arab maqam system and on
biraha, a genre of North Indian folk music. In 2007, Scott published the volume Music in Egypt (Oxford
University Press), focusing on six different genres of music and the call to prayer in present-day Egypt. This
past summer, the UCSB Middle East Ensemble performed nine concerts in Cairo and three other Egyptian
cities at the invitation of the Egyptian Ministry of Culture.
Carol Merrill-Mirsky is Museum & Archives Director of the Hollywood Bowl Museum and Los Angeles
Philharmonic. Since 1989, she has been creating exhibits about music and culture in Los Angeles, developing
educational programs, helping to preserve the legacy of the Philharmonic, and often representing the
Hollywood Bowl in the media. Before beginning her ethnomusicology studies at UCLA, Carol earned a
bachelor of music degree from USC, worked as a public school music teacher and as a professional singer.
She has written on Judeo-Spanish balladry and on children's games. She received a Woodrow Wilson
Foundation grant for her ethnomusicological work and a fellowship in arts management at the National
Endowment for the Arts. Carol continues to make music as well: as a classical pianist, a student of cello, and
as a cabaret and jazz singer specializing in classic American songs of the nineteen-thirties. She has a CD out
on Cambria Records.
Judy Mitoma began her academic career at UCLA in 1975 and retired in 2009. From 1982-1995 she chaired
the interdepartmental program World Arts and Cultures. She continues her work at UCLA as Director of the
Center for Intercultural Performance. Mitoma has launched campus, citywide, national and international
projects. Artist collaboration, inter-institutional partnerships, international exchange, and work in developing
countries are common themes in her projects. Her innovative projects has received major funding from the
Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, Pew Charitable Trusts, Irvine Foundation, US Department of
State, NEA, Annenberg Foundation, Asian Cultural Council and local funders. In fall 2010, she will take the
Bali-based Cudamani ensemble on a USA tour. In fall 2011, Mitoma will produce a national tour, The Water Is
Rising, featuring forty-five performers from the Pacific Islands of Tuvalu, Kiribati, and Tokelau. In October
2011, she will produce the 5th World Festival of Sacred Music in Los Angeles.
Dale A. Olsen, Professor Emeritus of Ethnomusicology at Florida State University (B.A. and M.A. in
historical musicology and flute, University of Minnesota; Ph.D. in ethnomusicology, UCLA). Dr. Olsen has
received many awards and grants (Fulbright-Hays, Guggenheim, NEH, etc.) and has authored many books
and articles, including Music of the Warao of Venezuela: Song People of the Rain Forest (winner of the 1997 Merriam
Prize), Music of El Dorado: The Ethnomusicology of Ancient South America, and Popular Music of Vietnam: The Politics
of Remembering, The Economics of Forgetting. He is coeditor of The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music, Vol. 2 and
The Garland Handbook of Latin American Music. He served as First Vice President of the Society for
Ethnomusicology and President of The College Music Society. Olsen was principal flutist in the Philharmonic
Orchestra of Chile from 1966-68 as a Peace Corps Volunteer, and has a diploma in Kinko-ryū shakuhachi.
At UCLA, Colin Quigley began as a graduate student in 1981, became Assistant Professor of Dance
Ethnology in 1987, Associate Professor in 1995, and Emeritus in 2008 when he took a position as Course
Director for Ethnomusicology at the University of Limerick, Ireland. His research interests are in European
and European diasporic traditional music and dance. He has published on both topics as practiced in
Newfoundland, Canada. Close to the Floor (1985) examined the traditional dancing of the province‟s small
fishing communities; Music from the Heart (1995), the creative process of an outstanding FrenchNewfoundland fiddler. He began work in east central Europe following 1989 and served as lead researcher
and curator for a 1999 Smithsonian Institution Romanian folklife exhibit. While on a Fulbright senior
research fellowship, he investigated interethnic issues in the dance and dance music of Transylvania. He spent
much of the last two years in Budapest observing its lively traditional and world music scene.
Jonathan Ritter is an assistant professor of ethnomusicology at UC Riverside. He received his M.A. and
Ph.D. in ethnomusicology from UCLA. A specialist in indigenous and Afro-Hispanic musics of the Andean
region, Ritter‟s current work explores the interplay of music, memory and political violence in the traditional
and folkloric music of Ayacucho, Peru, in the context of the Shining Path guerrilla insurrection. He is coeditor, with Martin Daughtry, of Music in the Post-9/11 World (Routledge, 2007), a collection of essays
exploring both domestic and international musical responses to the attacks of September 11th, 2001. He
currently serves as a Contributing Editor (Andean Music) for the Handbook of Latin American Studies, and has
also published articles and reviews in a variety of journals. Ritter is the recipient of numerous grants and
awards, including research funding from the Fulbright Institute for International Education and the WennerGren Foundation for Anthropological Research.
Brenda M. Romero holds a Ph.D. in ethnomusicology from UCLA, and received her Bachelors and Masters
degrees in Music Theory and Composition from the University of New Mexico. She has served on the
Musicology faculty at the University of Colorado at Boulder since 1988, where she founded the
Ethnomusicology degree program, serving as Coordinator of Ethnomusicology from 1988 – 2009 and as
Chair of Musicology from 2004 – 2007. Her work revolves around the Matachines música/teatro/danza
complex, introduced to populations throughout the Spanish colonies. As a Fulbright Fellowship recipient she
conducted fieldwork on Matchines in Mexico in 2000-2001 and has a Fulbright to teach and conduct research
in Colombia in spring 2011. She collaborated as editor and contributor for Dancing across Borders: Danzas y
bailes mexicanos (2009) and has authored numerous essays on the Matachines music and dance and other
New Mexican folk music genres that reflect both Spanish and Indian origins.
