The 68th Annual Meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology
Carleton University is co-hosting and co-sponsoring, with Canadian Museum of History and Queen’s University, the 68th Annual Meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology, taking place in Ottawa from October 18-22, 2023. The Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM) is an academic society whose members engage with the study of music in communities locally and internationally. The meeting is a long-awaited opportunity to bring SEM back to Canada after more than twenty years and to Ottawa for the first time ever. There will be around 800 people participating in the conference which will feature academic presentations, roundtable discussions, live music performances and various workshops. Carleton Music faculty member Anna Hoefnagels is serving as co-Chair of the Local Arrangements Committee with her colleague Judith Klassen, curator at the Canadian Museum of History. Together, they are working with colleagues from the co-hosting institutions, and Music professor Ellen Waterman and MA student Charlotte Stewart-Juby to develop programming that highlights local attractions and features local artists, performers and musicians. Various offices at Carleton University are supporting the event, and funding was also secured through the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Carleton’s Music program will be featured in various ways throughout the conference. Explorations of sound and protest in the Freedom Convey will be shared by Music professor James Deaville and by Gale Franklin, Music alumna and current doctoral candidate in Canadian Studies. Franklin will also present on a panel on signed musicking with Music professor Ellen Waterman.
Carleton Music will also be highlighted in the noon-hour concert “From Highlife to Azonto” by the West African Rhythm Ensemble, directed by Kathy Armstrong and featuring three Ghanaian musicians, including Stacey Can-Tamakloe, a graduate of the MA Music program, Benedictus Mattson and Dominic Donkor. Current Bachelor of Music student and fiddler Robyn Lichaa will perform with fellow musician Tyson Chen, joined by highland Celtic dancer Aislin Perry in the noon-hour concert “That Sounds Like Home: Fiddling from the Quebec-Ontario Border and Beyond.” The noon-hour concert “‘Katajjausiit’ - Inuit throat songs” will feature Ottawa-based Inuit singers Charlotte Angugaattiaq Qamaniqt and Carleton alumna Tamara Tikisa Takpannie. Other noon-hour events include the concert “Sounds of the Mountain: A Journey to Swieda City” which features Toronto-based Syrian musician-scholars Esmaeel Sharafadin Abofakher and Rahaf Alakbani and a noon-hour lecture-recital “Play It by Eye: An Introduction to Signed Music” featuring Pamela E. Witcher, Dawn Birley, and Jody Cripps.
Various other events draw on existing relationships between Carleton University and local organizations and communities. A full-day pre-conference symposium will take place on October 18th at the Canadian Museum of History, focused on discussions around music archives in/and ethnomusicology that will engage museum curators, archivists, musicians, scholars, and community members. Questions that will guide discussions include defining archives and collections, their use historically and now, how technology has shaped engagement with and understandings of archives, and ethical considerations around access to materials and, in some cases, repatriation, or the return of archival materials to host communities. Through a series of roundtables, and featuring two lecture-recitals comprising musicians who engage materials from archival collections, the symposium will examine these questions to expand dialogue within and beyond the discipline of ethnomusicology. Conference delegates will also be able to participate in tours of the Music Collections at the Canadian Museum of History, including conversations with museum staff from Collections, Conservation and Archives, with a sneak peek at artifacts connected to the upcoming Popular Music exhibition. Carleton’s Research Centre for Music, Sound and Society is co-sponsoring a screening of films featured in the Journal of Audiovisual Ethnomusicology.
The local arrangements committee has also organized special events to offer conference delegates insight into local traditions and experiences of musicians. Cultural educators from the Native North American Travelling College in Akwesasne will host a workshop on Haudenosaunee social song and dance, and two roundtable panels will also feature local musicians and traditions. Macho Commonda, Carleton’s Algonquin Liaison Officer, assisted in the organization of, and will moderate a roundtable titled “Unceded and Unsurrendered: Voices, Reflections of Indigenous Musicians in and around Ottawa/Gatineau.” This roundtable will feature musicians Beverley McKiver (Anishinaabe), Charlotte Angugaattiaq Qamaniq (Inuk), Keith Whiteduck (Algonquin) Mikayla Karonhianonha ("She Protects the Skies") Francis (Mohawk), and Jaime Morse, (Otipemisiwak/Nehiyaw [Métis/Cree]), who will share their music and dance traditions, followed by a discussion their relationship with the local land and waterways and how that connects with their musical creations. “Making Home, Community and Music Anew: Experiences of Immigrants to Canada” will engage discussions around the complexity of relocation and displacement, and formation of new communities and connections drawing on their own experiences as musicians. Along with Carleton Sonia Caceres, alumna of Carleton’s MA in Music Culture program, the roundtable will include Mei Han, Esmaeel Abofakher, Golam Rabbani, and Dominic Donkor and will be moderated by Andrea Emberly.
A highlight of the conference will be the Smithsonian Folkways Recordings Sound Communities Series Launch Showcase in the Grand Hall of the Canadian Museum of History on Friday, October 20th, starting at 7:30. The showcase will feature artists who tell stories of the lands, waters, and peoples of Turtle Island, focusing on the territories also known as Canada. Artists will include Sons of Membertou featuring Morgan Toney (Mi’kmaq drummers and fiddler), Julian Kytasty with Chester Delaney and Elyse Delaney (Ukrainian-Canadian-American bandura, and Acadian fiddle and song) and Mamadou Koïta featuring Afua Cooper (balafon & spoken word collaboration). There will be a cash bar on offer and free light snacks. Grand Hall Exhibitions will be open to explore throughout the evening. Everyone is welcome to come and discover new artists and explore culture and heritage through music! Visit the History Museum website for more information and tickets.
View more information about the conference and special programming.
