On the 100th anniversary of John Coltrane’s birth year, The UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music’s global jazz studies program will celebrate this giant of the saxophone, this jazz innovator and spiritual/artistic icon of the Black Arts Movement, this patron saint of avant garde. This symposium will honor Coltrane in words. The keynote address will be delivered by  Archbishop Franzo King, co-founder of the Saint John Coltrane African Orthodox Church. The keynote address in addition to remarks by the archbishop will feature music from members of the church. Symposium Schedule Opening remarks Salim Washington   Panel 1 (2:10 pm) Moderator Steve Loza Andy Beta, “Infinity as Autobiography”: Alice Coltrane’s Reimagining of John Coltrane’s Late Recordings” Beta examines the critical reception of Alice Coltrane’s Infinity recording, and the ways in which the recording reflected upon her development as an artist. Nadia Milad Issa, “Saint Coltrane, the Dance Eulogy, and the Spirit Veil, ‘A Love Supreme’ as Ancestral Mediation”. This paper positions Coltrane’s canonization b the St. John Coltrane church not as an isolated action of Bay Area devotion but as a template for choreographic and religious practice alike: testimony converted into ritual, grief converted into repeated form. Martin Hundley, “Alice Coltrane, Sound of Free Universe: Performance Practice, Technology, and Feminist Epistemology” This paper explores the ways in which Alice Coltrane’s musical sound and instrumental performance practice expresses the complexity of her identity, world view, spirituality, and travels, both geographically and temporally. Hundley employs and ethnographic and musicological approach to Coltrane’s recording Translinear Light.   Special Guest Speaker (3:40 pm)     Panel 2 (3:50 p.m.) Moderator Regina Carter-Garnett Scott B. Spencer, “Meme and Variations: How Video Mashups of John Coltrane’s ‘Giant Steps’ Became a Thing” The intent of this study is to explore John Coltrane’s online legacy, use it to expand our field’s toolset to better deal with digital texts, and to tease out their various cultural contexts. Aaron J. Johnson, “Africa/Brass and the Communal Experience of Engaging the Music of John Coltrane” With the vision of Reggie Workman and Charles Tolliver Africa/Brass has afforded the uncommon opportunity for musicians to communally share the experience of performing Coltrane’s music and invoking his spirit. John-Carlos Perea, “Versions as Relations: Naima, John Coltrane, and Jim Pepper” This paper considers the original 1959 recording of “Naima” and the subsequent versioning of it by Jim Pepper as a sonification through which to amplify Pepper’s relationship to Coltrane via Pepper’s experiences through Southern Plains Intertribal powwow musical practices.   Keynote Address (5:20 pm) Archbishop Franzo King and members of the African Orthodox Church of John Coltrane “The Continued Relevance of John Coltrane” Theodore A. Harris, Coltrane’s Thunderclap, 1998, paper collage. 11X17in   ABOUT THE ART WORK Theodore A. Harris, Coltrane’s Thunderclap. 1998, paper collage, 11×17 in. Theodore A. Harris (1966-) is a Philadelphia-based visual artist and poet. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and is in private and public collections such as Libraries and Museum University of Delaware, Fort Garland Museum and Cultural Center, University of New Mexico Art Museum, Saint Louis University Museum of Art, La Salle University Art Museum, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, McGill University Visual Arts Collection, Center for Africana Studies; University of Pennsylvania, Kislak Center Rare Books and Manuscript Library; University of Pennsylvania, and the Petrucci Family Foundation Collection of African American Art, and the Winston and Carolyn Lowe Collection. Harris is the co-founder of the Anti-Graffiti Network/Philadelphia Mural Arts Program. Harris has also co-authored and authored books including Our Flesh of Flames (2019), Malcolm X as Ideology (2008) with Amiri Baraka, TRIPTYCH with Amiri Baraka and Jack Hirschman (2011), i ran from it and was still in it with Fred Moten (2007), and Thesentür: Conscientious Objector to Formalism (2017). He is the Founding Artistic Director of the Institute for Advanced Study in Black Aesthetics. LEARN MORE: THEODORE A. HARRIS – Home

