Scholarly and Professional Societies

The music department is a part of the Research Institute of the Arts, which also includes Fine Art Studies, Theatre Studies, Screen Arts Studies (after 1988), and Architectural Studies (since 2010). The music department existed independently until 1988 as an Institute of Music. The Institute of Music was established in 1948 as the Research Institute of Music with the Museum at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences with two staff members: Petko Staynov (director) and Andrey Stoyanov. The task of the Institute of Music is to collect, preserve, and publish the Bulgarian folksong heritage. Subsequently the collectors and researchers of folk songs and traditions Ivan Kachulev, Andrey Andreev (1950), Rayna Katsarova, and Elena Stoin (1951) were appointed at the Institute. A separate section for folk music was established at the Institute, led by Rayna Katsarova (1952–67) and, since 1967, Prof. Kaufmann. In 1952 the first volume of the first research journal of the Institute, ...

[CBMR]

The Center for Black Music Research (CBMR) was founded in 1983 at Columbia College Chicago by Samuel A. Floyd, Jr. Its mission has remained the same since its inception: to document, preserve, and promote the music of the African Diaspora. This mission is accomplished through publications, conferences and symposia, performances, research fellowships, and the Library and Archives, housing books and research collections.

The Center’s flagship publication, Black Music Research Journal (1980–), antedates Floyd’s move to Columbia College. The Center has also published Lenox Avenue (1995–1999), the scholarly journal for a grant-funded project which explored music’s role in the arts of the African Diaspora. Various newsletters, including Black Music Research Newsletter/CBMR Bulletin (1977–1990), and CBMR Digest (1990–) informed members about the Center’s activities. Kalinda! (1994–1997), Stop-Time (1998–2000), and Cariso! (2003–2006) were published for specific grant-funded projects. The Center’s publications also include a bibliographic and reference series consisting of five CBMR monographs, ...

Guitar, mandolin, and ukulele manufacturer. It was founded in Houston, Texas, in 1976, by Bill Collings (b Aug 9, 1948; d Austin, TX, July 14, 2017), who had moved from Ohio to Texas following a failed attempt at medical school. After building a few guitars and some banjos, Collings moved to Austin in 1979. His background as a machinist led him to emphasize precise jigs and fixtures even when he was working out of a small single-car garage. Demand for Collings guitars, specifically for updated versions of Martin and Gibson flat-top styles from the 1930s, prompted his move to a 1,000-square-foot shop in 1989. Two woodworkers were hired, including Bruce Van Wart, who is still in charge of wood selection and top voicing on the firm’s acoustic guitars. By this time, production had increased to a level that allowed sales to a few retailers.

In late 1991 the company relocated to a much larger facility on the outskirts of Austin, and the number of Collings guitar models, and employees, began to grow. Bill Collings was one of the first flat-top guitar builders to offer fully carved arch-top models as well. These deluxe jazz guitars were quickly accepted as the equals of those from premier American builders, and they sold for similar prices; but only a few were completed each year. Collings was also one of the first small, independent guitar companies to incorporate CNC (computer numerical control) carving machines for building both guitar parts and the precise tooling to aid in their assembly, which is still done by hand. One of the signature differences between the Collings models and the Gibson and Martin originals that inspired them is that Collings uses an unglued bolted mortise and tenon neck joint, rather than a traditional dovetail....

The first Serbian choral society in Serbia proper, founded in 1853 as the Belgrade Choral Society (Beogradsko pevačko društvo, henceforth BCS), renamed in 1929 as the First BCS. Working under the auspices of the royal family Obrenović, it was originally a male choir, later a mixed choir, and included a music school. Due to the lack of choir compositions in the Serbian language during the first years of BCS’s work, with Milan Milovuk, the repertoire was based on songs by German, Czech, Russian, and Hungarian composers. The national orientation, resulting in arrangements and stylizations of folk melodies and other compositions, was encouraged by Stevan Todorović, at various times a board member or the president and the main ideologist of the choral society, especially during the engagement of the most prominent Serbian composers as conductors, including Kornelije Stanković, Davorin Jenko, and Josif Marinković, culminating with Stevan Mokranjac. Mokranjac promoted his own choral music, as well as that of his contemporaries and predecessors, not only in the capital of Serbia and the places where a dispersed Serbian population lived (in what is now Vojvodina, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, and Macedonia), but also in Greece, Hungary, Bulgaria, the Ottoman Empire/Turkey, Russia, and Germany, performing concerts for the kings, emperors, and a sultan with great success. This peak in BCS history (...

