Huib Schippers argues that the history of ethnomusicology shows an organic development towards public-facing work, and discusses the skill sets needed in the field to improve lives through music.
Abstract:
An interesting thing happened to ethnomusicology on its way to the 21st century. While beginnings in the 1800s kept it carefully away from direct interaction with the people who make music, culture and context became increasingly important in the second half of the 20th century. Towards 2000, an awareness had dawned that the musicians we work with and their communities perhaps should be at the center of our efforts. This first manifested as “giving back” research outputs (such as recordings) to the community, and later expanded into working with communities on an equal footing to serve their agendas in and through music.
In this talk, I will argue that this very short history constitutes an organic development towards public-facing work, and discuss how applied ethnomusicologists require new skill sets to engage successfully with an exciting range of contemporary applied work in the realms of social justice, health, institutions, media, cultural sustainability and crisis recovery.
Bio:
Huib Schippers is one of the world’s leading scholars on the crossroads of music education, community music, music industry, cultural diversity, and sustainability. In over three decades of leadership roles in arts and academia, he founded the World Music School in Amsterdam (1990-1996), the World Music & Dance Centre in Rotterdam (2001-2006), and Queensland Conservatorium Research Centre in Australia (2003-2015). Next, he directed Smithsonian Folkways Recordings (2016-2020), served as UC Regents’ Professor at UCLA (2022) and as Visiting Professor at CCOM in Beijing (2023). In 2025, he was proclaimed Distinguished Changjiang Professor and became Founding Director of the International Centre for Cultural Sustainability at Zhaoqing University in China. Schippers has initiated applied projects on five continents and published over 200 publications for scholarly and general audiences, mostly on cultural diversity, artistic research, systems of learning, and cultural sustainability, including Facing the Music: Shaping Music Education from a Global Perspective (Oxford University Press (OUP), 2010); Sustainable Futures for Music Cultures (OUP, 2016) and Music, Communities, Sustainability (OUP, 2022). https://huibschippers.org/