Images (from left): Qurbonshoi Qurbonsho (Tajikistan), Jin Hi Kim (USA – South Korea), Ephraim Amu (Ghana)
Music Department Colloquium Series
Wednesdays | 4:30–6:00pm | Zoom (unless otherwise noted)

Wednesday, February 15, 2023 at 4:30pm
Zoom
Michael Frishkopf is Professor of Music, Director of the Canadian Centre for Ethnomusicology, and Adjunct Professor of Medicine and Religious Studies at the University of Alberta, as well as Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Communication and Cultural Studies, at the University for Development Studies (Ghana). His talk will outline Music for Global Human Development, a theoretical, activist ethnomusicology fostering human development through sustainable, music-centric, collaborative projects, drawing on case studies from Liberia, Ghana, and Ethiopia. The colloquium is organized by Assistant Professor of Music John Dankwa and Assistant Professor of Music and Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies Saida Daukeyeva as part of the Music Department Colloquium Series.

Thursday, February 23, 2023 at 4:30pm
Adzenyah Rehearsal Hall, Room 003 (Daltry Room), 60 Wyllys Avenue, Middletown
FREE!
Jin Hi Kim is an innovative komungo (fretted board zither) virtuoso, a Guggenheim Fellow composer, and a United States Artists Fellow who teaches Korean Drumming and Creative Music at Wesleyan University. One of the first women to study the 4th-century Korean komungo, she has developed the world’s only electric komungo and performed her Living Tones compositions with leading contemporary musicians around the world. Her works reflect and challenge the multicultural and technological nature of American society. A recipient of numerous national and international awards and fellowships, she has been described as “a musical philosopher and radiator of electricity” (GRAMMY.com).The colloquium is organized by Assistant Professor of Music John Dankwa and Assistant Professor of Music and Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies Saida Daukeyeva as part of the Music Department Colloquium Series.

Wednesday, March 1, 2023 at 4:30pm
Zoom
Richard K. Wolf, Professor of Music and South Asian Studies at Harvard University, is an ethnomusicologist, filmmaker, and photographer who has conducted research in South and Central Asia. His presentation will draw from his research with Wakhi bards in Tajikistan and Afghanistan featured in his film Two Poets and a River (2020). The colloquium is organized by Assistant Professor of Music John Dankwa and Assistant Professor of Music and Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies Saida Daukeyeva as part of the Music Department Colloquium Series.

Wednesday, March 8, 2023 at 4:30pm
Zoom
Florian Carl is an Associate Professor in the Department of Music and Dance at the University of Cape Coast, Ghana, and currently a research fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. His talk will explore the Ghanaian gospel phenomenon at the intersection of popular culture, religious ritual, and everyday life, tracing indigenous forms of Christian popular music through a range of media, performance, and reception contexts. The colloquium is organized by Assistant Professor of Music John Dankwa and Assistant Professor of Music and Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies Saida Daukeyeva as part of the Music Department Colloquium Series.

Wednesday, March 29, 2023 at 4:30pm
Zoom
Anya Shatilova is a Ph.D. candidate in Ethnomusicology at Wesleyan University. Her paper will focus on Vasilii Vasil’evich Andreev’s project of modernizing Russian plucked lutes—domra and balalaika—in late Imperial Russia. Manuel J. Perez III is a second-year M.A. Composition student at Wesleyan University. His talk will explore the relationship between artwork and the artist’s conception of self and lived experience through an analysis of his selected compositions. The colloquium is organized by Assistant Professor of Music John Dankwa and Assistant Professor of Music and Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies Saida Daukeyeva as part of the Music Department Colloquium Series.

Wednesday, April 5, 2023 at 4:30pm
Zoom
Felicia Sandler is a composer teaching at the New England Conservatory. Her scholarship centers on the music of Ghanaian composer Dr. Ephraim Amu, recognized as the “Father of Ghanaian art music,” and the architect of the regional choral idiom. Her presentation will introduce and analyze music from various periods of Amu’s activity, demonstrating how the composer created a cohesive expression that was novel, fresh, Ghanaian and, simultaneously, his own. The colloquium is organized by Assistant Professor of Music John Dankwa and Assistant Professor of Music and Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies Saida Daukeyeva as part of the Music Department Colloquium Series.