Romanian conservatory founded in 1919 in Cluj-Napoca in central Transylvania. It comprises today three main faculties: musical performance, music theory, and musical theatre. Since 1998, a fourth branch has been founded in the city of Piatra Neamţ, situated in a different region in northeast Romania. Initially founded as the Conservatory for Music and Dramatic Arts, the institution was also named the Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts (from 1931) and the Gheorghe Dima Music Conservatory (from 1950); since 1990 it has regained its title of academy in its current form—the Gheorghe Dima Music Academy. The institution has borne for 60 years the name of its first rector, the composer Gheorghe Dima, who is praised for his role in the founding of musical higher-education in Transylvania.

The history of the institution begins in an effervescent social and cultural period, shortly after the Union of Transylvania with Romania (1918...

American music research institute. Founded in 1971 as The Institute for Studies in American Music, the Institute was renamed in 2008 to honor its founding director. It is a research center at Brooklyn College, CUNY, New York, and is also affiliated with CUNY’s Graduate Center. As Hitchcock stated, the Institute was established “to provide a suitable academic framework in which to encourage, support, propagate, and evaluate research projects in American music.” Hitchcock led the Institute until his retirement in 1993; during this time the center also functioned as the world headquarters of the Charles Ives Society. The Institute has been directed by Carol J. Oja (1993–7), Ellie M. Hisama (1997–2005), and Jeffrey Taylor (2007–present). Hitchcock’s extensive files at the Institute and materials related to Henry Cowell were bequeathed to the Performing Arts Division of the New York Public Library upon his death in December 2007...

Hawaiian hula school in Hilo, Hawaii. Founded in 1953 by Edith Kanaka’ole, the school has been instrumental in the preservation and dissemination of hula and chant practices associated with Pele, the goddess of fire. Knowledge about these traditions was passed down to Kanaka’ole through matrilineal descent for at least seven generations, and she in turn instructed her own daughters, Pualani Kanaka’ole Kanahele and Nalani Kanaka’ole, who inherited the school in 1979 upon their mother’s death.

The style of hula taught and performed by the school, ’aiha’a, is characterized by a bent-knee posture and vigorous movements, a reflection of the energy and power of the volcano goddess. In addition to learning hula, dancers at the school become fully immersed in the culture of Hawaii and hula. They learn the Hawaiian language and how to play the ipu (gourd) and pahu (sharkskin drum), and create their own costumes and props using the traditional materials and practices....

United States-based collective founded in 1984 by David Doty, Henry Rosenthal, and Carola Anderson. The Just Intonation Network’s membership has attracted a wide-ranging group of musicians including composers, theorists, performers, and instrument designers and builders as well as hobbyists whose work is primarily focused on just intonation. Dealing with the physical properties of sound, just intonation is an expandable tuning system in which pitches are derived from the overtone series of a specific fundamental pitch and are expressed in relation to said fundamental. As a collective, the group has served as a forum for just intonation on an international scale. In addition to providing a meeting ground for musicians, the Just Intonation Network has published several works including Doty’s The Just Intonation Primer (San Francisco: 1993, 1994, 2002) and has made available three compilation recordings of members’ compositions: Tellus 14: Just Intonation (1986, a volume of the Tellus audio cassette magazine), ...

[MACCM]

Organization founded in 1987 to promote the performance, composition, study, and appreciation of new music. Based in the College of Musical Arts of Bowling Green State University in Ohio, MACCM (https://www.bgsu.edu/musical-arts/maccm.html) supports the University’s contemporary music programs, including the New Music Ensemble and Music Technology and Recording Studios, established by Burton Beerman and Donald M. Wilson in 1971, and the annual New Music Festival, inaugurated by Beerman in 1980. MACCM’s directors have included Marilyn Shrude, Beerman, Mikel Kuehn, and Jacqueline Leclair.

