In this vivid musical ethnography, Timothy Rice documents and interprets the history of folk music, song, and dance in Bulgaria over a seventy-year period of dramatic change. From 1920 to 1989, Bulgaria changed from a nearly medieval village society to a Stalinist planned industrial economy to a chaotic mix of capitalist and socialist markets and cultures.

In the context of this history, Rice brings Bulgarian folk music to life by focusing on the biography of the Varimezov family, including the musician Kostadin and his wife Todora, a singer. Combining interviews with his own experiences...

When the Portuguese seafarer Afonso de Albuquerque conquered the bustling port of Malacca in 1511, he effectively gained control of the entire South China Sea spice trade. Although their dominance lasted only 130 years, the Portuguese legacy lies at the heart of a burgeoning tourist attraction on the outskirts of the city, in which performers who believe they are the descendants of swashbuckling Portuguese conquerors encapsulate their "history" in a cultural stage show.
Using historical and ethnographic data, Margaret Sarkissian reveals that this music and dance draws on an eclectic...

For Prespa Albanians, both at home in Macedonia and in the diaspora, the most opulent, extravagant, and socially significant events of any year are wedding ceremonies. During days and weeks of festivities, wedding celebrants interact largely through singing, defining and renegotiating as they do so the very structure of their social world and establishing a profound cultural touchstone for Prespa communities around the world.

Combining photographs, song texts, and vibrant recordings of the music with her own evocative descriptions, ethnomusicologist Jane C. Sugarman focuses her account of...

Gamelan is the first study of the music of Java and the development of the gamelan to take into account extensive historical sources and contemporary cultural theory and criticism. An ensemble dominated by bronze percussion instruments that dates back to the twelfth century in Java, the gamelan as a musical organization and a genre of performance reflects a cultural heritage that is the product of centuries of interaction between Hindu, Islamic, European, Chinese, and Malay cultural forces.

Drawing on sources ranging from a twelfth-century royal poem to the writing of a...

The Balinese gamelan, with its shimmering tones, breathless pace, and compelling musical language, has long captivated musicians, composers, artists, and travelers. Here, Michael Tenzer offers a comprehensive and durable study of this sophisticated musical tradition, focusing on the preeminent twentieth-century genre, gamelan gong kebyar.

Combining the tools of the anthropologist, composer, music theorist, and performer, Tenzer moves fluidly between ethnography and technical discussions of musical composition and structure. In an approach as intricate as one might expect in studies...

Long a favorite on dance floors in Latin America, the porro, cumbia, and vallenato styles that make up Colombia's musica tropical are now enjoying international success. How did this music-which has its roots in a black, marginal region of the country-manage, from the 1940s onward, to become so popular in a nation that had prided itself on its white heritage? Peter Wade explores the history of musica tropical, analyzing its rise in the context of the development of the broadcast media, rapid urbanization, and regional struggles for power. Using archival sources...

Now known internationally through the recordings of King Sunny Ade and others, juju music originated more than fifty years ago among the Yoruba of Nigeria. This history and ethnography of juju is the first detailed account of the evolution and social significance of a West African popular music. Enhanced with maps, color photographs of musicians and dance parties, musical transcriptions, interviews with musicians, and a glossary of Yoruba terms, Juju is an invaluable contribution to scholarship and a boon to fans who want to discover the roots of this vibrant music.

"Sounding the Center" is an in-depth look at the power behind classical music and dance in Bangkok, the capital and sacred center of Buddhist Thailand. Focusing on the ritual honoring teachers of music and dance, Deborah Wong reveals a complex network of connections among kings, teachers, knowledge, and performance that underlies the classical court arts.
Drawing on her extensive fieldwork, Wong lays out the ritual in detail: the way it is enacted, the foods and objects involved, and the people who perform it, emphasizing the way the performers themselves discuss and construct aspects of...

"Sounding the Center" is an in-depth look at the power behind classical music and dance in Bangkok, the capital and sacred center of Buddhist Thailand. Focusing on the ritual honoring teachers of music and dance, Deborah Wong reveals a complex network of connections among kings, teachers, knowledge, and performance that underlies the classical court arts.
Drawing on her extensive fieldwork, Wong lays out the ritual in detail: the way it is enacted, the foods and objects involved, and the people who perform it, emphasizing the way the performers themselves discuss and construct aspects of...

Tigers of a Different Stripe takes readers inside the unique world of merengue tipico, a traditional music of the Dominican Republic. While in most genres of Caribbean music women usually participate as dancers or vocalists, in merengue tipico they are more often instrumentalists and even bandleaders--something nearly unheard of in the macho Caribbean music scene. Examining this cultural phenomenon, Sydney Hutchinson offers an unexpected and fascinating account of gender in Dominican art and life.

Drawing on over a decade of fieldwork in the Dominican Republic and New York...