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
ethnomusicologyEthnomusicology is a branch of musicology defined as "the study of social and cultural aspects of music and dance in local and global contexts."...
associations. Officially founded in 1955, its origins extend back to November, 1953 at the annual meeting of the
American Anthropological AssociationThe American Anthropological Association is the world's largest professional organization of scholars and practitioners in the field of anthropology...
in Philadelphia with an informal agreement between
Willard RhodesWillard Rhodes was an American ethnomusicologist. He is known for his extensive recording of American Indian music between 1939 and 1952....
,
David McAllesterDavid Park McAllester , an ethnomusicologist, was Professor of Anthropology and Music at Wesleyan University, where he taught from 1947-1986. He made seminal contributions to the development of the field of ethnomusicology, and helped establish the ethnomusicology department and the World Music...
, and
Alan P. MerriamAlan Parkhurst Merriam was an ethnomusicologist during the last half of the twentieth century. He is remembered primarily for his book, The Anthropology of Music, in which he promotes the study of music from an anthropological perspective and with anthropological methods.In The Anthropology of...
. These three traveled together to the annual meeting of the
American Musicological SocietyThe American Musicological Society is a membership-based musicological organization founded in 1934 to advance scholarly research in the various fields of music as a branch of learning and scholarship; it grew out of a small contingent of the Music Teachers National Association and, more directly,...
in New Haven to enlist the support of musicologist
Charles SeegerCharles Seeger, Jr. was a musicologist, composer, and teacher.-Life:...
in their endeavor to create a new academic society.
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
ethnomusicologyEthnomusicology is a branch of musicology defined as "the study of social and cultural aspects of music and dance in local and global contexts."...
associations. Officially founded in 1955, its origins extend back to November, 1953 at the annual meeting of the
American Anthropological AssociationThe American Anthropological Association is the world's largest professional organization of scholars and practitioners in the field of anthropology...
in Philadelphia with an informal agreement between
Willard RhodesWillard Rhodes was an American ethnomusicologist. He is known for his extensive recording of American Indian music between 1939 and 1952....
,
David McAllesterDavid Park McAllester , an ethnomusicologist, was Professor of Anthropology and Music at Wesleyan University, where he taught from 1947-1986. He made seminal contributions to the development of the field of ethnomusicology, and helped establish the ethnomusicology department and the World Music...
, and
Alan P. MerriamAlan Parkhurst Merriam was an ethnomusicologist during the last half of the twentieth century. He is remembered primarily for his book, The Anthropology of Music, in which he promotes the study of music from an anthropological perspective and with anthropological methods.In The Anthropology of...
. These three traveled together to the annual meeting of the
American Musicological SocietyThe American Musicological Society is a membership-based musicological organization founded in 1934 to advance scholarly research in the various fields of music as a branch of learning and scholarship; it grew out of a small contingent of the Music Teachers National Association and, more directly,...
in New Haven to enlist the support of musicologist
Charles SeegerCharles Seeger, Jr. was a musicologist, composer, and teacher.-Life:...
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 KunstJaap Kunst was a Dutch ethnomusicologist, particularly associated with the study of gamelan music of Indonesia...
prize for best writing in the field.
External links