Welcome to a new phase in the life of Musicology Now, the official blog of the American Musicological Society. As (now past) President Ellen Harris informed members of the society in a communication at the end of October:
"Since its inception three years ago, Musicology Now has been overseen by a single Curator: first by Kern Holoman, who established the blog and curated it for two years, and then by Drew Massey for the past year. The AMS blog is the one place where we try as a Society to give a public face to what we do in musicology. The mission is even more critical today, I believe, than it was a few years ago, and the Board of Directors has agreed that to move the blog forward our first priority needed to be the establishment of a curatorial team that would allow us a wider reach in terms of soliciting posts and also a think tank for new approaches."
The new curatorial teamhopes to create a space where musicologists and non-musicologists alike can come together to discuss music in all its forms. We wish to strike a balance between writing that serves the members of the American Musicological Society (inward facing posts) with that which also serves a broader readership of non-specialists (outward facing posts). We hope to update the blog’s look and feel; experiment with different types of posts; establish a more regular rhythm of contributions from new and interesting voices; and encourage negotiations in the public blogosphere of critical issues roiling our profession.
Ultimately, however, the success of Musicology Now depends on a collective effort that surpasses the control of this curatorial team. We encourage interested members of the Society to contact us to propose posts similar to those we’ve enjoyed in the past (think-pieces, reports on one’s research, teasers for forthcoming books, salty opinions) or those that open new ground or fill a need (you tell us). We will continue to feature stand-alone essays on a particular musician, genre, or issue. But we also hope to create new structures, new opportunities for dialogue.
These aims are reflected in the forthcoming publication of papers read at the “Race and the Profession” special session at the recent annual meeting of the Society in Vancouver, marking the first of what we hope will be a regular series of Colloquia. A subsequent post by Naomi Andre and William Cheng imagines “breaking down the walls” of our society’s routine proceedings. One might also herald it as a disruption of the expectations currently set for Musicology Now.
Sincerely,
Ryan Raul Bañagale, Assistant Professor, Colorado College
Robert Fink, Professor, University of California, Los Angeles
Drew Massey, Independent Scholar
Andrea Moore, Postdoctoral Fellow, University of California, Riverside
Susan Thomas, Associate Professor, University of Georgia