Theory, Method, Sustainability, and Conflict

Edited by Svanibor Pettan, Professor and Chair of the Program in Ethnomusicology, University of Ljubljana, and Edited by Jeff Titon, Emeritus Professor of Music, Brown University

Svanibor Pettan is professor and chair of the ethnomusicology program at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. Initiator and first chair of the ICTM study group on applied ethnomusicology and a founding member of the SEM Section on applied ethnomusicology, he contributes to the advancement of the field in the global arena with studies in various formats, addressing war-peace continuum, minorities, conflicts and education. He currently serves as Vice-President of the International Council for Traditional Music and as Chair of its Study Group Music and Minorities.

Jeff Todd Titon is Professor of Music, Emeritus, at Brown University, USA, where for 27 years he directed the Ph.D. program in ethnomusicology. The author or editor of eight books and numerous essays, he is known for developing phenomenological and ecological approaches to ethnographic fieldwork, for theorizing and practicing an applied ethnomusicology based in reciprocity and friendship, and for introducing the concepts of cultural and musical sustainability to the fields of folklore and ethnomusicology.

Dan Bendrups considers in his research the role of music, especially popular, in the sustainability of cultural heritage. He has worked with musicians in Indigenous and marginalised communities across the Asia-Pacific region, including diaspora communities in Australia and New Zealand. In collaboration with community leaders, he has developed a range of applied research projects, including a community-based digital sound archive on Easter Island, and a performance-based resource for health promotion in Java. He is currently a Lecturer in Research Education and Development at La Trobe University, Australia.

Klisala Harrison (University of Helsinki, Finland) has served as Chairperson and founding Vice-Chairperson of the ICTM Study Group on Applied Ethnomusicology. She has edited and co-edited three anthologies and published six international, peer-reviewed articles on applied ethnomusicology method, theory and practice. Her areas of research include music, health and well-being; music and poverty; music for theatre and film; and indigenous musics of Canada, Greenland and northern Europe. Currently she works as an Academy of Finland Research Scholar investigating music for health and well-being of Arctic indigenous people.

Erica Haskell is an Assistant Professor of Ethnomusicology at the University of New Haven, USA She holds a Ph.D. and MA in ethnomusicology from Brown University. In her research, she has explored the politics of music, applied ethnomusicology, the involvement of international humanitarian organizations in cultural events and projects in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and the humanitarian intersections between postwar and post-catastrophe environments.

Svanibor Pettan is professor and chair of the ethnomusicology program at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. Initiator and first chair of the ICTM study group on applied ethnomusicology and a founding member of the SEM Section on applied ethnomusicology, he contributes to the advancement of the field in the global arena with studies in various formats, addressing war-peace continuum, minorities, conflicts and education. He currently serves as Vice-President of the International Council for Traditional Music and as Chair of its Study Group Music and Minorities.


Joshua D. Pilzer is Associate Professor of Ethnomusicology in the Faculty of Music at the University of Toronto, Canada, and a specialist in the anthropology of music in modern Korea and Japan. His interests embrace the relationships between music, survival, memory, traumatic experience, marginalization, violence, and social movements. He is the author of Hearts of Pine: Songs in the Lives of Three Korean Survivors of the Japanese "Comfort Women" (Oxford University Press, 2012).

Huib Schippers has a long and diverse history of research into music education, community music, artistic practice, arts policy, and music industry. He was the driving force behind the World Music and Dance Centre in Rotterdam (1996-2003), and Founding Director of the innovative Queensland Conservatorium Research Centre in Brisbane, Australia (2003-2015), from where he led a major international research collaboration into musical ecosystems: "Sustainable futures for music cultures" (Oxford University Press, 2016). Currently, Schippers is Director/Curator of the iconic label Smithsonian Folkways in Washington DC.

Tan Sooi Beng is Professor of Ethnomusicology at the School of Arts, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang. She is the author of Bangsawan: A Social and Stylistic History of Popular Malay Opera (Oxford University Press, 1993) and coauthor of Music of Malaysia: Classical, Folk and Syncretic Traditions (Ashgate Press, 2004). Tan is actively involved in engaged theater combining music, dance, and drama, aimed at educating young people and revitalizing traditions among the multiethnic communities of Penang.

Britta Sweers is Professor of Cultural Anthropology of Music at the Institute of Musicology and Director of the Center for Global Studies at the University of Bern (Switzerland). Having studied at Hamburg University and Indiana University (Bloomington), she was Junior Professor at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater, Rostock (Germany), from 2003 to 2009. Her reserach interests include the transformation of traditional musics (particularly on the British Isles and the Baltic Countries) in global contexts, music and nationalism, and applied ethnomusicology.

Jeff Todd Titon is Professor of Music, Emeritus, at Brown University, USA, where for 27 years he directed the Ph.D. program in ethnomusicology. The author or editor of eight books and numerous essays, he is known for developing phenomenological and ecological approaches to ethnographic fieldwork, for theorizing and practicing an applied ethnomusicology based in reciprocity and friendship, and for introducing the concepts of cultural and musical sustainability to the fields of folklore and ethnomusicology. His current research on a sound ecology may be tracked at http://sustainablemusic.blogspot.com