Ellen Waterman
Full Professor, Helmut Kallmann Chair for Music in Canada; Director, Research Centre for Music, Sound, and Society in Canada
| Degrees: | Ph.D., M.A. (U. California, San Diego), B. Mus. (U. Manitoba) |
| Phone: | 613-520-2600 x 6060 |
| Email: | ellen.waterman@carleton.ca |
| Office: | A812 Loeb Building |
| Website: | Browse |
On sabbatical leave, 2024.
I am a music and sound studies scholar with a strong focus on Canada. A flutist, I specialize in creative improvisation. At Carleton, I am founding director of Music, Sound, and Society in Canada, an interdisciplinary research centre exploring the complex ways that music and sound are shaped by, and help to shape, our pluralistic society. The MSSC is committed to community-engaged scholarship and research-creation for social transformation.
My teaching includes topics related to music and sound studies as they intersect with ecology theories, social transformation, creative practices, and Canada. I supervise graduate students in the MA in Music and Culture, and the PhD in Cultural Mediations.
I work across ethnographic and community-engaged research-creation methodologies, most often in collaboration with other scholars, artists, and community groups. One of my keen interests is ecology theory in relation to theorizing arts ecosystems. I have roots in experimental music through my early research on acoustic ecology and environmental performance with R. Murray Schafer, and through my comparative study of music festivals across Canada between 2003 and 2019. Since 2004 I’ve helped to build the field of critical improvisation studies with the International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation and was a founding co-editor of the journal Critical Studies in Improvisation/Etudes critiques en improvisation. Along with other concerned music academics across Canada, I’m working on the urgent issue of reforming postsecondary music studies for greater accessibility, diversity, equity, and inclusion. Some of this work is found in my 2019 co-authored article with Inuk music educator Kendra Jacque. One project I especially value is the International AUMI Consortium, founded by the late Pauline Oliveros to develop, test, and make freely available adaptive use musical instruments for people with exceptionalities. Our collaborative book on AUMI is forthcoming from University of Michigan Press. Currently, I’m the primary investigator for two research projects on music, equity, and co-creation funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for which I’m collaborating with community partners in Ottawa including the Carleton University Art Gallery, the National Arts Centre Orchestra, the Lotus Centre for Special Music Education, Sonshine Community Inclusion Centre, and Tone Cluster-Quite a Queer Choir.
Websites
Books
Improvising Across Abilities: Pauline Oliveros and the Adaptive Use Musical Instrument. Ed. by the AUMI Editorial Collective: Thomas Ciufo, Abbey Dvorak, Kip Haaheim, IONE, Leaf Miller, Ray Mizumura-Pence, Jesse Stewart, John Sullivan, Sherrie Tucker, Ellen Waterman, Ranita Wilks. Music and Social Justice Series. University of Michigan Press (in Press).
Negotiated Moments: Improvisation, Sound and Subjectivity. Ed. by Gillian Siddall and Ellen Waterman. Duke University Press, 2016.
The Art of Immersive Soundscapes. Ed. by Pauline Minevich and Ellen Waterman; DVD curated by James Harley. University of Regina Press, 2013.
Sonic Geography Imagined and Remembered. Editor and Introduction. Peterborough: Frost Centre for Canadian Studies and Native Studies; and Manotick: Penumbra Press, 2002
Articles and Book Chapters (selected)
“I am Here: AUMI Sings and Choral Participation.” Ellen Waterman, Laurel Forshaw, Gillian Siddall, Henry Lowengard, Gale Franklin, Teresa Connors, and Karen Berglander. Improvising Across Abilities: Pauline Oliveros and the Adaptive Use Musical Instrument. Ed. by the AUMI Editorial Collective: Thomas Ciufo, Abbey Dvorak, Kip Haaheim, IONE, Leaf Miller, Ray Mizumura-Pence, Jesse Stewart, John Sullivan, Sherrie Tucker, Ellen Waterman, Ranita Wilks. Music and Social Justice Series. University of Michigan Press (in Press).
