Music & Minorities: Announcements

New Article: "(Shabbat) Angels in America: Israel Goldfarb, 'Shalom Aleichem,' and the Search for Nusach America"

2023-10-10T12:12:11+02:00

Rachel Adelstein's article "(Shabbat) Angels in America: Israel Goldfarb, 'Shalom Aleichem,' and the Search for Nusach America" has just been published! Read the full text here.

Abstract

Contemporary American synagogue congregations love to sing a flowing melody for the hymn “Shalom Aleichem” to welcome the Sabbath on Friday evenings. The song has entered the Jewish folk tradition, and speaks to singers of home and nostalgia. However, the song’s history and construction reveal both its genesis in an American Jewish community in the midst of a significant transformation of nation and practice and the crucial role that it played in bringing that community together and forming the basis of a truly American style of Jewish worship. I approach this song on two fronts. My primary approach is historical, delving into the immediate circumstances under which Rabbi Israel Goldfarb composed the song in May of 1918, and the broader forces affecting Jewish religious life in the United States in the early years of the twentieth century. I address changes taking place in American Jewish life, generation gaps between American Jews, and the rise of the Jewish education movement, and I demonstrate how Goldfarb’s song reached a significant audience of adults and children alike and helped to address these transitional challenges in Jewish life. My secondary approach is socio-cultural. I ask why this particular one of the many melodies that Goldfarb composed caught the American Jewish imagination and became a foundation of contemporary American synagogue song. Its mode and its structure reveal Goldfarb’s compositional skill at combining both Jewish and Western elements into a flexible song that children could learn and pass on to their children, creating a folk song through generations of use. Taken together, these approaches demonstrate how a four-stanza hymn could pave the way for the development of an American Jewish soundscape.

Call for Contributions: Special Collection "Contemporary Views on Romani Music and Romani Music Studies"

2023-04-04T12:42:47+02:00

Research on Romani music has been one of the driving forces behind ethnomusicological minority research at the Department of Folk Music Research and Ethnomusicology at mdw – University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna as well as for the foundation of the ICTM Study Group on Music and Minorities. Having evolved out of these scholarly contexts, the Music and Minorities Research Center (MMRC, https://musicandminorities.org/) at mdw is therefore also committed to this field of research.

2023 marks the 30th anniversary of the official recognition of Roma in Austria as a so-called “Volksgruppe” (ethnic minority). In the struggle that preceded this political success, ethnomusicology was involved as a force supporting the activism of Austrian Roma communities. MMRC thus takes this anniversary as an opportunity to dedicate a special collection of M&M to the field of Romani music studies.

We invite you to share your contemporary views on Romani music from the perspective of your own field of expertise. There are no limitations regarding the regions, individuals or communities, genres, etc. discussed in your contribution. Furthermore, we invite reflections on the state and development of Romani music studies in the 21st century. Within this special collection, we do not only seek to include a diversity of musical styles and practices but also a diversity of scholarly approaches: ethnography, music analysis, socio-political and activist approaches, or conceptual and theoretical critique, among others, are welcome. We look forward to receiving many original and thought-provoking contributions!

Timeline

15 June 2023 – Deadline for indicating interest in contributing to the special collection by submitting a working title and draft abstract (not more than 300 words) to mm-journal@mdw.ac.at. The editor-in-chief will inform prospective authors in a timely manner about the suitability of their planned contribution to the special collection or if adaptations would be necessary.

30 September 2023 – Deadline for submitting full manuscripts via the journal website (https://journals.qucosa.de/mm/about/submissions). Please follow M&M’s “Instructions for Authors” (https://journals.qucosa.de/mm/instructions). All submissions will be processed according to M&M’s Peer Review and Quality Assurance guidelines (https://journals.qucosa.de/mm/policies#prqa).

May/June 2024 – Prospective publication date of the special collection.

M&M contribution awarded ICTM Best Article Prize 2022

2022-07-22T10:07:17+02:00

Evrim Hikmet Öğüt has received the Best Article Prize 2022 from the International Council for Traditional Music (ICTM) for her Music & Minorities contribution “The Short History of Syrian Street Music in Istanbul: Challenges and Potentials”. M&M congratulates Evrim on this great success!

Submissions are open!

2021-12-07T13:05:43+01:00

Music & Minorities now accepts article submissions on all topics falling into the journal's scope. We look forward to receiving your manuscripts! Author's interested in publishing in M&M should especially consult the "About the Journal" and "Instructions for Authors" sections.