Free to attend—and lunch will be provided—for those that
pre-register for the conference. Please submit your
registration by Thursday, November 3rd.
For those unable to attend, we will livestream the conference
beginning at 9:20 am. Please note that interaction is not
possible over the livestream.
About the Conference
For the conference “Rethinking the History of Indonesian Music”
eight scholars will present 30-minute papers, followed by
10-minute prepared responses from local respondents, on topics
related to the broad subject of music history in
the geographical area currently identified as the
Indonesian archipelago. The conference is part of a broader
Luce Foundation project titled “Toward a Music
History of the Indonesian Archipelago,” which will take
place over two years. With this open approach, the
conference seeks to explore topics of indigeneity, colonialism,
the evolving artistry of modern gamelan, and the rethinking of
Indonesian history.
2:00
Bernard Arps (Leiden University, Netherlands)
“The Issue of the Javanese
Church Hymns”
2:40 Henry
Spiller (UC Davis)
“‘I am in no way surprised
that the Javanese
can listen to it all night
long’: A 19th-century Dutch
missionary on Javanese
music”
2:50 Break
3:15 Panel
IV – Chris Reynolds (UC Davis)
3:15
Sebastian Klotz (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)
“Missionaries as
phonographic mediators”
3:55
David A. Hollinger (UC Berkeley)
“The Heathen in His
Blindness? Missionaries,
Empire, and
Anti-Colonialism”
4:35 General discussion and
concluding remarks.
About the Luce Foundation Project
Starting in the 16th century and continuing until World
War II, Christian missionaries to the Indonesian archipelago took
an interest in indigenous music. Up until now the source
materials have been difficult to find, scattered and
ignored, but UC Davis professors Henry Spiller and Anna Maria Busse
Berger have received a major grant from the Henry
Luce Foundation’s Asia Program to investigate these sources
and make these materials more accessible.
Spiller said: “It has been ignored because it was collected
by missionaries and considered biased, but that’s throwing
out the baby with the bathwater. We’re not trying to redeem
the missionaries, but to make the priceless information they
collected available to all interested parties.” The
professors will focus primarily on work done by Dutch and German
missionaries in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, although
there are reports by Portuguese Jesuit missionaries dating to the
16th century.
The award to the College of Letters and Science’s Department of
Music professors provides funding for research, two conferences,
and a post-doctoral fellowship, which has been filled by Dr.
Dustin Wiebe.
Most European missionaries were trained to learn about the
languages of the places they were posted, and as an outgrowth of
that, some began documenting music. This was boosted with the
founding in 1900 of the Berlin Phonogramm-Archiv, which
provided sound-recording equipment and training to missionaries
and travelers.
The Henry Luce Foundation
seeks to enrich public discourse by promoting innovative
scholarship, cultivating new leaders, and fostering international
understanding.
As part of an ongoing study stretching from Davis to Germany
and across the many islands of Indonesia, the UC
Davis Department of Music is holding a second
conference on Indonesian music. “Rethinking The History Of
Indonesian Music” on Nov. 5 brings together scholars from
around the globe
UC Davis music professors Henry
Spiller and Anna Maria Busse
Berger have received a major grant from the Henry
Luce Foundation to look at source material collected by German
missionaries in Indonesia during the late 19th and early 20th
centuries.
Ph.D. Musicology, Boston University 1986Mellomfag (equivalent to M.A.), German Studies, Trondheim University, Norway 1974Staatsexamen für das Lehramt an Gymnasien (equivalent to M.A.), Music, Musikhochschule Detmold, West Germany 1971
Medieval, Renaissance History and Theory,
Historiography, Missionary Music in Africa
