Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Musikwissenschaft

Dr. Sydney Hutchinson

Hutchinson headshot Kopie

 

Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin Popular Music Studies

Institut für Musikwissenschaft und Medienwissenschaft
Am Kupfergraben 5, Raum 402
10117 Berlin

 

Sprechstunde: nach Vereinbarung (Anmeldung per E-Mail) 
E-Mail: sydney.hutchinson@hu-berlin.de

 


 

Sydney Hutchinson studied ethnomusicology at New York University (Ph.D, 2008), folklore at Indiana University (M.A., 2002) and piano performance at University of Arizona (B.M, 1996). Her dissertation, advised by Gage Averill, and assessed by committee members Peter Manuel, Suzanne Cusick, Ana María Ochoa, and Martin Daughtry, was on gender and the transnational geographies of Dominican merengue típico. She has published three monographs, a translated novel, an edited volume, and numerous articles on Latino and Latin American music and dance, including Tigers of a different stripe: Performing gender in Dominican music (University of Chicago, 2016; Society for Ethnomusicology’s Marcia Herndon Prize) and From quebradita to duranguense: Dance in Mexican American youth culture(University of Arizona, 2007; Society for Dance History Scholars’ De La Torre Bueno Prize, Special Citation). She has received the Samuel Claro Valdes prize in Latin American musicology, the Nadia and Nicholas Nahumck fellowship of the Society for Ethnomusicology, the Parsons fellowship of the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, and an American Association for University Women research fellowship, among other awards. She was also named Judith Seinfeld Distinguished Faculty Fellow at Syracuse University. 

Hutchinson spent eight years as a professor of ethnomusicology at Syracuse University, New York. She has also taught at the University of Arizona, University of Cologne, Centro León (Dominican Republic), and Goethe University (Frankfurt). Hutchinson was a Humboldt Fellow at the Ethnological Museum Berlin in 2009-2010, and a visiting scholar at the same institution between 2018 and 2019. She serves on advisory boards for journals like the Zeitschrift für Ethnologie (Journal of Social and Cultural Anthropology), El Oído Pensante, as well as the Dominican Studies Institute and the project Delinking Sounds (Ethnological Museum/Staatstheater Karlsruhe). Currently teaching courses in popular music studies, Hutchinson looks forward to beginning the DFG-funded project “Second World Music: Latin America, East Germany, and the Sonic Circuitry of Socialism” at the Institut für Musikwissenschaft and Medienwissenschaft in October 2021. Hutchinson currently runs the the DFG-funded project “Second World Music: Latin America, East Germany, and the Sonic Circuitry of Socialism” at the Institut für Musikwissenschaft and Medienwissenschaft.

 


Research and teaching interests:

  • Popular music, political song, and socialist internationalism(s)
  • Gender and performance
  • Choreomusicology and ethnochoreology
  • Organology
  • Music, politics, and activism
  • Masquerades and musical folklore
  • Yodeling and the human voice in natural and built environments

 


Publications (selection):

monographs and edited volumes:

  • Focus: Music of the Caribbean. New York: Routledge, 2019
  • Rhythm and Power: Performing salsa in Puerto Rican and Latino communities. (CENTRO Press, 2017). Co-editor of volume with Derrick León Washington and Priscilla Renta.
  • Tigers of a Different Stripe: The Performance of Gender in Dominican Music. (University of Chicago Press, 2016) (*Society for Ethnomusicology Marcia Herndon Award).
  • Salsa World: A Global Dance in Local Contexts. (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2013) Sole editor of volume, author of two chapters, and translator for five chapters.
  • From Quebradita to Duranguense: Dance in Mexican American Youth Culture. (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2007) (*Society for Dance History Scholars, De La Torre Bueno Special Citation).

 

Recordings:

  • Curator, translator, author of notes for recording "Música de la Isla," Edis Sánchez. Pantopia Music (January 2023) https://pantopia-music.org/en/album/musica-de-la-isla/

  • Co-producer and writer of liner notes for CD “La India Canela: Merengue típico of the Dominican Republic.” Smithsonian Folkways Records, Nuestra Música series. (March 2008).

 

peer-review articles:

  • "Norteño corporeality: Body, gender, sound, and economy in commercialised norteño music videos." 2022. Popular Music and Society 45(3):317-240. https://doi.org/10.1080/03007766.2022.2043427
  • "Dancing lo típico: A choreomusical perspective on merengue." 2020. World of Music (new series) 9(2):89-108.
  • "Beyond the binary of choreomusicology: Moving from ethnotheory towards local ontologies."2020. Co-authored with Made Mantle Hood, World of Music (new series) 9(2):69-88.

  • “Asian fury: A tale of race, rock, and air guitar.” 2016. Ethnomusicology 60(3): 411-433.
  • “Entangled rhythms on a conflicted island: Digging up the buried histories of Dominican folk music.” 2016. Resonancias 20(39): 139-154.
  • “A limp with rhythm: Convergent choreographies in Black Atlantic time.” 2012. Yearbook for Traditional Music 44:87-108.
  • Típico, folklórico, or popular? Musical categories, place, and identity in a transnational listening community.” 2011. Popular Music 30(2):245-262.

 

other academic articles:

  • “Music and food in multicultural Syracuse: Project Report.” 2018. Voices: The Journal of New York Folklore 44(1-4).
  • “Merengue típico in New York City: A history.” 2011. Camino Real. 4(5): 104-127.
  • Hutchinson, Sydney. 2010. “Los merengues caribeños: Naciones rítmicas en el mar de la música.” In A tres bandas. Mestizaje, sincretismo e hibridación en el espacio sonoro hispanoamericano (s. XVI-s. XX). Madrid: Sociedad Estatal para la Acción Cultural Exterior (SEACEX), pp 81-88.
  • “Quebradita y el pasito duranguense: Dos bailes que cruzan fronteras.” 2006. Revista Dominicana de Antropología.
  • “Rural merengue in urban Queens: Típico communities in Ozone Park, Woodhaven, and Corona.” 2004. Urban Folk 1(3): 3-16.
  • “Pinto Güira and his magic bullet: A Dominican instrument maker in Queens.” 2002. Voices, the Journal of New York Folklore 28(3-4):10-15.

 

reference works:

  • “Colonialism.” In Progress. For Grove Musics in Global Perspective, Phil Bohlman, Tim Rommen, and Lars-Christian Koch, eds. Oxford University Press.
  • “Blas Durán,” “Domingo ‘Tatico’ García Henríquez,” and “José ‘Joseíto’ Mateo.” Dictionary of Caribbean and Afro-Latin American Biography, eds. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Franklin K. Knight. Oxford University Press. 2016.
  • “Dominican Republic.” 2014. Latin Music, ABC-CLIO, eds. Ilan Stavans and Jennifer Acker. Print and online, http://ebooks.abc-clio.com/
  • “Güira,” “canoíta,” “boombakiní,” “balsié,” “marimba,” “gayumba,” “Pinto Güira.”2014. Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments, 2nd ed., ed. Richard Haefer. Oxford University Press.

 

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Courses:

 

summer semster 2021:

 

winter semester 2020/21:

 

summer semester 2020:

 

summer semester 2019: