A Feminist Ethnomusicology

Writings on Music and Gender

Ellen Koskoff

Foreword by Suzanne Cusick

   "One of the clearest overviews of the history of feminist and gender studies—in general and in the specific domains of musicology, ethnomusicology, and anthropology—that I have read. The bibliography alone is worth the price of admission."—Margaret Sarkissian, author of D'Albquerque's Children: Performing Tradition in Malaysia's Portuguese Settlement

   One of the pioneers of gender studies in music, Ellen Koskoff edited the foundational text Women and Music in Cross Cultural Perspective, and her career evolved in tandem with the emergence and development of the field. In this intellectual memoir, Koskoff describes her journey through the maze of social history and scholarship related to her work examining the intersection of music and gender. Koskoff collects new, revised, and hard-to-find published material from mid-1970s through 2010 to trace the evolution of ethnomusicological thinking about women, gender, and music, offering a perspective of how questions emerged and changed in those years, as well as Koskoff's reassessment of the early years and development of the field. Her goal: a personal map of the different paths to understanding she took over the decades, and how each inspired, informed, and clarified her scholarship. For example, Koskoff shows how a preference for face-to-face interactions with living people served her best in her research, and how her now-classic work within Brooklyn's Hasidic community inflamed her feminist consciousness while leading her into ethnomusicological studies.

An uncommon merging of retrospective and rumination, A Feminist Ethnomusicology: Writings on Music and Gender offers a witty and disarmingly frank tour through the formative decades of the field and will be of interest to ethnomusicologists, anthropologists, scholars of the history and development of feminist thought, and those engaged in fieldwork.

University of Illinois Press
April 2014 256pp 3 charts, 4 musical examples 9780252080074 Paperback £19.99 now only £14.99 when you quote CS1014MUSI when you order

Clavichord for Beginners

Joan Benson

   "If pianists learned to play on the clavichord, they would be much more careful with the kind of sound they produce on the modern piano. The clavichord is my best teacher because it makes me listen very carefully. The sound is so delicate and the touch so sensitive, it shows all my shortcomings immediately. The clavichord also helps me play Bach without the sustaining pedal of the modern piano. I would make clavichord practice compulsory for all pianists." —András Schiff, Grammy award-winning classical pianist and recipient of the Royal Academy of Music Bach Prize

   Written by Joan Benson, one of the champions of clavichord performance in the 20th century, Clavichord for Beginners is an exceptional method book for both practitioners and enthusiasts. In addition to detailing the historical origins of the instrument and the evolution of keyboard technique, the book describes the proper method for practicing fingering and articulation and emphasizes the importance of touch and sensitivity at the keyboard. A CD featuring Benson in performance and a DVD of interviews and lessons accompany the book, illustrating important exercises for the beginner. The disks also include discussions on topics that range from 16th-century keyboard masters to the frontiers of electronic music research.

Indiana University Press
April 2014 144pp 19 b&w illus., 77 music exx. 9780253011589 Paperback £34.00 now only £25.50 when you quote CS1014MUSI when you order

Hip Hop Ukraine

Music, Race, and African Migration

Adriana N. Helbig

"A well-conceived study of the role and significance of hip hop in Ukraine. It joins the ranks of other very timely chronicles on the impact of hip hop in various societies around the world." —Allison Blakely, Boston University

   In Hip Hop Ukraine, we enter a world of urban music and dance competitions, hip hop parties, and recording studio culture to explore unique sites of interracial encounters among African students, African immigrants, and local populations in eastern Ukraine. Adriana N. Helbig combines ethnographic research with music, media, and policy analysis to examine how localized forms of hip hop create social and political spaces where an interracial youth culture can speak to issues of human rights and racial equality. She maps the complex trajectories of musical influence—African, Soviet, American—to show how hip hop has become a site of social protest in post-socialist society and a vehicle for social change.

Indiana University Press

May 2014 258pp 16 b&w illus. 9780253012043 Paperback £16.99 now only £12.74 when you quote CS1014MUSI when you order.

Rachmaninoff's Complete Songs

A Companion with Texts and Translations

Richard D. Sylvester

   "It would be difficult to imagine a more comprehensive and thorough study of Rachmaninoff's vocal heritage. Richard Sylvester supplies us with all the information one would wish to have, and it is done not only with complete knowledge of Rachmaninoff's life and creative genius, but also with genuine affection for his type of expression and with inner understanding of Rachmaninoff's idiom. One can learn very much from this unique volume—very inspiring!" —Vladimir Ashkenazy, Conductor and Pianist

   "Richard D. Sylvester's companion to Rachmaninoff's songs is a perfect guide for performers and Rachmaninoff enthusiasts." —Russian Review

   Sergei Rachmaninoff—the last great Russian romantic and arguably the finest pianist of the late 19th and early 20th centuries—wrote 83 songs, which are performed and beloved throughout the world. Like German Lieder and French mélodies, the songs were composed for one singer, accompanied by a piano. In this complete collection, Richard D. Sylvester provides English translations of the songs, along with accurate transliterations of the original texts and detailed commentary. Since Rachmaninoff viewed these "romances" primarily as performances and painstakingly annotated the scores, this volume will be especially valuable for students, scholars, and practitioners of voice and piano.

Indiana University Press
April 2014 328pp 1 b&w illus 9780253353399 Hardback £37.00 now only £27.75 when you quote CS1014MUSI when you order.

Virginia Woolf and Music

Adriana L. Varga

   "This book explains why Virginia Woolf believed that 'a Beethoven quartet is the truth about this vast mass that we call the world' and how profoundly she was influenced by many other composers. Reading the essays collected here, we understand Woolf’s conviction that 'we are the music; we are the thing itself.'" —Susan Gubar, author of Rooms of Our Own

    “In a letter to Elizabeth Treyelyan in September 1940, Virginia Woolf revealed: “I always think of my books as music before I write them”. This statement provides the epigraph to Virginia Woolf and Music, a collection of essays edited by Adriana Varga. It is surprising that comparatively little scholarly attention has been given to the subject.”—Amber K Regis,Times Literary Supplement, 10th October 2014

   These essays explore music and its relationship to language, aesthetics, and culture in the life and work of the preeminent Modernist writer Virginia Woolf (Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, Orlando, A Room of One's Own, and other works). Approaching Woolf from musicology, literary criticism, and gender studies, the collection examines her musical background; music in her fiction and critical writings; and the importance of music in the Bloomsbury milieu and its role within the larger framework of Modernism. Making use of Woolf's diaries, letters, fiction, and the testimony of her contemporaries, these essays illuminate the rich and deeply musical nature of Woolf's works.

Indiana University Press
May 2014 348pp 9 music exx., 3 tables 9780253012555 Paperback £23.99 now only £17.99 when you quote CS1014MUSI when you order

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