Huib Schippers argues that the history of ethnomusicology shows an organic development towards public-facing work, and discusses the skill sets needed in the field to improve lives through music. Abstract: An interesting thing happened to ethnomusicology on its way to the 21st century. While beginnings in the 1800s kept it carefully away from direct interaction with the people who make music, culture and context became increasingly important in the second half of the 20th century. Towards 2000, an awareness had dawned that the musicians we work with and their communities perhaps should be at the center of our efforts. This first manifested as “giving back” research outputs (such as recordings) to the community, and later expanded into working with communities on an equal footing to serve their agendas in and through music. In this talk, I will argue that this very short history constitutes an organic development towards public-facing work, and discuss how applied ethnomusicologists require new skill sets to engage successfully with an exciting range of contemporary applied work in the realms of social justice, health, institutions, media, cultural sustainability and crisis recovery. Bio: Huib Schippers is one of the world’s leading scholars on the crossroads of music education, community music, music industry, cultural diversity, and sustainability. In over three decades of leadership roles in arts and academia, he founded the World Music School in Amsterdam (1990-1996), the World Music & Dance Centre in Rotterdam (2001-2006), and Queensland Conservatorium Research Centre in Australia (2003-2015). Next, he directed Smithsonian Folkways Recordings (2016-2020), served as UC Regents’ Professor at UCLA (2022) and as Visiting Professor at CCOM in Beijing (2023). In 2025, he was proclaimed Distinguished Changjiang Professor and became Founding Director of the International Centre for Cultural Sustainability at Zhaoqing University in China. Schippers has initiated applied projects on five continents and published over 200 publications for scholarly and general audiences, mostly on cultural diversity, artistic research, systems of learning, and cultural sustainability, including Facing the Music: Shaping Music Education from a Global Perspective (Oxford University Press (OUP), 2010); Sustainable Futures for Music Cultures (OUP, 2016) and Music, Communities, Sustainability (OUP, 2022).

Join us for a two-day celebration of the 65th anniversary of the UCLA Ethnomusicology Archive. The event will feature a symposium, workshops, and concerts. International, national, and local archivists, alumni, faculty, and community members will come together to explore the history and evolving role of ethnomusicological archives in preserving and sustaining musical traditions.   The event is also in celebration of World Day for Audiovisual Heritage.   Saturday’s featured guest artists will be LA’s 33 Strings, who will lead a Japanese music workshop, and Kinnara Gagaku, who will present a gagaku concert. Kinnara Gagaku was taught for more than 35 years by Suenobu Togi, a former musician of the Japanese Imperial Court who directed UCLA Ethnomusicology’s Music of Japan Ensemble from 1961 to 1993. Professor Robert Garfias, who founded the Music of Japan Ensemble at UCLA in 1958, will introduce the concert.   Sunday’s featured guest artists will be Masanga Marimba, led by UCLA Ethnomusicology alumnus Dr. Ric Alviso. Masanga Marimba will lead both a workshop and the Sunday evening concert.   Established in 1961, the UCLA Ethnomusicology Archive is a world-renowned research archive dedicated to the study of musical traditions from around the globe. The Archive’s collection of more than 160,000 audio, video, print, and photographic items documents musical expressions throughout the world and includes unique field recordings as well as rare commercial recordings. As part of UCLA’s Department of Ethnomusicology, the Archive preserves and makes accessible over 60 years’ worth of audio and video recordings of the department’s famed concerts and also of lectures by legendary scholars and performers, ranging from Mantle Hood to Ravi Shankar to Dizzy Gillespie. In addition to preservation and access, the Archive offers a wide range of research, outreach, and educational services. From international scholars to local community members and UCLA students and faculty, the Archive is recognized locally and internationally as an important center of ethnomusicological research and discovery.   Sponsored by The UCLA Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance, the UCLA Ethnomusicology Archive, the UCLA Department of Ethnomusicology, and the Dean’s Office, UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music.

Join us for a two-day celebration of the 65th anniversary of the UCLA Ethnomusicology Archive. The event will feature a symposium, workshops, and concerts. International, national, and local archivists, alumni, faculty, and community members will come together to explore the history and evolving role of ethnomusicological archives in preserving and sustaining musical traditions.   The event is also in celebration of World Day for Audiovisual Heritage.   Saturday’s featured guest artists will be LA’s 33 Strings, who will lead a Japanese music workshop, and Kinnara Gagaku, who will present a gagaku concert. Kinnara Gagaku was taught for more than 35 years by Suenobu Togi, a former musician of the Japanese Imperial Court who directed UCLA Ethnomusicology’s Music of Japan Ensemble from 1961 to 1993. Professor Robert Garfias, who founded the Music of Japan Ensemble at UCLA in 1958, will introduce the concert.   Sunday’s featured guest artists will be Masanga Marimba, led by UCLA Ethnomusicology alumnus Dr. Ric Alviso. Masanga Marimba will lead both a workshop and the Sunday evening concert.   Established in 1961, the UCLA Ethnomusicology Archive is a world-renowned research archive dedicated to the study of musical traditions from around the globe. The Archive’s collection of more than 160,000 audio, video, print, and photographic items documents musical expressions throughout the world and includes unique field recordings as well as rare commercial recordings. As part of UCLA’s Department of Ethnomusicology, the Archive preserves and makes accessible over 60 years’ worth of audio and video recordings of the department’s famed concerts and also of lectures by legendary scholars and performers, ranging from Mantle Hood to Ravi Shankar to Dizzy Gillespie. In addition to preservation and access, the Archive offers a wide range of research, outreach, and educational services. From international scholars to local community members and UCLA students and faculty, the Archive is recognized locally and internationally as an important center of ethnomusicological research and discovery.   Sponsored by The UCLA Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance, the UCLA Ethnomusicology Archive, the UCLA Department of Ethnomusicology, and the Dean’s Office, UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music.

