The UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music Department of Ethnomusicology is pleased to announce that Anna Morcom has accepted the department’s offer to be the next holder of the Mohindar Brar Sambhi Endowed Chair in Indian Music. Established in 2005, the Sambhi Chair supports the performance, study and teaching of the music of India in the Department of Ethnomusicology. Professor Morcom has accomplished extraordinary research in the fields of Indian and Tibetan musical cultures. She holds a doctorate from SOAS (the School of Oriental and African Studies), where she wrote a dissertation on Hindi film songs and cinema. She presently holds the position of Professor of Ethnomusicology at Royal Holloway, University of London. She is the author of three major books; her most recent, Illicit Words of Indian Dance: Cultures of Exclusion, was awarded the highly competitive Merriam Prize of the Society for Ethnomusicology. The prize committee described this book as “an outstanding work of mature scholarship…the breadth of this book is stunning.” The monograph was also awarded the Marcia Herndon Prize of the Gender and Sexualities section of the Society for Ethnomusicology.
The inaugural chair holder, Daniel Neuman, is retiring at the end of this academic year. As a farewell program, Professor Neuman is sponsoring a concert to celebrate the life and legend of Ustad Sabri Khan, a pioneer of the sarangi. The concert is Saturday, April 28 at 8pm in Schoenberg Hall. Admission is free. READ MORE