Angeles Sancho-Velázquez is Associate Professor of arts and humanities in the Department of Liberal
Studies at California State University, Fullerton. Before moving to the United States from her native Spain
she was a tenured professor of Solfège and music theory in the Professional Conservatory of Music of
Madrid. Also in Spain she completed degrees in piano, music education (Conservatory of Music of Murcia),
and philosophy (University of Murcia), as well as doctoral course work in musicology (University Autónoma
of Madrid). At UCLA she received an M.A. in systematic musicology in 1996, and a Ph.D. in
ethnomusicology (systematic musicology, area of aesthetics and philosophy of music) in 2001. Her published
articles and conference papers deal with a variety of topics concerning the interpretation of music in its
cultural, aesthetic, and philosophical contexts. Her main current research project is based on her dissertation
and deals with the disappearance of the practice of musical improvisation in the Western Classical tradition.
Daniel Sheehy is Director of the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage and Director &
Curator of Smithsonian Folkways Recordings. He co-curates the Smithsonian‟s nine-year Nuestra Música:
Music in Latino Culture initiative of recordings, Smithsonian Folklife Festival programs, and the virtual
exhibition Música del Pueblo. Previous to joining the Smithsonian, he served as Director of Folk & Traditional
Arts at the National Endowment for the Arts 1992-2000 and staff ethnomusicologist and Assistant Director,
1978-1992. A Fulbright-Hays scholar in Veracruz, Mexico, he earned his Ph.D. in ethnomusicology from
UCLA in 1979. Sheehy co-edited the South America, Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean volume of the
Garland Encyclopedia of World Music, and his book Mariachi Music in America: Experiencing Music, Expressing Culture
was published by Oxford University Press in 2006. In 1997, the American Folklore Society honored him with
the Benjamin A. Botkin prize, recognizing major impact on the field of public folklore.
Ruth M. Stone is the Laura Boulton Professor of Ethnomusicology and Associate Vice Provost of Research
at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. Her research has focused on musical process and temporal
dimensions of musical performances among the Kpelle of Liberia, West Africa. Most recently she has been
working with musicians living in the Philadelphia area who fled Liberia during the recent civil war. Among
her publications are Theory in Ethnomusicology (Pearson, 2007), Music of West Africa (Oxford 2005), Let the Inside
Be Sweet (Indiana, 1982, 2nd edition, 2010) and Dried Millet Breaking (Indiana, 1988). She is also the editor of the
Africa volume of the Garland Encyclopedia of World Music. She has been co-project director of the EVIA Digital
Archive of ethnomusicological video, funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation from 2000-2009. She has
also served as President of the Society for Ethnomusicology and the Liberian Studies Association.
Jane C. Sugarman is Professor of Music and head of the ethnomusicology program at the Graduate Center
of the City University of New York. She is the author of Engendering Song: Singing and Subjectivity at Prespa
Albanian Weddings (Univ. of Chicago Press, 1997), as well as numerous articles on music and dance in and
from southeastern Europe as they relate to gender, nation, diaspora, and conflict situations. Her current book
project examines a half-century of mediated Albanian musics from the former Yugoslavia and their role in
imagining "modern" Albanian identities.
Gordon Thompson (Ph.D. ‟87) is Professor of Music at Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, New York
where he has taught in the Department of Music and Asian Studies Program since 1988. His dissertation at
UCLA under Nazir Jairazbhoy explored the relationship between musical style and socio-psychological values
in Gujarati-speaking Western India. His related research interests have dealt with the musical ideations of
non-classical musicians in the same region. His most recent publication, Please Please Me: Sixties British Pop
Inside-out (Oxford) considers the social organization of the music and recording industries in London between
1956 and 1968. He is currently working on a book about the social and cultural forces behind the
development of the Beatles‟ core repertoire.
Elizabeth D. Tolbert is a professor of musicology and director of the Ethnomusicology Program at the
Conservatory of the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University. She holds a joint appointment in the
anthropology department at JHU‟s Kreiger School of Arts and Sciences. A pianist with a master of music
degree in piano performance from Colorado State University, she earned a Ph.D. in ethnomusicology from
UCLA in 1988. Dr. Tolbert taught at Northwestern University and New York University before joining the
Johns Hopkins faculty in 1993. Dr. Tolbert has held a National Endowment for the Humanities Aesthetics
Institute Fellowship. A member of the board of directors of the Society of Ethnomusicology, which named a
prize in her honor, she was the co-founder of the Pacific Review of Ethnomusicology and was assistant editor of
UCLA Ethnomusicology Publications. The author of numerous scholarly articles, Dr. Tolbert is completing a
book entitled Music, Meaning, and the Birth of Representation: Music Ideologies in Contemporary Evolutionary Discourses.
John Vallier is Head of Distributed Media Services at the University of Washington. In this role he oversees
operations and develops moving image/sound recording collections, policies, and technologies for the
Libraries' Media Center. Before coming to the UW, he was Archivist at the UCLA Ethnomusicology Archive
(2002-2006) and a Junior Fellow at the Library of Congress.
Maria Shaa Tláa Williams is Tlingit and is an Associate Professor at the University of New Mexico with a
joint appointment in the Departments of Native American Studies and Music. She received her Ph.D. from
UCLA in Ethnomusicology. Her research interests include Alaska Native music, culture and history. She
recently edited The Alaska Native Reader: History, Culture, Politics (2009, Duke University Press) and produced
and directed a documentary called A Beautiful Journey (2009, Anaguina Productions).