Kinnara was formed in 1969 by Rev. Masao Kodani and several members of Senshin Buddhist Temple and includes a Gagaku group of 15-20 musicians and dancers and a Taiko group. It sponsors study groups and conducts seminars on Buddhist culture and performing arts. Gagaku is the oldest existing tradition of orchestral music and dance in the world, representing the court music and dance of ancient Asia (central Asia, southeast Asia, India, China, Manchuria, Korea, and Japan). It is the collective music of these areas up to the 10th century and as early as the beginning of the common era. This music is preserved and performed to this day in Japan and, to a lesser degree, in Korea. In Japan, it became part of the liturgical music and dance of our Jodoshinshu sect in the 17th century and has been performed in our temples in America since the early 1900s. Kinnara had the rare opportunity to study gagaku under the guidance of Professor Suenobu Togi, emeritus professor of the Department of Ethnomusicology at UCLA and musician in the Imperial Household Department of Court Music in Japan. He taught the group from 1969-2010. Kinnara Gagaku continues to perform at various temples for special services, as well as at cultural centers and universities. In October 2023, Kinnara Gagaku performed at Walt Disney Hall in downtown Los Angeles for the celebration of their 20th anniversary. This concert is presented in conjunction with the symposium “Music Alive in the Archive: Legacy and Promise–65 Years of the UCLA Ethnomusicology Archive,” a two-day event in celebration of the 65th anniversary of the UCLA Ethnomusicology Archive. Co-sponsored by the Hiroshi Wagatsuma Memorial Faculty Grant from the UCLA Asia Pacific Center, the UCLA Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance, the UCLA Ethnomusicology Archive, the UCLA Department of Ethnomusicology, and the Dean’s Office, UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music.

Join us for a two-day celebration of the 65th anniversary of the UCLA Ethnomusicology Archive. The event will feature a symposium, workshops, and concerts. International, national, and local archivists, alumni, faculty, and community members will come together to explore the history and evolving role of ethnomusicological archives in preserving and sustaining musical traditions.   The event is also in celebration of World Day for Audiovisual Heritage.   Saturday’s featured guest artists will be LA’s 33 Strings, who will lead a Japanese music workshop, and Kinnara Gagaku, who will present a gagaku concert. Kinnara Gagaku was taught for more than 35 years by Suenobu Togi, a former musician of the Japanese Imperial Court who directed UCLA Ethnomusicology’s Music of Japan Ensemble from 1961 to 1993. Professor Robert Garfias, who founded the Music of Japan Ensemble at UCLA in 1958, will introduce the concert.   Sunday’s featured guest artists will be Masanga Marimba, led by UCLA Ethnomusicology alumnus Dr. Ric Alviso. Masanga Marimba will lead both a workshop and the Sunday evening concert.   Established in 1961, the UCLA Ethnomusicology Archive is a world-renowned research archive dedicated to the study of musical traditions from around the globe. The Archive’s collection of more than 160,000 audio, video, print, and photographic items documents musical expressions throughout the world and includes unique field recordings as well as rare commercial recordings. As part of UCLA’s Department of Ethnomusicology, the Archive preserves and makes accessible over 60 years’ worth of audio and video recordings of the department’s famed concerts and also of lectures by legendary scholars and performers, ranging from Mantle Hood to Ravi Shankar to Dizzy Gillespie. In addition to preservation and access, the Archive offers a wide range of research, outreach, and educational services. From international scholars to local community members and UCLA students and faculty, the Archive is recognized locally and internationally as an important center of ethnomusicological research and discovery.   Sponsored by The UCLA Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance, the UCLA Ethnomusicology Archive, the UCLA Department of Ethnomusicology, and the Dean’s Office, UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music.