School of Contemporary Arts (CA)

Faculty Profile: Marc Gidal

Assistant Professor of Music / Musicology

Year Joined RCNJ: 2010

Contact Information:

• Phone: (201) 684-7293
• E-mail: mgidal@ramapo.edu
• Office: A-202
• Office Hours: MW 9:45 - 11:15 a.m.

Education:

• B.S., University of Oregon
• M.A., Tufts University
• Ph.D., Harvard University

Courses Offered:

• Music, History, and Culture
• Music, Technology, and Media
• Writing About Music
• Music of Latin America
• Music and Dance of the African Diaspora: Central and South America
• Capstone Seminar in Music

Research Interests:

• Afro-Brazilian Religious Music
• Music in Transnational Brazilian Communities
• Social Interaction in Collective Musical Improvisation
• Music and Community Development

Selected Awards, Fellowships, and Grants:

• Whiting Dissertation Completion Fellowship in the Humanities, Whiting Foundation, 2009-10
• John F. Loeb Fellowship, Harvard Divinity School, 2009
• William Mitch Fund Award, Harvard University, 2005-06, 2008-09
• Frederick Sheldon Traveling Fellowship, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Harvard University, 2007-08
• Jorge Paulo Lemann Fellowship, David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, Harvard University, 2007-08

Publications:

• "Contemporary 'Latin American' Composers of Art Music in the United States: Cosmopolitans Navigating Multiculturalism and Universalism," Latin American Music Review, 31/1 (2010)
• "Review Essay: YouTube.com for Ethnomusicology," Yearbook for Traditional Music, 40 (2008)

Conference Presentations:

• "Audible Boundary-Work: 'Crossing' and 'Purifying' Afro-Gaucho Religions
  through Sound and Music," Society for Ethnomusicology and Congress on
  Research in Dance, Joint Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, November 20, 2011
• Panel Co-organizer: "Other Brazils: Musicians Renegotiating Tensions in the Peripheries"; presenter: "Controlling Syncretism while Embracing Eclecticism: Boundary-work and the Mono-directional Flow of Music in Afro-Gaucho Religion," Society for Ethnomusicology, Annual Conference, Los Angeles, November 11-14, 2010
• Panel Co-organizer: "Roma and their Spirits in Brazil: Exclusion and Empowerment"; coordinated colleagues from Brazil, Germany, and the U.S.; presenter: "Flamenco Pop as Liturgical Music: Transnational Symbols, Self-Essentializing, and Romani-Brazilian Empowerment in a Public Umbanda Celebration," Latin American Studies Association, Annual Congress, Toronto, Canada, October 2010
• "Leveraging Diasporas Locally: Musical Innovation, Self-Essentializing, and Race Politics in Umbanda Celebrations from Southern Brazil," Society for Ethnomusicology, Annual Conference, Mexico City, November, 2009
• "Pomba Gira as Alabê in the Quimbanda Religion: evolving spirits, changing musical participation, and challenging hierarchies in southern Brazil," Latin American Studies Association, Annual Congress, Rio de Janeiro, June, 2009
• Panel organize:, "Musical Interaction and Time in Afro-Latin Religious Performance"; presenter, "Exu as Alabê: transforming Quimbanda performance and challenging religious hierarchies in southern Brazil," Society for Ethnomusicology, Annual Conference, Wesleyan University, October 2008
• "Listening for Place, Marketing Identity: Latin American Composers of New Music in the U.S." Institute of Latin American Studies Student Association, Annual Conference, University of Texas at Austin, February 2007
• "Jam Sessions in the Boston Improvisation Scene: Building and Binding a Musical Community with Free Improvisation," Society for Ethnomusicology, Annual Conference, University of Hawaii at Manoa, November 2006
• "Didá Escola de Música and Afro-Bahian Women's Empowerment," International Association for the Study of Popular Music, U.S. Branch, Annual Conference, University of Virginia, November 2004

Invited Publications and Presentations:

• Liner notes for "Pensar Geométrico al Trasluz" (flute, cello, percussion) by Jorge Villavicencio Grossmann, in Just in Time Now and Then, Living Artist Recordings, Vol. 13 (2009)
• "Culture as Resource for Community Development or Culturalisms? Case Studies of Afro-Brazilian Music," presented to Barr Foundation Fellows (community leaders), Boston, April 28, 2009
• "Pomba gira como alabê: mudanças na música e participaçã na Quimbanda e nas hierarquias musicais no sul do Brasil," presented in Portuguese, I Jornada de Etnomusicologia, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, 2008
• Pre-concert talks on contemporary Latin American art music, The Juilliard School and Harvard University, May 2006

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