ICTM Conference Part 1

Music Building of Univ Fort Hare in East London

It has been a week!   In Africa, it feels like a month.  I’ve had the privilege of attending the International Conference of Traditional Music Applied Ethnomusicology Study Group this week.  This is a sub-group of a large organization that specifically convenes to discuss ways that studying different music cultures can be applied to our world and our society in ways that can improve the lives of those affected.  Specific people are invited to come and present their most current research to the group to hopefully push the field forward. Most of these people are well established in the field of ethnomusicology (unlike me) and have or are about to have a PhD (unlike me).  I was the token undergraduate at the conference. 

Photo from a boat cruise on the Nahoon River on
one of the evenings of the conference.  Trio on the right:
Jean-Claude (originally from Congo), Jennifer K. Newsome
(Australia), and Gregory Melchor-Barz (Vanderbilt Univ)

There were literally professors from every continent except Antarctica.  And there were only about 30 people there, so I genuinely got to know these people.  Some were directors of programs, one wrote a grade school text book on African music (Mandy Carver!), another edited an internationally famous book on ethnomusicology (Shadows in the Field, Gregory Melchor-Barz), another was the first to discover and document a specific music culture in South Africa (Dave Dargie).  It was unreal!  These people are a big deal, and I am so lucky to have even been in the same room as them!  I know some of my professors will be envious. 

I really enjoyed hearing from all these professors about the different projects each has coming up.  I particularly enjoyed the presentation by Prof Diane Thram, the professor with whom I am interning this summer.  It was cool to hear our plans presented by her to her colleagues, and to hear their reactions!   I had no idea what I was signing up for!  It is really an exciting project. 

This week was a great time to get to know Prof Thram a little bit more as well.  We spoke many times, I was able to help her out in some different tasks throughout the week, and we have plans to start meeting and preparing next week for our trip(s).

Andy Morris and I on my last morning
in East London

The conference started in East London.  I said goodbye to the Chins as they headed back to America, and I moved in with Gwen and Andy Morris.  Andy is pictured here.  They were incredibly gracious to me, bent on my fully experiencing the joys of South Africa.  They even went so far as to prepare some Ostrich steaks one night.  Ostrich is red meat!  Figure that out!

The conference then migrated to a place called Alice, where University of Fort Hare is based.  We got to see a number of cool archives and buildings there dealing with ethnomusicology- including the archive of the ANC political party, dating back to South African independence and earlier.  We also heard an incredible keynote address by Angela Impey of the University of London about on-going fieldwork in South Sudan.

We then moved on to stay the night in a place called Hogsback, which is up in mountains.  More to come!