Center for

Musical Humanities

A Constellation
of Interests

The Center for Musical Humanities is dedicated to advancing the interests of music and the humanities across the whole of UCLA, engaging its faculty, students, and surrounding communities in a series of events that will bring together scholarship, performance, and outreach.

The mission of the center is to foster the study of music within an interdisciplinary context by bringing together scholars and students in a variety of disciplines from around the nation and world to collaborate with scholars and students at UCLA and its associated communities, and to create an effective and vibrant face for the Herb Alpert School of Music by fostering public musical events inspired by its scholarly ventures, featuring faculty and students from across the school.

Conceived along the lines of other centers on campus—that is, dedicated to a constellation of interests shared across disciplines, and serving the needs of faculty, students, and larger community—the Center for Musical Humanities will provide support for a number of different kinds of events, including conferences, concerts informed by scholarship and other arts, or other collaborative ventures that include both scholarly and musical components. The Center is administered and funded by the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, but works closely with the Division of Humanities and other academic units on Campus; faculty on its Advisory Board are drawn from all three Arts schools, Humanities, and Social Sciences.

Our programs are made possible by the Joyce S. and Robert U. Nelson Fund. Robert Uriel Nelson was a revered musicologist and music professor at UCLA, who, together with his wife, established a generous endowment for the university to make programs like this possible.

Call for Papers / Proposals:

“Trouble the Water: Considering Identity, Pedagogy, Ethics, and Musical Practice from Historically Black Colleges and Universities”

UCLA, March 13-14, 2025

The UCLA Center for Musical Humanities at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music is calling for papers/proposals for an interdisciplinary conference titled “Trouble the Water: Considering Identity, Pedagogy, Ethics, and Musical Practice from Historically Black Colleges and Universities” (in-person/hybrid). The conference will take place on Friday, March 14, 2025 in the fully ADA accessible Schoenberg Music Building at UCLA (with a concert taking place the day before, Thursday March 13, 2025). All presentations and performances will be livestreamed.

Within the tradition of American choral music, the ensembles, composers, and performance practices from Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) built a legacy of artistic achievement linked with activism. From the Fisk Jubilee Singers, whose singing challenged preconceived notions of black performers, to the HBCU campuses, where singing played a major organizing role for the civil rights movement, Black choral music drew on haunting legacies of slavery, Christianity, and activism in service of art that could change society. We aim to bring together practitioners and scholars whose work focuses on musical practices ongoing or originating from Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

Cornerstones of the conference include a keynote from Dr. Craig Robertson, Director of Choral Music at Virginia State University, who both directs a diverse array of ensembles and specializes in the performance practice of the concerted spiritual and gospel music. Through his keynote we consider ethics, responsibilities, and practical pedagogical techniques for performing choral music of a different race than the performers. He will also facilitate two interactive workshops on performance practice, one on the concerted spiritual and the other on gospel music.

We invite papers, workshops, panels, and performances related to the musical practices, histories, pedagogies, legacies of HBCUs, and the shifting politics underlying these issues. We are interested in projects that address the following topics, among others:

  • Archival Research/Oral Histories celebrating lesser known composers (especially Undine Smith Moore) or the History of Music at HBCUs
  •  Pedagogical Practices of Black Music at HBCUs and the pedagogy of Black Music outside the HBCU
  •  Ethics and Trauma when considering the Concerted Spiritual
  • HBCU Performance Practices within Instrumentals, Chorus, Band, and Orchestra
  • Issues of Appropriation and Authenticity
  • Teaching Black Music at the K-12 Level
  • Ethnographies of Music Ensembles at HBCUs
  • History of the Concerted Spiritual
  • Performance Practice of the Concerted Spiritual and Black Gospel Music
  • Intercultural Performance of Black Music
  • Role of HBCUs in the production of Black Music

We are especially interested in featuring scholars and practitioners that teach or study at HBCUs; please indicate within your abstract if your contribution will draw on personal experiences of this kind.

Proposals of no more than 300 words should be emailed to the Program Committee at hbcumusicconference2025@gmail.com by 11:59pm PST on December 1. Please indicate whether you plan to present in-person or virtually.

  •  For paper presentations (20 min + 10 min Q&A): please include a 300-word abstract
  • For workshops: please describe goals, including what kinds of materials/space you would need, and session duration
  • For performances: please describe instrumentation, duration, and tech needs
  • For other ideas (e.g., panels/roundtables): please give as much information as possible

We plan to inform participants of their acceptance no later than mid-December. For any questions about this event, please contact Jordan Hugh Sam at jhughsam@g.ucla.edu, Holley Replogle-Wong at holley@ucla.edu, or Raymond Knapp at knapp@humnet.ucla.edu.

Musicology Student Wins Prestigious National Scholarship
The Beinecke Scholarship is one of the most competitive in the United States. It gifts the most exceptional students in the arts, humanities, and social sciences with substantial support for
The Indo-Persian Musical Confluence Welcomes Attendees From Across the Globe
The School of Music’s Department of Ethnomusicology held eight virtual panels and performances as part of “The Indo-Persian Musical Confluence” series November 2020 – May 2021. This attracted participants from across the globe, including Europe, Central Asia, the Indian subcontinent, Canada and numerous regions within the United States.
Daily Bruin – Ethnomusicology Professor Katherine In-Young Lee to Explain Samul Nori in Upcoming Symposia
READ: Katherine In-Young Lee, assistant professor of ethnomusicology, organized the event "Global Musics and Musical Communities," which explored how and why specific musical genres travel outside their countries of origin and lead to the formation of new musical communities.