Widely regarded as the largest and most successful university-based festival of contemporary music in the United States, the New Music Festival has performed music by some 600 composers to an annual audience estimated at 2000. In addition to presenting some eight concerts over four days, the Festival offers panels, lectures, master classes, paper sessions, and art exhibitions (1986–2008). Prominent academic and industry music journals have noted the quality of its performances and diversity of its programming....

[NANM]

Organization founded in 1919 in Chicago to promote interest in African American music. Earlier efforts to found such an organization had been made by Clarence Cameron White in 1916 and R. Nathaniel Dett in 1918, both of whom participated in the first convention of the association and served as president during the 1920s. Governed by a board of directors and elected officers, the organization has met annually in various cities during the summer for workshops, concerts, recitals, panel discussions, business meetings, and youth concerts. Its numerous regional branches have sponsored other activities throughout the year. Among the recipients of national awards and special tributes early in their careers have been Hazel Harrison, Marian Anderson, Julia Perry, Arthur LaBrew, Grace Bumbry, Leon Bates, and Awadagin Pratt.

American organization for professional women writers, artists, and composers. The National League of American Pen Women (NLAPW) was founded in 1897 by woman journalists excluded from the all-male Press Club in Washington, DC. Membership was limited to women who were paid professionals in their fields. The group originally included writers and illustrators, and it gradually came to include composers as well. Some of the earliest musician members were authors of pedagogy publications or writers for music magazines. Most of the first composers were lyricists for their own songs and were admitted as poets. Eleanor Everest Freer and Carrie Jacobs-Bond joined the League before it officially admitted composers. The first music committee, established in 1916, featured three songwriters and an author of music articles, but quickly became the League’s composers’ group. By the 1920s the Pen Women had 50 composer members. In the 1930s the organization’s total membership consisted of 2000 women in 53 branches, located in almost every state....

Organization founded in 1930 “to train American orchestra musicians in orchestral techniques and repertoire, providing them with the necessary experience and level of expertise to enter professional orchestra careers.” Originally called the American Orchestral Society and later reorganized by Mary Flagler Cary, Franklin Robinson, and Léon Barzin, the Association gave its first concert at Carnegie Hall on 28 October 1930, making it the oldest training orchestra in the United States. Barzin, who later became founding music director of the New York City Ballet, led the Association until 1958 and again from 1970–76. He remained involved with the organization into his 90s, and an annual award has been given in his honor. The orchestra has not only explored the standard repertory but has also given more than 60 world premieres, 25 American premieres, and 60 New York premieres. It has rehearsed and performed under such guest conductors as Aaron Copland and Bernard Haitink, and has accompanied soloists such as Emanuel Feuermann, Myra Hess, Philippe Entremont, and Itzhak Perlman. During World War II, the orchestra played at army camps and hospitals and gave 25 war-bond concerts over the New York radio station WQXR. It was the official orchestra of the Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto in ...

Performing rights organization. It represents songwriters and publishers and their right to be compensated for having their music performed in public. With headquarters in Nashville and offices in New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Miami, and London, it is the smallest of the main Performing rights societies in the United States. Unlike the not-for-profit organizations ASCAP and BMI, which distribute all income from performance royalties to their composer and publisher affiliates (minus an administrative fee), SESAC retains a certain amount of the performance royalties from its members. Moreover, membership in SESAC is selective and only granted through an application process. Once admitted, musicians and publishers are paid royalties based upon how much their music is played through monitoring by computer database information and broadcast logs.

SESAC was founded in 1930 by Paul Heinecke, a German immigrant to the United States. Heinecke lead the company until his death in 1972. The original name of the company was the Society of European Stage Authors and Composers, although it has subsequently gone simply by SESAC. The society originally strove to support under-represented European stage authors and composers with their American performance royalties. With an established base repertoire of European concert traditions, it turned its attention to American music traditions in the 1930s, including gospel and Christian music genres and eventually moved into mainstream popular musics during the 1940s, 50s, and 60s. Since the 1960s the company has represented an ever-growing range of writers and genres, including notables such as Bob Dylan and Neil Diamond. In ...

