Society for Ethnomusicology
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The Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM) is, with the International Council for Traditional Music (ICTM) and British Forum for Ethnomusicology (BFE), one of three major international ethnomusicology associations. Officially founded in 1955, its origins extend back to November, 1953 at the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association in Philadelphia with an informal agreement between Willard Rhodes, David McAllester, and Alan P. Merriam.[1] These three traveled together to the annual meeting of the American Musicological Society in New Haven to enlist the support of musicologist Charles Seeger in their endeavor to create a new academic society. This meeting resulted in the launch of Ethno-musicology Newsletter, ethnomusicology's first dedicated serial publication, containing notes about current field research projects, a bibliography, and list of recordings of interest to the nascent discipline. The first SEM annual meeting occurred in Philadelphia in September, 1955.
SEM currently publishes a quarterly newsletter, a quarterly journal entitled Ethnomusicology, and an extensive set of "ographies" (bibliography, discography, filmography, videography). They hold one annual international conference and over a dozen regional conferences, maintain an active website, and present more than a dozen prizes for scholarship and service, such as the Jaap Kunst prize for best writing in the field.
[edit] See also
- Gertrude Prokosch Kurath, dance editor of the journal from 1958-1972
[edit] References
- ^ Merriam, Alan. 1953. "Introduction." Ethno-musicology Newsletter 1 (December), 1-2.