REPOR T FROM INDIANA: Inter-American Conference of Ethnomusicology and Composition David A. Sheldon LE GROWING AWARENESS of the contributions of our neigh- bors in Latin America to the fields of musical composition and scholarship, as well as the sincere desire for active hemispheric cooperation and exchange in these areas, is indeed apparent in the work of the Latin American Music Center and the Archives of Traditional Music on the Bloomington campus of Indiana University. It comes as no surprise, then, that this University should take on the ambitious task of serving as host to the Fourth General Assembly of the Inter-American Music Coun- cil (CIDEM), the First Inter-American Composers Seminar, and the Second Inter-American Conference on Ethnomusicology. These meetings, which took place April 24-28 and involved over 110 participants and observers, were held in conjunction with the Third Spring Festival of Music of the Americas presented by the Latin American Music Center of Indiana University. Besides Indiana University and CIDEM, the other sponsoring institutions were the Music Division of the Pan-American Union and the National Music Council of the United States. CIDEM, founded no more than a decade ago, has already been very active in establishing educational and research pro- grams involving both North and Latin America. The First Inter- American Conference on Ethnomusicology was held two years ago in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia, the papers from which were published by the Pan-American Union. At the suggestion of Dr. George List, Director of the Archives of Traditional Music at Indiana University, it was decided at that first meet- ing to hold the second conference at Indiana University in 1965. In calling together a joint meeting with the First Inter-Ameri- can Composers Seminar, the chief goal in the planners' minds DA VID A. SHELDON is a doctoral student and graduate assistant in musi- cology at Indiana University. 199 was to create an atmosphere where related problems could be discussed on an interdisciplinary, as well as inter-American, basis. In addition, there seemed to be the hope that the mere physical contact and active participation of the delegates might transcend political and professional boundaries, thus achieving a common understanding with regard to basic issues facing both groups. The director of the Latin American Music Center at Indiana University and general chairman and planner for the entire conference, Professor Juan Orrego-Salas, feels that if he is fortunate enough to participate in the planning of another joint meeting of this nature, he would like to see it expanded to represent music education, historical musicology, and the views of professional performers. Such a full program does pose many problems as evidenced by this conference. Because of the inevitable limitations of time, the composers, seminars and ethnomusicology conferences were unfortunately conducted simultaneously during the four- day period in which papers were given, except for one joint meeting of both groups. An invaluable aid to the delegates in- terested in both areas was the printed copies (in Spanish and in English) of all the papers made available to the delegates before the respective sessions. A sincere attempt was made to overcome the language barriers during the round table discus- sions by having simultaneous translation with the aid of trans- lators and earphones. For the most part successful, much was yet lost in the more rapid exchanges between participants. The discussion topics for the Composers Seminar centered around problems facing the contemporary composer of the Americas. Specific topics were: "The Performance of New Mu- sic," "The Training of the Composer," "The Public and Live Mu- sic," and "State and Private Aid to Music." A general consensus of opinion arose from these sessions that the basic problem of the contemporary composer lay in the area of the education of the public. While the composers from Latin American countries were fairly well represented, major figures from North America were disappointingly few since most of those invited were unable to attend. In this respect the ethnomusicologists were in a much bet- ter position. Representing the United States with papers were Frank Gillis, Charles Haywood, George List, Alan Merriam, Bruno N ettl, and Charles Seeger. Also participating were Bar- bara Krader, John Mueller, Willard Rhodes, and Nicolas Slonim- 200 • • • sky. Special mention should be made of Frank Gillis, Associate Director of the Archives of Traditional Music at Indiana Uni- versity, who served as general chairman and host for all the ethnomusicology sessions. Gilbert Chase and Rae Korson, al- though listed in the program as participants, were unable to attend. Of the sixteen papers given in the ethnomusicology confer- ence (including the two given at the joint session), ten were presented by delegates from Latin American countries. Most of the Latin American ethnomusicologists who gave papers at the first conference held in 1963 were again present. Some new- comers were Manuel Danneman (Chile), Flor de Maria Rodri- guez (Uruguay), and L. H. Correa de Azevedo (Brazil, now in Paris for UNESCO). The general theme of the ethnomusicology conference was Acculturation and Musical Traditions in the United States and Latin America. This writer felt that the papers given by eth- nom usicologists from the United States, especially those on North American subjects, were distinguished by a somewhat more sophisticated and highly developed methodology than were those given by the delegates from Latin American countries. In addi- tion, it was often evident in the papers dealing with Latin American music that research had been conducted in virtually unplowed ground. While such pioneering is obviously necessary and must be begun by someone, this situation had the usual result of producing papers with very broad scopes and very tentative conclusions. On the other hand, although they might not have the advantage of the scholarly traditions in musicology and the social sciences to the extent that we do in this country, the Latin American ethnomusicologists showed that they are quite capable of scholarship of a very high calibre. It is a pleasure to know that Indiana University plans to publish in English all of the papers given at the Inter-American Conference . 201