Dialogue with Deborah Wong and Dylan Robinson on Settler responsibilities to Indigenous resurgence in the conclusion to Robinson’s book Hungry Listening: Resonant Theory for Indigenous Sound Studies. University of Minnesota Press: 2020, 240 – 252.
“Una perspectiva literaria y feminista de Cassandra’s Dream Song de Brian Ferneyhough.”Musica y mujeres: genero y poder. Second Edition. Madrid: Librer = Eda de mujeres, 2020 [1998]. 191-209. Print. [Originally “Cassandra’s Dream Song: a Literary/Feminist Perspective.” Reprinted from Perspectives of New Music, and translated by Jane Rigler and Rafael Liñán]
“The Long and Narrow Road: An Inuit Student’s Journey Through Post-Secondary Music.” Intersections: Journal of Canadian Music. 39.1 (2019): 123–136. Kendra Jacque and Ellen Waterman. https://www.erudit.org/en/journals/is/2019-v39-n1-is05836/1075346ar/
“Performance Studies and Critical Improvisation Studies in Ethnomusicology: Understanding Music and Culture through Situated Practice.” For Theory for Ethnomusicology: Histories, Conversations, Insights, 2nd Edition, edited by Harris Berger and Ruth Stone. London and New York: Routledge, 2019. 141-175.
“Improvisation, Adaptability, and Collaboration: Using AUMI in Community Music Therapy.” Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy. Co-authored with Mark Finch and Susan LeMessurier-Quinn. 16.3 (2016). https://voices.no/index.php/voices/article/view/2305
“Witnessing Music from the New Wilderness.” Contemporary Music Review, special issue on Music and Ecology, 35.3, 2016.
“Improvisation and the Audibility of Difference: Safa, Canadian Multiculturalism, and the Politics of Recognition.” Negotiated Moments: Improvisation, Sound and Subjectivity. Ed. Gillian Siddall and Ellen Waterman. Duke University Press, 2016.
“The Ecology of Musical Performance: Towards a Robust Methodology.” Co-authored with Alice Boyle. Current Directions in Ecomusicology. Ed. Aaron Allen and Kevin Dawe. Routledge, 2015.
“Trust and Risk in Improvisation: Opening Statements.” Improvisation Studies Reader: Spontaneous Acts. Ed. Rebecca Caines and Ajay Heble. New York and London: Routledge, 2014. 59-62.
“Listening Trust: The Everyday Politics of George Lewis’s “Dream Team”.” Co-authored with Julie Dawn Smith. People Get Ready: The Future of Jazz is Now! Ed. Ajay Heble and Rob Wallace. Duke University Press, 2013. 59-87.
“Send and Receive: Technology, Embodiment and the Social in Sound Art” for The Art of Immersive Soundscapes. Anthology and DVD. Ed. Pauline Minevich and Ellen Waterman. University of Regina Press, 2013. 111-127.
“Say Who You Are Play Who You Are: Improvisation, Pedagogy, and Youth on the Margins.” Action, Criticism & Theory for Music Education, Special Issue: Music Education in Urban Contexts. Co-authored with Ajay Heble, Ashlee Consolo Willox, Rob Jackson, Melissa Walker. 10.1(2011): 114-131. http://act.maydaygroup.org/articles/Willox-Heble10_1.pdf
“Naked Intimacy: Eroticism, Improvisation, and Gender.” Critical Studies in Improvisation/Etudes critique en improvisation Vol 4.2, 2008. https://www.criticalimprov.com/index.php/csieci/article/view/845/1396
“Radio Bodies: Discourse, Performance, Resonance.” Radio Territories. Ed. Brandon LaBelle and Erik Granly Jensen. Errant Bodies Press, 2007. 118-153. http://www.errantbodies.org/radio_territories.html
“Purposeful Play: Women Radiomakers in Community-Based Campus Radio in Canada.” Atlantis: A Women’s Studies Journal 30.2(2006): 76-87. http://journals.msvu.ca/index.php?journal=atlantis&page=article&op=view&path%5B%5D=781&path%5B%5D=768