CNY Humanities Corridor hosts symposium on music of Haudenosaunee culture

Sara Miller
(315) 443-9038

In a world of global musical flows, who determines access to and ownership of traditional musical knowledge? How can music serve the common good, and whose common good? Such questions hold special importance not only for Haudenosaunee communities in the United States and Canada, but for any community-based music cultures.

On Monday, Nov. 17, the Musicology Cluster of the Central New York Humanities Corridor will present “Music and the Common Good: Listening to Haudenosaunee Voices,” a special ethnomusicology event that will open a dialogue among Haudenosaunee cultural workers, Central New York educators and students, and Central New York arts organizers around issues of musical identity, the media and the common good. The daylong symposium will be held in the Kilian Room, Room 500 of the Hall of Languages, beginning at 10 a.m. The Central New York Humanities Corridor and the symposium are made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Opening remarks will be offered by Beverley Diamond, Canada Research Chair in Ethnomusicology at Memorial University of Newfoundland. Diamond will speak about indigenous music and dance in the digital age. The symposium will also feature a series of panel presentations, a round-table discussion and working groups facilitated by graduate students from the three member institutions in the Central New York Humanities Corridor-SU, the University of Rochester (including the Eastman School of Music) and Cornell University.

In the evening, a special performance of Haudenosaunee music and dance will conclude the event. The performance begins at 5 p.m. in the Kilian Room. All symposium events are free and open to the public; pre-registration is appreciated. To register, contact Carol Babiracki at 443-1716 or cmbabira@syr.edu.

Created in 2006, the Central New York Humanities Corridor is supported by a three- year, $1 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation awarded to SU to collaborate with Cornell University and The University of Rochester for the creation of a large-scale initiative to connect teaching and research in the humanities among these three leading institutions. Inspired in part by the mission of the science/technology Research Triangle in North Carolina, the Humanities Corridor works to enhance the profile and connectivity of the humanities in Central New York by drawing on the strengths of three Association of American Universities (AAU) member institutions. For more information, visit http://www-hl.syr.edu/mellon/index.htm.