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  • Ethnomusicological Encounters with Music and Musicians: Essays in Honor of Robert Garfias
  • Sonia Archer-Capuzzo
Ethnomusicological Encounters with Music and Musicians: Essays in Honor of Robert Garfias. Edited by Timothy Rice. (SOAS Musicology Series.) Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2011. [xix, 342 p. ISBN 9781409420378. $119.95.] Music examples, illustrations, bibliography, index.

In 1962, only a dozen years after the term "ethnomusicology" first appeared in print in the writings of Jaap Kunst, Robert Garfias arrived at the University of Washington to found a program in ethnomusicology studies. Over the ensuing decades, the program at Washington influenced hundreds of students, musicians, and scholars, at the university and beyond. In this book, former students and colleagues of Garfias contribute essays on a variety of ethnomusicological topics in tribute to his influence on each of them and on the field as a whole.

Organized in two large sections, "Encountering Musicians" and "Encountering Music," Ethnomusicological Encounters encompasses a variety of scholarly approaches to differing musical cultures, styles, and issues. In his preface, editor Timothy Rice points out that the book's essays "cover music from seven of the nine major regions of the world," including the Middle East, Europe, the United States, Africa, and various areas in Asia (p. xiv). Further, the issues explored by each contributor and their methods of research and dissemination vary, from primarily theoretical explorations to autobiography. At times, this can make the book seem disjointed, as the reader shifts frequently from one topic and writing style to another. However, the scholarly diversity represented by the collection is also a testament to the program of study Garfias created at Washington.

There are a number of common threads that unify the essays in Ethnomusicological Encounters, the most important being the link to Garfias and the University of Washington shared by the contributors. The aspect of the curriculum at Washington most often mentioned throughout the book is perhaps the visiting artists program. This is especially the case in "Encountering Musicians," in which the authors recount their experiences meeting and studying with musicians at the university and in the field, and how these meetings, in the words of Rice, "changed and formed [the authors] as scholars and human beings" (p. xv). Sean Williams, in his study of Joe Heaney, an Irish sean-nós who visited Washington in the late 1970s and early 1980s, writes that the visiting artists were employed in part to give "graduate students the opportunity to practice fieldwork first-hand, prior to leaving for their chosen fieldwork destinations" (p. 49). Karl Signell and Andrew Killick both profile musicians who served as visiting artists at Washington and who had significant impacts upon the music of their home countries. However, Signell's chapter does not quite deliver on the promise of a memoir/biography and Killick's and Williams's essays seem disjointed and unclear in their objectives at times. This is perhaps because of the space constraints when contributing one of many chapters to a book.

Similarly, Daniel Neumann adopts a memoir/autobiography form, in his "meditation on the interconnectedness of lives" (p. 130), recounting highlights from his career as an ethnomusicologist in an interesting if sometimes rambling format. On the other hand, Usopay Cadar, a former visiting artist and Ph.D. recipient at Washington, contributes a clear and thorough autobiographical essay. He writes about his experiences learning music from his mother, High Queen Damoao, in the Philippines and then teaching that music in the United States.

Indeed, the theme of music education is another common thread throughout the book. Patricia Shehan Campbell studies how the visiting artists program, and specifically private and ensemble study with these artists, influenced music education majors at Washington, arguing that the benefits of the program reach beyond ethnomusicology scholars to numerous musicians and music lovers. Many of the essays address lessons learned by the authors during their studies or their fieldwork. This relates strongly to Garfias's own priorities, which become obvious in his opening essay. He writes of envisioning the visiting artists program at Washington as a set of "study groups" (p. 9) rather than performing ensembles, and of training graduate students not only to conduct effective fieldwork, but also to teach a...

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