The Musicology Lecture Series and the Performance/Politics Working Group present guest speaker Matt Sakakeeny of Tulane University, “Voicing Black Religious Music.”
The presentation will take place in the Music/Dance Library, room 205, second floor of the 18th Avenue Library. This lecture is free and open to the public.
Pictured: detail from an illustration by Willie Birch. Taken from Matt Sakakeeny's forthcoming book Roll With It: Brass Bands in the Street of New Orleans. Durham: Duke University Press, to be released November 13.
Religious meanings are communicated through vocal and musical performance. The case studies considered here suggest that we approach sacred music as a “polyphony of voices,” a musical continuum that extends from spoken word to instrumental sound. At a Pentecostal church in Toccopola, Mississippi, the many iterations of “voice” during worship—the melodious sermonizing, the vocalizations of the congregants, the singing of religious texts, and the instrumental “voice” of the steel guitar that is characteristic of the denomination—create a densely layered soundscape. In a New Orleans jazz funeral, the instruments of the brass band regulate the tempo and the emotional content of a burial procession, without recourse to language. The instrument is heard as a kind of voice communicating between the living and the dead.
Dr. Sakakeeny has lived and worked in New Orleans since 1997. His research explores the intersection of music with race, economics, and politics, particularly in the performance of African American music. His forthcoming book, Instruments of Power: Brass Bands in the Streets of New Orleans, considers the brass band as a powerful symbol of local black culture. Matt has published in journals such as Ethnomusicology, Black Music Research Journal, Contemporary Political Theory, and Current Musicology, and filed reports for public radio’s All Things Considered, Marketplace, and WWOZ’s Street Talk. His research has been supported by the Louisiana ATLAS program, the National Science Foundation, and the Whiting Foundation. Dr. Sakakeeny first moved to New Orleans as the co-producer of the public radio program American Routes and he continues to serve as Senior Contributing Producer.
Upcoming Lectures
September 16 - Anna Gawboy, The Ohio State University, "Synesthesia Imagined, Synesthesia Revealed"
September 30 - Judith Tick, Northeastern University, "Revisionist Challenges in Writing a Biography of Ella Fitzgerald"
October 14 - Anna Zayaruznaya, Yale University, "Music Against Reason: Philippe de Vitry's Exceptional Notation"
October 21 - Lois Rosow, The Ohio State University, "Ironic Play in Campra's L'Europe galante"
