Ethnomusicology Forum

Lectures by UC Santa Barbara alumnus Dr. Max Jack ‘19 and PhD candidates Eugenia Siegel Conte and Jared Holton

The UC Santa Barbara Ethnomusicology Forum Spring Quarter lineup featured two virtual lectures over Zoom, one given by PhD candidate Jared Holton as part of the new UCSB ABD Graduate Student Series, and another special lecture given by PhD candidate Eugenia Siegel Conte and alumnus Dr. Max Jack ‘19.

PhD Candidate Jared Holton

Photo by Zach Mendez

PhD candidate Jared Holton presented his lecture, titled “Formulating Difference in Modal Music: The Analysis of Emplacement within Andalusian Music in Tunisia,” on April 21. According to Holton, the music of al-Andalus, or medieval Muslim Spain, contributes significantly to the sense of cultural heritage and identity for many people and constitutes one of the oldest living music traditions in the world. In his talk, Holton explored the process Tunisians undertake in transcribing social and cultural difference within musical structure in order to mobilize meaning. Holton asserted that, more than just scales and pitch hierarchies, the Andalusian modal music of Tunisia demonstrates the vitality of structured sound to foreground relations between ideas, feelings, and bodies, and beyond that between humans, non-humans, and cosmic forces.

PhD Candidate Eugenia Siegel Conte

On May 19, PhD candidate Eugenia Siegel Conte and UC Santa Barbara alumnus Dr. Max Jack (Doctor of Philosophy in Ethnomusicology, 2019) presented “The Art of Making a Scene: Vocal Disruption, Affective Regimes, and Public Space.” After asking questions such as “What do stadiums full of football fans have to do with chapel choirs?” and “How can a viral YouTube video of an impromptu performance of a 13th century Icelandic hymn in a train station tell us something about shouted protest in a new shopping mall?”, Conte and Jack are developing an article, “The Art of Making a Scene,” that explores these questions.

Alumnus Dr. Max Jack

In their presentation for UC Santa Barbara, they discussed how they discovered unexpected links between their scholarly interests and have been collaborating to show how space/place, body, voice, and “affective regimes” (Mankekar and Gupta 2016) can lead to a recognition and reorganization of public space through the embodied poetics of voice. They also talked about the importance of mentorship, friendship, creativity, and collaboration in scholarship.