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Jacqueline Cogdell DjeDje Named Chair of the UCLA Department of Ethnomusicology

Professor Jacqueline Cogdell DjeDje has been named chair of UCLA’s Department of Ethnomusicology effective July 1. She succeeds professor Timothy Rice, who has assumed the post of associate dean of academic affairs in the school.

“I can think of no one better qualified than professor DjeDje to lead the department of ethnomusicology,” said Christopher Waterman, dean of the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture (UCLArts). “She brings to her new role an international reputation for scholarship as well as administrative expertise.

DjeDje joined the ethnomusicology faculty in 1979. She became an associate professor in 1986 and a full professor in 1994. She has served as the director of the UCLA Ethnomusicology Archive since 2000.

DjeDje has taught theoretical area courses in African and African American music and was director of an African American vocal ensemble. Much of her research has focused on performance practices as they relate to the one-string fiddle tradition in West Africa. In recent years, her research has extended to the study of fiddling in African American culture and its interconnections with Anglo American music.

In addition, she has conducted investigations on African American religious music. She is particularly interested in how the dynamics of urban life give rise to change and other musical activity.

She has conducted fieldwork in several countries in West Africa (Ghana, Nigeria, Côte d’Ivoire, The Gambia and Senegal), Jamaica, California and the Southern United States (Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, Kentucky and Louisiana).

DjeDje is the author of “Distribution of the One-String Fiddle in West Africa,” “American Black Spiritual and Gospel Songs From Southeast Georgia: A Comparative Study” and “Black Religious Music From Southeast Georgia” (a recording with accompanying booklet).
She is the editor of “Turn Up the Volume! A Celebration of African Music,” a collection of essays published in conjunction with three Los Angeles museum exhibitions on African and African-derived music. She is principal editor of “African Musicology” (two volumes) and co editor of “Selected Reports in Ethnomusicology, Vol. 5” and “California Soul: Music of African Americans in the West.”

In addition, she has contributed articles to a number of periodicals and reference publications, including “Africa: The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music, Vol. 1,” “The United States and Canada: The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music, Vol. 3,” “The World’s Music, General Perspectives and Reference Tools: The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music, Vol. 10,” “The Cambridge History of American Music,” “The Revised New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians,” “Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia” and “The Facts On File Encyclopedia of Black Women in America: Music, Vol. 5.”

She is former president of the Southern California Chapter of the Society for Ethnomusicology and second vice president of the Society for Ethnomusicology.

Twice an award recipient from the National Endowment for the Humanities, she has served as panelist for the Folk Arts Program of that organization.

She holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in ethnomusicology from UCLA and a B.A. in music from Fisk University.

Department of ethnomusicology
The UCLA Department of Ethnomusicology explores music from all the continents of the world, including traditional musics, the music of America’s many ethnic groups, and contemporary forms of American popular and “world beat” music, including jazz. Ethnomusicologists focus on music as a cultural, social and political expression, while the systematic musicologists in the department examine scientifically and philosophically the fundamental nature of music, from acoustics to aesthetics.

Representative alumni include Jacob Edgar, vice president of A&R (artists and repertory) and product development, Putumayo World Music; Gila Flam, head of the Music and Sound Archives, Jewish National and University Library, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Brian Fox, bassist, and Ross Grant, guitarist, for the band Pseudopod, which records for Interscope Records; Martha Gonzales, lead singer for the Chicana band Quetzal; Veronica Gonzales, founder of Elemental Media, a media, marketing and radio promotion company; Jose Maceda, distinguished Philippine composer and musicologist; William Malm, professor emeritus, University of Michigan; Peter Manuel, professor, John Jay College, City University of New York Graduate Center, and editor of the journal “Ethnomusicology”; Carol Merrill-Mirsky, director/curator, Hollywood Bowl Museum; Lisa Richardson, L.A. Treasures Program Director, Craft and Folk Art Museum, Los Angeles; Dan Sheehy, director, Folkways Recordings, Smithsonian Institution; Atesh Sonneborn, assistant director, Folkways Recordings, Smithsonian Institution; Bonnie C. Wade, professor, University of California, Berkeley, author and former president of the Society for Ethnomusicology; and Nora Yeh, archivist, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
UCLArts
Artists, architects, dancers, designers, musicians and scholars come to the School of the Arts and Architecture at UCLA to draw on its unique curriculum, which interweaves work in performance, studio and research studies, providing them with a solid creative, artistic and intellectual foundation as well as a liberal arts education from one of the country’s finest research universities. Our students gain a global view of the arts while integrating contemporary practice and theory in their chosen discipline.

Providing a full range of course offerings and degree programs, the school comprises six degree-granting units — architecture and urban design, art, design | media arts, ethnomusicology, music, and world arts and cultures; three centers — the Center for Intercultural Performance, the Experiential Technologies Center and the Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts; two museums — the Fowler and the Hammer; and a major performing arts program, UCLA Live.

UCLA
As a major research university, UCLA explores a broad range of subjects essential to creating real-world advances in health care, education, science, commerce, the arts and culture, scholarship, and community service. The wealth of cultural treasures and programs — museums and concert halls, theaters and dance studios, galleries and sculpture gardens, libraries and archives — makes UCLA a leading arts and cultural center of the West and the flagship arts campus of the UC system.

For Immediate Use
Sept. 14, 2005

Carolyn Campbell, ccampbel@arts.ucla.edu
(310) 825-6540