Concert venue and gallery, focusing at first on visual art, but soon becoming one of the key locations in the Czech Republic for contemporary and improvised music, sound art, and intermedia work.

Housed in the courtyard of an 1888 neo-Renaissance building in the centre of Prague, the former galvanizing workshop was reconstructed in 1999 by the Linhart Foundation and opened to the public in 2000.

The gallery has offered a regular programme of two monthly concerts, always featuring a local act opening for a foreign guest. Performers have included Thomas Lehn, Franz Hautzinger, Dieb13, and Jim Denley, as well as most musicians on the Czech improvised music scene, and many composer-performers, including Peter Graham, Lucie Vítková, and Miro Tóth[1]. Artists working with sound at the gallery in an installation context have included Jacob Kirkegaard, Phill Niblock, Peter Cusack, and John Grzinich.

Apart from regular exhibitions and concerts, the gallery has also organized long-term residencies for artists, artistic workshops, and discussions. Since ...

The Society for Asian Music (SAM) was formed in 1959–60 in close association with the Asia Society. Prominent among its organizers were Paul Sherbert (president of the Asia Society), Willard Rhodes, professor of music at Columbia University (chairman of the board of SAM), and Henry Cowell, composer (president of SAM). At the society’s first public meeting, on 27 March 1960, more than 100 members enrolled. The stated purposes of the society were to “encourage and cultivate a greater understanding and knowledge of Asian music in the United States by means of lectures, discussions, concerts and recordings, and to make available in the United States authoritative books, articles, films, musical scores and similar materials” (EthM, v/1, 1961, 71–2). The initial performance sponsored by the society was the United States debut of Ravi Shankar. Subsequent to that, volunteer SAM members and Asia Society staff produced a series of monthly performances and lectures on Asian performing arts of such prominent Asian artists and scholars as Ali Akbar Khan, Chatur Lal, Kishibe Shigeo, T. Viswanathan, and ...

Organization founded in New York in 1966 as the American Society of University Composers by Donald Martino, J.K. Randall, Claudio Spies, Henry Weinberg, Peter Westergaard, Charles Wuorinen, and Benjamin Boretz. Its mission was to further the cause of contemporary American music by providing opportunities for performing, recording, and publishing compositions by its members. In 1986 the organization's name was changed to the Society of Composers, Inc. (SCI) to reflect the demography of the organization. Each year the society hosts a national and several regional conferences for which members are invited to submit compositions and proposals for papers, sound installations, and panel discussions. It also sponsors, with the assistance of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP), an annual Student Commission Competition and the annual SCI National Student Conference, which is a “major festival of works by young composers.” The society publishes the 29-volume Journal of Music Scores, a growing CD recording series (30 volumes as of ...

National nonprofit organization founded in 1996 by University of Michigan graduates Aaron P(aul) Dworkin and Carrie Chester. Dworkin and Chester sought to increase cultural diversity in the field of classical music and simultaneously overcome cultural stereotypes. The mission of the organization is, first, to increase the participation of blacks and Latinos as students in music schools, as professional musicians, and as classical music audiences; and second, to administer youth development initiatives in underserved communities through music education and by providing high-quality musical instruments.

The Sphinx Competition, a cornerstone program, began in 1998 as an annual string competition for black and Latino classical string players, from junior high through college, who compete for prizes and scholarships. The organization has since expanded to include an additional 13 professional, educational, community outreach, and performance initiatives under their Artist Development, Sphinx Prep, Sphinx Performance Academy, Sphinx Legacy Project, and Sphinx Presents programs. Sphinx also currently maintains three ensembles comprised of critically acclaimed professionals: The Sphinx Symphony, Sphinx Virtuosi, and Catalyst Quartet. The organization also regularly commissions, programs, and archives works by black and Latino composers....